All shirt

Sitemap footers

2007-10-05T11:12:00.000Z

Starting to see more and more of these, but thought this one was particularly interesting on webshots.com. Not only a sitemap, but 2 layers. Firstly a quick view of the site as a whole, then a second tab with the entire C-Net family laid out.

Finally the 'terms and conditions' strip comes of age and becomes useful.

Awful product titles

2007-09-27T17:24:00.000Z

Check out the titles of these products seen at the airport. Above was the “apple ipod”, below the “iRiver citrix”. Then these, which have had thousands of hours of design put into them, until some lazy nob-end product managers give them these names.

How enticing are those names?

They’re a barrier rather than attracting.

“Hey Jack, is that the new Samsung YP-19JBZB? Wicked!”

2007-09-27T17:23:00.001Z

Lack of thought in design.

This really pissed me off last night.

The labels that evans cycles uses are huge, especially when you consider the size of most products to do with cycling.
It means that much of the useful information (burntime / candle power / etc) that you would use to compare products are completely blocked out.

As these products range from about £9-50, comparing them is really essential. Why does the barcode need to be so large?as

Tiny things that aren’t thought about that ruin the experience.

Rubbish

Truth in advertising my big. fat. arse.

2007-09-26T09:25:00.001Z

What a crock of sh*t. Seriously. Do you know anyone with a Blackberry?
What 'more fun' do they have as a result of ownership?
It's sooooo much fun to be able to receive emails from work whilst at a friend's dinner party.

If you watch the video, the last thing he says is "The future is now."
Terry McBride. You, sir, are a twat.

Best button ever

2007-09-10T19:49:00.000Z

Seen on an e-commerce site recently

That really made me laugh.

I'm probably over tired.

The emotional devastation of bad wording

2007-08-01T18:08:00.001Z

Recently went to Morroco for a couple of weeks. Beautiful hotels, amazing scenery. And a friends wedding that was truly incredible, the groom came in on a horse carrying a gun, the bride had 5 costume changes.

The photos were really wonderful.

That was until the wife recorded a video, then wanted to delete it to make a bit more space, at which point she was faced with this choice.

The use of the word 'frames' rather than 'Photos' or 'Photos & Videos' started the confusion.
I mean who describes their photos as 'frames', you either frame a photo, or deal with frames of a film. Which, as she'd just recorded a small video, compounded the confusion.

Anyway, one irreversible slip later and 700+ photos of the holiday suddenly disappeared.

Katie felt awful, and was very nearly in tears, full of apologies.

Tears should NOT be caused by poorly worded interfaces not making a very major action extremely clear, that's just crap design. The choice is right, the wording of the choice is totally wrong.

waitrose.com is live

2007-07-04T13:17:00.000Z

Like watching a baby take it's first tentative steps www.waitrose.com is gently staggering to it's feet.
It needs a sound going over with a usability broom, but I think it's rather beautiful.
The sitemap at the bottom of the page seems to polarise people. Any views?

Zag - IA Book Club - July 3rd @ LBi

2007-06-25T09:48:00.000Z

July 3rd @ LBi
Directions

Book is Zag: The Number One Strategy of High -Performance Brands

get settled in 7:00-7:15, kick off at 7:30

It looks like a good book, and even though it's next tuesday(!) the book only takes a couple of hours to read so as long as you get it before the weekend you'll be laughing.

david.carruthers @ twentysixlondon.com if you fancy coming along.

I love loving clients

2007-05-25T13:26:00.000Z

I've been really lucky recently with some fantastic clients recently.

It's brilliant when you love your clients. Not only the people you're working with, but what the actual company does/stands for/sells. You do better work and enjoy it more.

