[Sigia-l] Evaluating the evaluators

[Jared M. Spool]

At 03:46 PM 9/4/2006, Peter Jones wrote:
>Well, Jared, its not a waste of money if the company hiring you finds out
>they need this check on the foxes after they have already gone too far and
>they need a way to manage the design firm. This happened a LOT in the late
>90's, and early Oh-Oh's, when there was a lot of money to waste.

Bad management is bad management. More bad management to followup on 
previous bad management doesn't make it right. (Or is this the two wrongs 
make a right method?)

Lots of people did silly things in the late 90's. Many of those people 
found themselves out of work. I wouldn't hold this up as a way to justify a 
business practice.

>(That's
>what led to my business called Redesign Research, which specialized at first
>in "doing it right the second time" for these companies that spent all their
>money the first time following a Big Name Design Firm and getting a
>ultra-slick, unusable site).

"Consulting: If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be 
Made In Prolonging The Problem"
http://www.despair.com/consulting.html


>And I have never seen studies on product managers outperforming
>usability/design teams.

I didn't say product managers outperform usability/design teams. I said 
that the usability recommendations can be wrong. In fact, it happens a 
little too frequently for my liking.

As for studies, start with Rolf Molich's CUE studies. Then, go visit what 
Gilbert Cockton's been up to.

It'll make you shudder.

>  What I'm
>referring to are situations where product managers willfully disregard the
>data and the interpretations of the data and do what they were going to do
>in the first place.

Maybe that's the right thing to do. Maybe the interpretations of the data 
are wrong.

>That can happen when we fail to rubber-stamp the
>concept. I have found that inability to listen usually also extends to the
>larger market, and have found few exceptions in the high-end (for pay)
>online products I usually work with.

It can also happen when we're wrong. How do we know the difference?

Do you ever test your recommendations (before making them to the product 
manager) to ensure they actually will do what you think they'll do?

Jared


Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike Street, Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
978 327-5561   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks