SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: Interaction Design Community
Re: SIGIA-L: Interaction Design Community
From: Tim Salam (ia_at_timsalam.com)
Date: Mon Nov 12 2001 - 17:10:27 EST
I've personally spent the last year leaning more and more toward describing
what I do as "experience design." Though my emphasis is information
architecture, I reach into the realms of interaction design, usability and
other related areas. I draw on these areas of expertise in hopes of
producing a holistic result. Otherwise, I feel I'm creating isolated pieces
of work that risk being successfully integrated.
I'm sure I'm voicing an opinion growing in popularity for some time now and
probably repeating some of my fellow listers recent comments, but I voice
the opinion because I think it's high time that the gap between all these
disciplines was lessened by a at least a few degrees. The relationship that
exists among them is clear and simple - experience. A usability engineer
contributes to the design of an experience as does an information architect,
etc. etc.
As a side note, am I the only one who had a heck of a time getting this
point across to fellow co-workers in the past? I've had too many past
engagements where I said to a usability professional, "I think we should be
working more closely. I find a significant amount of overlap between our
work," and they think I meant, "I am Captain Job Taker. Watch me control
the show and diminish your work and credibility." Yawn.
I grow weary recalling all the lost opportunities for collaboration either
because some layer of management couldn't conceive of changing the way two
departments (info arch and usability) operated together or because two
different job titles (same) couldn't bridge the gap, find common ground and
then focus on the real task at hand, the common task for all of us - improve
the user experience.
tim salam
information architect
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