The Archives
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11.05.07The Rules… Or not so muchThe past couple of weeks I've been involved in some contextual enquiry, user research and problem-solving workshops for a project I'm working on with a large client. It's been a lot of fun, not least because this is the sort of stuff I really like getting my teeth into. Hopefully this will lead to some significant influence over the outcomes for this project and some major usability wins for the end users. The other major factor in the enjoyment I've had in the workshops particularly is the participatory approach we took to the whole thing. Reticence on the ...
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07.23.07
TakingMaking it easyLast Friday, Alli, Hannah and I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with friends. But that's not what this post is about. What this post is about is several related things to do with user experience. Before the film, we went into the very excellent Borders bookstore here in Canberra. We all found things we wanted to read, and I suggested we go sit in the Gloria Jeans coffee shop inside the store. Alli was a little concerned, coffee on expensive books and all. The store assistant that happened to be ... -
06.27.07IAs are IKEA industrial designersI've been involved in several conversations in the past couple of weeks where I've needed to define what an IA is and does. In one instance, to justify my place on a project. While those of us that do IA know in our heads what we are, it's kind of tough to articulate sometimes. My friend, Matthew Hodgson, has been involved in the conversation that's been taking place on SIGIA-L, and has now come up with one of the best non-technical definitions I've seen. It's one you can pass to business users without overwhelming them - and you should: IAs are ...
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04.23.07IA and UX jobs - what makes the cut?Apparently it's pretty hard to pin down, as this job ad at Read/Write Web and posted by OddCast shows. On reading, to me this looks like a marketing/product management role and has very little to do with IA or UX. On the other hand, this role at Getty Images is plum, although very much at the management end of the spectrum and probably fairly divorced from the day-to-day work. Many people in the IA and UX fields work across both information architecture and user experience/user centered design (ah, the U*D acronym!), despite the skill sets being quite different. My head is ...