Of all the companies that i think get it right in everyway - both for their customers, and also for their employees, I think Waitrose are it. My wife gets bored of me going on about what a brilliant company they are. And John Lewis overall. They sell great stuff, they're totally fair with you as a consumer, they are ethical in their trading, the employees are all partners who own the company. I haven't met a single person who works for waitrose who isn't absolutely lovely. They have an orchestra, a choir, boats for the partners to use, their own organic farm, holiday places for the partners to use, clubs for every possible interest. Basically, if you want to work in retail, go and work for Waitrose/John Lewis.
I think it's remarkable, and brilliant, that the new Chief Exec of Waitrose started 25 years ago as a management trainee.

It's easy finding something to love about a client when they're that good.

There should be something you can find to love about every client. How are you going to convince others with your messaging if you don't buy it yourself?

Collaboration / Committees

2007-05-25T10:15:00.000Z

Normally the latter is confused with the former.

Collaboration to me is getting everyone involved and working together, having ownership and input into a solution. This requires a commitment from the client to give their time, and from the agency to listen to the client without thinking they know-it-all.

Committees are ways of making sure that everyone can feel like they've had a say into a project but don't have to put much effort or thought into it. Generally involves far more people than necessary being in a room, all desperately trying to think of something to say that will show they're useful, knowing they don't have to worry about the consequences.
I've been there. Both running the meeting, and as the worrier.

My recent projects have (fortunately) been much more towards collaboration than committee.

please. stop. constantly. referencing. myspace.

2007-05-18T18:49:00.000Z

Turning the tables

2007-05-18T18:39:00.000Z

It's sometimes great working for an agency, you can drift in to a redesign project and roll your eyes at the craziness of the previous design, tut and sigh and the lack of thought and innovation, then perch atop your high horse for a while.

Designing internal sites is a totally different ball game. It is the poisoned chalice. Because it represents 'the agency' everyone demands that it's the best ever, but gives you resources for the smallest ever.
You need a thick hide to deal with all the people who know better and would've done a far better job. Who preach without any idea of the politics, pain, time constraints, normal workload, cooks/oars, etc.

We're redesigning our current site at the moment, which i confess to having a hand in - and admit could be MUCH better. But it's still annoying having to listen to 13 people in a meeting room roundly slag it off.
Constantly.
For 4 hours.

I'm off to lick my wounds.

Concentration

2007-05-17T17:23:00.000Z

I shouldn't imagine i'm that unusual in this behaviour.

Round 12 amends...

2007-05-17T17:09:00.000Z

APG Training Network

2007-05-10T17:31:00.000Z

A couple of months ago attended the APG (Account Planners Group) training network. An extremely interesting series of talks culminating in a group presentation project to a bunch of top planners about a struggling brand and what we'd do with it.

One thing particularly fun, as someone working for an online agency, was seeing the opulance of successful above the line agencies. Blimey.

Anyway, I did some scribbles for each talk, so i thought i'd stick them up.

Week 1: George Bryant - What is planning?

George's talk was a great introduction to the art of planning. He talked about how little of someone's attention we get - a piece of research they did showed that the 'average' person in a single day saw 2904 messages, paid attention to 50, engaged with 25, then finally acted upon 3. Which does bring you up short.
He gave a cool example of how Sainsbury's 'try something new' was inspired by a slightly sideways way of getting round some massively ambitious targets for the advertising.
He railed against lazy planning, saying it's tired/rote and formulaic. Often because people often turn into Presentation Creaters, rather than Idea communicators.
His top tips:

Don't just say something about a product, show something about a project. The web makes this easier, and much more powerful.
Don't be an island - your ideas will be better, and will be more likely to get used/accepted. Probably his most important message

He also showed some cool ads and explained how they came about.

I like the message about not being an island. It's quite easy to do in both IA and Planning - overintellectualise something, then create a presentation about it, deliver the presentation/documentation, then consider the job done.
I also liked the message about focussing on the Business problem behind a brief, then trying to solve that, rather than taking assumptions of a solution loaded into a brief.

