[Sigia-l] NYT 7/8/7: Technologys Untanglers: They Make It Really Work

[Russell E. Unger]

The last line of the article says a lot about the context of the article to
me:

"Fresh Starts is a monthly column about emerging jobs and job trends."

As far as IA/UX/etc. go, there is a bit of a trend happening--I think people
have been discussing those trends on this list, IAI the UX Management lists,
but you're right.  That's not news to us.

But it's now news to other people who aren't us.

To me, a more "public" awareness is a very good thing.  When someone at the
NY Times publishes an article that is pretty easy for any business person to
read and grasp, there is a pretty big benefit to everyone.  UCD101 concepts
are probably the best for this type of an article when you get right down to
it.  As an IA, I'd like to think that I'd author this article for my
audience as a whole, and that audience is probably largely NOT IA-types.

When you start looking at the job outlook for the various roles and you
start to listen to people in hiring positions, there's a pretty clear
message out there:  We're short on seasoned talent and seasoned talent may
be doing a pretty good job of finding the jobs/gigs that make them happy.
Either way, there's a shortage in some areas and more visibility doesn't
seem like a bad thing.  When you look at who is starting to hire "us" (from
tech firms to ad agencies and on and on), there's another pretty clear
message out there:  More companies are starting to "get it" and understand
the value that we bring to the table for them.  In some cases it may be
catch-up or an attempt at a differentiator, but whatever it is, it seems
that more companies are starting to realize the value.

Hell, when's the last time any of us tried to explain what it is that we
"do" without getting a look that was obviously starting to glaze over,
followed by a "That sounds interesting...", followed by a long awkward
pause.  

Anyway, I found the article to be pretty simple, if not interesting (and
intriguing), to read--particularly when I put myself in an outsider's
perspective.

--Russ

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Boyd [mailto:facibus at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 11:20 PM
To: Jay Morgan
Cc: Sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] NYT 7/8/7: Technologys Untanglers: They Make It
Really Work

On 7/10/07, Jay Morgan <jayamorgan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I challenge you to take the perspective of someone who is on a design team
> and who doesn't know anything about usability methods.  How would you get
> that person to introduce a usability technique on their next project?
> Educating people like that has become a big part of my current role, and
it
> completely snuck up on me like the Nothing.  It's a tough challenge and
> extraordinarily rewarding.

Hi Jay,

I wasn't saying that there is no place in design for usability :) What
I was saying is that there is more to IA than UCD (and again I have to
stress that there IS a place for UCD101 concepts in IA). I just
thought we'd moved on from "hey, wow, there is this cool new thing
called usability" - and as I said to Susan, I may have been wrong here
if there are still people around who don't get it. I used to hand
copies of "Don't Make Me Think" to every middle manager and new
engineer I could force it onto because a lot of them didn't get it
back then. I just thought we'd moved on from this.

Cheers, Andrew

---
Andrew Boyd
http://facibusreviews.com
------------
IA Summit 2008: "Experiencing Information" 
April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida

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