Comments on The Politics of User Experience

Chris — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:47 GMT

Having done web development for “contracting” companies in the DC metro area for the past six years I appreciate the article as well.

In my view federal agency politics can even influence fundamental approaches such as whether or not to put stats in a sortable database rather than using a static page mimicking the printed medium. (A client was opposed to the database approach b/c users would be able to sort the data and discover which states ranked poorly compared to others and the agency spin would have been de- emphasized.)

Then there are the clients who mistype URLs when writing colleagues who then send caustic messages to the contractor because they think the site is down, etc.

thom haller — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:47 GMT

Hi Steve.
Good to read your thoughts. You offer good material for IA students (especially those in DC). I appreciate your input.
Thom Haller

Mike Blake — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:47 GMT

Great article. I find we (federal webmasters) often spend more of our time to ensure that our contractor web development support staff are conversant on the 508 and federal web guidelines (for which the information is spread over multiple agency web sites by the way). We should be concentrating totally on defining how we can better organize and map our information to meet our intended audience needs. I believe that this is intention of the e-gov intiatives intially established. But, these are the times we live in and politics often drive the ship.