Boxes and Arrows: Comments by James Robertson

James Robertson — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:27:08 GMT

While this is an interesting approach, I would also question whether providing a search engine on over a million pages, and 8000 separate intranets is really a solution.

Surely the issue is information overload, not necessarily difficulties in finding information. And what of the quality, accuracy and relevance of all these pages?

I would expect that a thorough review of the content (no small task, of course) would end up deleting 75% of the pages…

Anyway, all good food for thought.

James Robertson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:41 GMT

For perhaps the first time, this article provides a way of demonstrating measurable improvements to the IA of a site, in a way that parallels quantitative usability testing.

James Robertson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:55 GMT

Hi Rob,

“As part of this team, we must understand organisational issues, but are not responsible for resolving them.”

Actually, I agree with you on this. :-)

My take is that really, we should be responsible for resolving some (if not all) of the fundamental organisational issues. I just wanted to soften the message, so as not to scare off too many IA’s. ;-)

Cheers, James

James Robertson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:01 GMT

Yup, organisational politics is a major factor. This is why I’m spending most of my time reading books on leadership and organisational change… :-)

James Robertson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:47 GMT

Great article! This is a space that seriously needs some vendor-independent thinking, so I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the articles in the series…

James Robertson — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:53:58 GMT

Hi Masood,

Excellent article! As an industry, I don’t think we can have too many articles that remind organisations of the fundamentals, encouraging them not to get caught up in the technology.

As I tend to say in workshops: “the CMS won’t solve any of your business problems, it’s just an enabler”. It’s the work around the CMS (publishing processes, content, IA, etc) that really adds the value…

Cheers,
James

James Robertson — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:48:42 GMT

Good article, although I think you understate the effort involved in “create a taxononmy”! :-)

I’ve also written similar recommendations in the past:
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_fixingsearch/index.h…

James Robertson — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:22:08 GMT

Great article, definitely a topic that warrants discussion within the IA community, particularly those working within organisations. At the end of the day, we need to take (some) responsibility for getting the right outcome, not just creating the right design.