Week 2: Malcolm White - The changing value of brands

I really enjoyed Malcolm's talk. He was funny and thought provoking.
Brands are complicated - we try and simplify them into stooopid diagrams which are prescriptive and inhibit creativity. He then delved more into what it is that makes up a 'Brand' - ironically summing it up with the most simplistic brand diagram possible - that of a peach, the pit being the product, and the flesh being the 'brand' that makes it attractive and different.

He made a good point about 'Brand' being something that is not cared about by most people Planners deal with - which leads to planning becoming a variety of roles. Author / Evangalist / Translator. A brand needs a 'vision' - a reason for living. Profit and money are just a given, like oxygen & blood.

Very enjoyable talk indeed.
Week 3: Vanella Jackson - Developing a great strategy

This talk was a real shame, it was moved later by a couple of weeks and i think some of the others stole her thunder. She came across as phenomenally clever and would be a brilliant mentor, but a lot of her talk had been covered before, and it felt a bit like a summary of what had come before, rather than a new injection of ideas.
There were some nice ideas about having a variety of comms strategies of a single brand strategy, and how a brand promise must change over time as circumstances change around it.

A shame - i think she should either come earlier in the list of talks, or take a slightly different topic. Something like details on those two ideas above. eg, how to manage a brand over time, to evolve it around circumstances.

Week 4: Tom Morton: Creative Briefs and Creative Briefing

Another really enjoyable talk with some ideas that have really stuck with me. Particularly the sentiment that "The Clearer the Problem is > The bolder the solution can be" and Be useful to your creatives - that's the best way to be a good planner for creatives.
his blog

Week 5: Rebecca Munds: The role of the planner in the creative development

Some fun thoughts. Very important to clarify the 'Big' creative idea, and it should be able to live seperate to the executions. Should be able to talk about the idea without mentioning executions.
Best quote:

"Don't be the Devil's Advocate, he's got enough advocates"

I think this is one of the clearest notes pages - the least ambiguous so doesn't need a huge amount of explanation. Just follow the arrows clockwise.

Week 6: John Owen - What does digital mean for planning
I couldn't make this week, as i was skiing, so instead I met him for lunch and he talked me through it. I thought it a bit rude to sketch him over the dinner table, so instead we just chatted. Much more interesting one-on-one and the conversation roamed outside the presentation.
The presentation itself was more of an intro to digital for above the line planners so less useful for me as a digi-boy, but chatting with John did create lots of thoughts. Many thanks John!

Week 7: Alice Schaffer - Evaluating advertising effectiveness
What a fascinating talk! Digital doesn't really have any of this stuff, so this introduced me to loads of things i didn't know about. The entire realm of 'econometrics' for instance which in this context is to do with creating models that take into account every (?!) external factor surrounding a product so that it's possible to isolate particular factors that have affected sales. Then, if it's actually a robust model, you can illustrate what would happen if... and predict the future. Sounds mega hardcore and really fascinating.
She highly recommended a book called the Hidden Power of Advertising. (£45 though) which, i think, is about how much more we're affected by messaging than we actually think we are.

As with some of the other speakers she rammed home the importance of defining the problem - as then you can figure out the best ways of deciding how well it addresses that problem.

Week 8 was the presentation, but that's a whole other post.
Read about it on mega-blogger Vincent Thomé's blog

Great course, absolute bargain and really interesting speakers.

Being efficient

2007-05-10T10:42:00.000Z

I think it's a combination of kicking back, having just killed yourself to (over) deliver on time, and Parkinson's law: "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion."

Discussing Ideas

2007-05-09T12:00:00.000Z

Sometimes this is how I feel when I discuss ideas. I spend hours coming up with something in my own little brain laboratory, covering off all angles, it all seems blindingly obvious to me.

Then when I show it to someone, if they don't get it immediately I simply cannot understand them. WHY CAN'T THEY UNDERSTAND THE GENIUS??

I think I get this with a lot of things, both in and out of work.

WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO RUN A MARATHON WITH ME?
THIS IS THE PERFECT THEME FOR A FANCY DRESS PARTY!
WE DON'T NEED A LOGIN ON THE HOMEPAGE!

If there was a skill I wish they taught at University, this would be it. Negotiation/Idea selling.
Design courses are MUCH MUCH better at it, it seems from day 1 you have to justify your ideas constantly.
It's taken me ages to catch up with them.

Time to blog

2007-05-08T18:22:00.000Z

The scanner isn't hooked up at the moment, crappy photos instead.

IA Bookclub - Dan Brown

2007-04-03T08:48:00.000Z

Next one this thursday.

Communicating design by Dan Brown. I'm quite liking it. It's not terribly controversial (at all), and the basic stuff should be pretty standard. But it's useful to turn to for some new ideas of how to present /enhance items, and it's nicely practical.

Obviously I never do this...

2007-03-14T09:28:00.000Z

Then after the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc person doesn't understand it you realise actually it's you that's the idiot.

I think it's an interesting debate on the pros/cons of getting people outside the project to test your designs. Can you objectively test your own designs? I think so, I even think you can be more nuanced in the testing.

There's also an argument to say that you can be more innovative in the design if you know that you can test it's performance yourself/internally, and react to observed changes. Experiment to see behaviour and evolve.
External companies are more likely to react very strongly to the elements you know are more experimental and uncertain.

I've had some bad experiences with external testing companies and I continue to be dubious about the weight that is given to them by clients. I would rather they were labelled something like "another pair of eyes" or "opinion of a peer" instead of "1 day infallible expert usability review and final say"

(p.s. Leisa, I have to say, I've never had a problem with Flow.)

Projects of Death

2007-03-13T16:16:00.000Z

It's painful watching this happen. Even more painful if it's actually you it's happening to.

I hate Gantt charts

2007-03-01T14:05:00.000Z

Truly. I really hate them. You might as well show me something upside down in Ukranian

It's like me showing a massive content audit spreadsheet to a client as a sitemap or something.

Just tell show me the number of days i have, what i have to deliver and when.

interesting discussion about it on the mega clever tuftey-bear site

Normally i take the gantt chart, count the number of days, then just do a single line with my days/activities in an excel spreadsheet, then add the other peeps on the project in successive lines, so i can see what i'm actually doing. It suddenly raises loads of things that a gantt chart normally misses out, like holidays, prep for meetings etc.

Anyway. That's boring.

Basically, i hate. hate. hate. Gantt charts.

IA book club - April 5th, thursday

2007-02-28T14:52:00.000Z

Next round of IA book club on April the 5th

what: London IA Bookclub
where: twentysix London, 1 Dorset street, London, W1U 4EG
(more directions)
when: thursday 5th April @ 7pm
Nibbles & Libation provided.
book:
Daniel Brown's hilarious romp "Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning"

I have two loan copies if you want to read it for free. Only condition is that you have to write a short 500 word review of it.

The day everyone associated with the marketing business fears

2007-02-27T18:57:00.000Z

History repeats itself

2007-02-27T12:13:00.002Z

Different Realities

2007-02-27T12:11:00.001Z

Sulk

2007-02-27T12:09:00.000Z

Aggressive timelines

2007-02-27T12:02:00.000Z

most hated phrases # 2

2007-02-26T15:34:00.000Z

"I'm not feeling this"

Said by people who have skim read 'blink' and now believe their inner sub-conscious designer is far more useful than any logical argument or observed behaviour.

most hated phrases # 1

2007-02-20T15:56:00.000Z

"Aggressive timeline"

Generic attribute given to ALL projects, by ALL project managers at the start of EVERY project.

Meaningless.

Often given as an excuse for not getting proper users in.

Content Strategy

2007-02-15T19:37:00.001Z

This is the generic content strategy triad that we use at work (scribbled & scanned). I'm quite pleased with it.

It's not terribly complicated to look at but it does expand nicely to allow for the most complex of sites/problems.

