SIGIA-L Mail Archives: RE: SIGIA-L: Summit - Krug-"fetish
RE: SIGIA-L: Summit - Krug-"fetish of difficulty" - Zombo
From: Lord, Ralph (rsl3_at_cdc.gov)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 13:30:11 EST
Way back when, in college, I had a HISTORY professor tell me that the trick
when writing a good paper was NOT to say what you mean with words that mean
exactly what you mean, but to use other words that don't necessarily mean
what you mean. I think he thought it was much more cleverer. That history
professor may be behind zombo.com (you may email the owner of zombo at
ooaahh_at_yahoo.com)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Allan R Barclay [mailto:abarclay_at_library.wisc.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 12:32 PM
> To: Christina Wodtke; sigia-l
> Subject: Re: SIGIA-L: Summit - Krug's favorite research
>
>
> At 09:56 PM 3/18/2002 -0800, Christina Wodtke wrote:
> >Jef Raskin spoke to this point at a Bay-Chi. He suggested
> that academia
> >codified their findings to the degree that practitioners found the
> >information inaccessible. it's essentially a linguistic
> problem, I suspect.
> >Humane Interface was essentially a translation exercise.
>
> I actually heard a wonderful phrase about academics and
> communication, and
> since I am one I think its okay to use it - the author (who I
> could find if
> needed) referred to the "fetish of difficulty" in academic
> writing. Its as
> if anything clear, transparent and coherent to people outside
> of one's
> discipline is somehow not worthwhile because if it *is* clear
> it must not
> be very important. Kinda like free things not having any
> value (whereas
> some would say the best things in life are).
>
> I think it ties into something you said at the conference
> about "giving it
> away" - that there's no need for IAs to pass themselves off
> to clients as
> wizards and "knowers of things you can't know cause you
> aren't one of us".
> As Steve mentioned alot of what we do other people could
> learn too, they
> just probably wouldn't do it as well without being fully
> immersed in it as
> IAs are. I don't work on my own car cause I just don't want
> to, nor do I do
> self-surgery, but I know something of both. Usability seems
> to be something
> almost anyone could get a feel for via common sense, they
> just wouldn't
> have the advanced common sense that a full time practitioner
> would. It
> drives me nuts because I try to write clearly, yet I've had
> things sent
> back for revision because they weren't dull, dry and
> "academic" enough.
> Hence I probably won't publish much in academic journals...
>
> Oh, and I just wanted to do a shout out to the whole lot of
> you at the
> conference this weekend - it was inspiring in the extreme,
> not to mention
> terribly funny :-D I learned alot, I laughed alot and
> definitely feel I've
> found "my tribe" (my apologies to anyone who finds this too
> mushy - I just
> really was moved and its been a rough couple of years moving
> and getting
> into this new job so I'm still sorta traumatized...)
>
> Take care,
>
> Allan
>
> Allan R Barclay
> Information Architect, Health Sciences Libraries
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> Phone: (608) 262-3957 Fax: (608) 262-4732
> Email: abarclay_at_library.wisc.edu
>
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