[Sigia-l] User Experience Deliverables

[Peter Morville]

Thanks Victor! You make some good points. I agree we need to be careful
about defining our value by the artifacts we produce. Our contributions to
the process and the product and the customer experience and the business
results are all important.

I see it as a matter of context. When I consult with large organizations,
there's more emphasis on deliverables. I will never meet some of the people
who build upon my work. When I consult with smaller organizations, learning
through collaboration is more important, and I have a larger role in shaping
the software or system. And, if you're an innie (rather than an outie) that
presents yet another kind of context.

I personally think "deliverables" works better than "documents" because it's
more specific and is well-understood and much-used within the broader
business community.

Either way, you'll never convince me to change my ways with the old
spell-checker argument. Remember, I'm the "findability" guy :-) 


Peter Morville
President, Semantic Studios
http://semanticstudios.com/
http://findability.org/

 


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Victor Lombardi
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:16 AM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] User Experience Deliverables

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:00 AM, Peter wrote:
>
> Jeffery Callender and I collaborated on this article...
>
> http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000228.php


Very interesting Peter, there's a lot of good ideas here to ponder. My first
and biggest reaction though, is that while it's common to call these
artifacts "deliverables" I prefer to call them documents. I deliver software
and systems, just as an architect delivers a building or similar. I don't
mean to play semantics, it actually has a lot of ramifications for our
field. If, in the future, better tools make those documents mostly
unnecessary, IAs who define their value by their documents will face a
difficult adaptation (or not). Imagine an architect who says, "Here's your
blueprints and renderings, my work is done here."

Also, my spell checker wags its finger at me when I type "deliverables" and
I tend to agree with her.

Best,
Victor