Before you get to it though, you need to define what is meant by a 'Content Strategy'. I would define it as "A Long term plan for what and how content should be created, organised and maintained to help achieve business/organisational goals"

Sometimes this is purely about the organisation of the content across a business. eg what content do we produce, how can we streamline it so that we reduce effort across channels?

Sometimes it's about back end management of data, eg what do you want to encode with the content that enrich it with information on how your company works

Sometimes it's about what content needs to be created in the first place.

This diagram sums up the key relationships that need to be considered pretty darn well.

First IA book club meet up

2007-02-15T18:59:00.000Z

We had the first London-IA book club last week and it went well.

I forgot to take photos of the people to came, but there was a mix of permie/contractor, Annie from Agency, Leisa from flow interactive, Margaret, Giorgio, Dina, Liz. (if any of you have blogs let me know and i'll set up a link)

The book was Persuasive Technology by B.J. Fogg and was a pretty good choice. It raises some interesting questions and talks about some really interesting research.

My Quick summary:
Fogg defines Persuasive Technology as "Any interactive computing system designed to change people's attitudes or behaviours"
He then lays out a 'functional triad' made up of technology as 'Tool', as 'Media' and as 'Social Actor'.

Technology as a tool is where the technology helps you complete a task, or guides you through a process (eg a wizard)
Technology as persuasive media allows the simulation of activities, explore cause & effect, explore potential outcomes and motivate via experiences.
Technology as social actor considers human relationship behaviours and how these can be employed or translated online. Modelling target behaviours, providing social support etc.

Fogg goes through each of these in quite a lot of depth pulling out some really interesting research.

Everyone agreed that the section on Technology as Social Actors was the most interesting (if not the most easily applicable).

An example of some of the most interesting research were the effects of similarity and of reciprocity.

in the affiliation study:
- participants were given a problem to solve and the computer was either a 'teammate' or it was given no label
- interaction was identical for all participants
- the 'teamed' participants considere theh computer was more similar to them, smarter and offered better information.

in the reciprocity study
- participants had to complete a task
- half the time the computer was 'helpful' the other half, 'not helpful'
- subsequently the participants were asked to do some work to help the computer improve it's functions
- those who worked with a 'helpful computer' performed almost twice as much work as did the other participants.

Fogg goes on to speak about Credibility and how to attain it - this is the most practical 'how-to' part of the book, and the most widely known.

His final two chapters discuss mobile technologies & the ethics of persuasive technology.

Chat:
The term 'Captology' was roundly dismissed as a bit rubbish, and doesn't really seem to have been taken up by the community.

The idea of identifying which role your project was trying to fulfill (eg, change behaviour or initiate action) and then considering which aspects of the functional triad elements are most appropriate for the project (tool/media/social actor) was considered considered a useful tool.

The chapter on credibility was seen to be a bit less interesting, although great for clients.

The use of the book as a tool for selling ideas was discussed.

We all agreed that if it was written now, some 5 years later it would be far more weighted towards the chapters at the back - ie, the mobile & social side of computing.

There was lots more by my brain can't recall it all.

Anyway it was good, if anyone has any more comments about the book then you should continue the discussion below.

details of the next book club to follow...

Book loans
I have 2 copies available for loan if you want them, i'll post them to you, the only requirement is that you write a short (500 word) review of what you thought about it. the first review is below, from Annie Drynan at agency (thanks annie)

IA book club - waiting list

2007-01-29T18:01:00.000Z

Bizarre. There's now a waiting list for the book club.

All hail the IA Nerds.

IA Book club - FULL UP!

2007-01-26T09:54:00.000Z

Amazingly, what i thought would be the world's most boring idea, an IA book club, has actually proven quite popular.

We've got 15 people coming now, and i think that's probably enough so I'll have to cap it there.

We'll see if this is too many and it needs to be smaller, or whether it can cope with more in the future.

I'd better get reading...

