[Sigia-l] defining acct. profile

[Jody Hankinson]

I'm wrestling with a technologist who would rather be an IA. Usually a
good thing, but at the moment we are seriously butting heads. I'd like to
get your thoughts, just to make sure I'm not entrenched in my solution.

The project is a very large extranet. Simultaneously we are introducing
unique IDs and threaded discussions to about 10,000 people. The audience
ranges from very, very basic to very, very advanced, all on different
systems, occasionally on shared machines. With the new functionality, we
need to add an account maintenance section and a place to
subscribe/unsubscribe to a threaded discussion.

There are several points of contention.
-- I believe the user's identity should be validated before she can access
her account.
-- I also belive subscription option should be part of the account
maintenance section, along with changing password, update job title, etc.

The technologist is coming around on the validated identity, but he is
convinced the user should be able to change a subscription without access
the account maintenance section. From the position of a novice user on a
shared machine, I think there's room for problems. That of course there
should be a link from the threaded discussions, but as the site grows
there will be other subscription opportunities and they will all be
managed in the account section.

Am I too attached to my solution? I can escalate and ask the business
owner to get involved, but that opens another big can of worms...
Thoughts? Suggestions?


Jody A. Hankinson
  Information Architect........| Translating strategy and processes
hank99 at bway.net                | into digital experiences.
917.749.0910