Comments on Architecting Our Profession

RonZ — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT

I’m pretty much in agreement with greymon. I don’t see any commonality among designers. Perhaps they aren’t understood or appreciated because they have no common traits?

Max Lord — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT

I believe that many industries will evolve so that they recognize the value of the design disciplines we espouse here. It is less likely that as many will evolve to support permanent, well-understood positions with common titles, for people exclusively involved in those new activities. For this reason, I am uninterested in the title-wars and wary of further career-specialization.

The concerns we have here are too new to convince with talk. More demonstrable success applying UX, ID, IA (etc) to various business processes is necessary, and this is where I have seen our greatest gains.

mrdangel — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT

Back to the article at hand, rather than the grammar flame war that always seems to spring up in these forums (or is it fora?)... why is specialization the answer?

While having experienced managing IA on both sides of the fence (creative direction and project management), I find it difficult to believe that specializing will do anything other than drive up department costs and clutter deliverables. Especially in boutique size firms where every dollar counts. Ask any given employee if they’d rather have a detailed scalable infrastructure for their project or coffee cups in the pantry?

I think the real challenge for IA designers is to prove how IA design can relate directly to the bottom line of a business or initiative. Education is the silver bullet (to paraphrase “The West Wing”) and it’s of paramount importance to inform not just the corporate CIOs and CTOs of bottom line investment in IA design, but also the project managers who map out the timeframe and resource priorities. It’s those players in an initiative that dictate (mostly unknowingly) the challenges and obstacles that IA designers must overcome.

My suggestion is not to spawn yet another support group specifically for IA design (unless of course you’re looking to join the corporate conference racket and make some money from it), but to champion an effort within a larger design community or project management community. Level the playing field for what is good IA with other design/project organizations who help guide corporate citizens in utilizing their project resources. You’ll get better results for the industry with better case studies to demonstrate.

-m

CD Evans — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT

I think I’ve given enough space to provide another vague comment without cutting someone off, or something down for that matter.

I do think, that, if you’ll hang on long enough to read another form of english, this is, you’ll find that I’m right in saying design is an art form, and should be respected as such, influencing culture, and as not a forced sale for pete’s sake.

The reason why we need some realistic form of representation is because, like all other cultural phenomenon, we have to have the support of the people, no profession goes unchecked by the public.

This is not science, this is art, and so is language. If you want measurable results, please go architect something measurable, the limits on information are, really, too much data to think about scientifically. Use a blur filter to get the most out of that last sentence.

Not to harp on here, but to top that, one can write however they like, and, for whatever it’s worth, it’s not a puzzle with edges and standard forms.

And, if you should hasten to think as well that my varying usage of grammars is ‘bad’, you should try a few other forms, it’s just information after all, something more flexible than measurable, isn’t it or is it eh.

CD Evans

Ps: Styling is more than design, it’s temporary.

greymon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:13 GMT

Do you mean to suggest that somehow designers (how ever you define them) have a monopoly on talent and creativity? That no other person and no other domain can be innovative? Are you suggesting that a person without a formal design school education (I’m assuming that’s who you mean by ‘layman’) is incapable of conceptual innovation?

Surely you can’t this hubristic.

In my experience most people calling themselves designers are little more than stylists, lacking the capacity for genuine critical thought, and are capable of little more than parroting momentary fashions. Like every other domain, only a few individuals have the talent and creativity to lift themselves above mediocrity.

Uday — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:13 GMT

[QUOTE]
The only professions with clearly deliniated boundaries are those whose functions *obviously* cannot be performed by laymen without the appropriate knowledge or abilities: surgeons, musicians, professional athletesï¿½

Since design is essentially a desk job that can (in a way) be performed by anyone, we will *never* see the bottom of this.
[/QUOTE]

Is this really true? Can ‘anybody’ do what we do? Doesn’t design require a certain amount of talent, creativity, ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’?

Maybe a ‘layman’ can cut-and-paste from a good design. But, can the same person create an innovative concept?

greymon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:13 GMT

Enough with the whining about how professionally under-appreciated we are and then flailing about to spread blame everywhere but where it truly belongs: Its always the system’s fault or the engineers’ fault or the management’s fault. Or so the story goes. Honestly folks, we have all seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.

How on earth can we expect to be taken seriously as professionals given the pervasive and persistent lack of intellectual rigor and critical thought that shines in our communities? How can we expect others to turn to us to execute complex solutions across diverse subject matters when we can’t even effectively formulate and communicate ideas within our own subject matter expertise (namely design)

Evans’ sound and fury op-ed piece is a perfect example. Full of ambiguities, unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable claims, spelling and grammatical errors, anecdotes abstracted to point of meaninglessness and intellectual sloppiness, it is apparent that he is in control of neither his ideas nor the communication of them. Indeed the more I read the piece the less clear it becomes. Sadly this seems to be the norm in our industry.

For example take Evans’ claims that current user centered design and information architecture processes are “not really all that scaleable.” What processes is he referring to? Some of them? All of them? How does he know they don’t scale? In what ways do they not scale? In what ways do they need to scale to avoid the “real hiccup” (which after several re-reads I’m no longer certain as to what this hiccup really is). Is his point here to suggest that processes should be situationally selected and customized? Sure this point is so obvious it needn’t be said. So then what is his particular point here? Since this scalability point seems important to his overall thesis these questions cannot be dismissed as trivial.

Here is another example: “Where do we find the solution? Itï¿½s likely in needs of smaller businesses and organizations. In order to make the needed room for these areas to influence the field of information architecture; we need for them to rely on or to develop their own specialists and contractors, individuals who are professionals with the insight and experience to understand the entire project, and to create new models of IA for each project.” To be charitable, let’s not quibble about the grammatical problems.

What areas need room? Why? What does this metaphor mean exactly? What influences might they have in the IA field? Is it an influence on the field or on the field’s processes? what does it mean to give these areas room? Areas need room? It seems to me that areas *are* room. “Them,” “they,” “it,” it is just too frequently unclear what exactly is being refered to when. All of it sounds meaningful on first scan, but scratch the surface and and you’ve got complete gibberish.

Evans then mentions the need to rely on the insight and experience of professionals to understand the entire project. However he describes a role better suited to a subject matter expert with some IA experience better than to an IA with little subject matter experience. Even though I’m no longer sure what case Evans is trying to make, I suspect this assertion here doesn’t help it.

I could go on, but won’t bore you with anymore details. Suffice it to say that design is still not a true profession, and is all too frequently little more than a pose. Until this changes, until we introduce more intellectual and methodological rigor, until clients are guaranteed levels of service (as they are with accountants and lawyers), we deserve to have to fight hard one project at a time to win and keep professional credibility. Anyone afraid of this should just cry themselves all the way back to school and get a nice safe accounting certificate.