(p.s. my new colleague, the lovely Kamila, has already dissed the book. After i was enthusing about it, she had a look at it and said "the research he cites is good, but the thesis is intellectually weak". She's much cleverrerererer than me so i hope when i read it again i don't find out it's actually a load of rubbish. s'a good starting point for the book club discussion though)

all the ias

2007-01-25T17:25:00.000Z

I don't really use or particularly get ziki.com, but it does have a useful blog aggregator (i'm sure there are loads of other better ones, let me know if so)

anyhoo, i've created a feed with a bundle of IA blogs on it, good if you want to keep up with whatever IA people are saying from all round the world without having to add them all to your rss reader.

The ziki is here

The list of blogs that i've added is here. I tried to get all of them that i could from ia wiki, but frankly got a bit fed up. There's plenty there, and if you want to be added, just drop me a line or a comment with your blog address.

IA book club - it's on

2007-01-12T17:39:00.000Z

A mere month and a half after mentioning it here, and nearly 2 years after first mooting the idea.
I have, in typically efficient fashion, finally sorted out an IA book club.

There's been quite a lot of interest from the london-ia list, and Leisa's mentioned it here.
Hopefully should be good.

We'll be talking about this:

what: London IA Bookclub
where: twentysix London, 1 Dorset street, London, W1U 4EG
(more directions)
when: 7 Feb @ 7pm
Nibbles & Libation provided.

I'm hoping we can have them at various different agencies so that we get an opportunity to mooch around each other's offices.

Email me or leave a comment if you're interested in coming along. Be great to see you.

OFFER: If you don't want to buy it, I am also offering to get a couple of Loan copies for people, one has already been claimed. If you want the other one, let me know. In return you have to write a review of the book (500 ish words) and say something terribly clever at the meet.

BJ Fogg on social networking

2007-01-08T13:06:00.000Z

Whilst delighting in the publication of this book justifying my innate untidyness, i came across this great blog reviewing it.

Also on it was a really interesting article about BJ Fogg's (he of persuadability fame) latest comments in New Scientist.

"If you offer people a chance to gain status, they will work for it

Fogg and his colleagues analysed hundreds of such sites and identified three stages to their success, which they called discovery, superficial involvement and true commitment."

The fun bit is trying to think up interesting ways that you can let people both give and assign status.

Islandoo (created by the lovely chaps at mintdigital) initially had a problem when they launched. They were relying on a 'friendship' relationship. Ie, a user could declare themselves a 'fan' of another user. The users with the most 'fans' rising to the top. But, much like myspace, people simply spent hours trawling round 'fanning' everyone they could see, requesting that they returned the favour. The most popular were the most persistent, not the most interesting people.

Instead they created an idea of a 'magic penny' which is a more limited rewards system. You are given one when you create your profile, and once you've given it away, that's it, until someone gives you one, which you can then pass on again.

There are also smaller different awards that can be given out like 'drinks' see this profile with some pennies and a drink on it.

The Horror of 'Passionate' people

2006-12-19T22:57:00.000Z

I'm checking out a lot of CVs at the moment as we try and recruit a few people. (Any interesting and interested IAs who for some reason are reading this, drop me a line if you fancy a chat). And I'm starting to hate anyone who is 'Passionate' about something in their CV.

I am 'Passionate about interaction
xxxx is Passionate about usability
I am passionate about creating compelling experiences
I have a passion for online.

For goodness sake. This is surely an overstatement of your views? I'm passionate about my wife, I'm passionate about winning the final goal at table football with my mates in the pub. If you're passionate about information architecture, where do you go for the other bits of your life?

I confess. I am not 'passionate about creating compelling experiences'. I like doing it alot, and I can do it pretty well, but let's get some perspective.

here's some that pop up with a quick blog search:
"Passion for UCD principles with an understanding of human factors, usability heuristics and methodologies, industry best practices, and social research methods"

"Absolutely top class award winning global interactive marketing agency is looking for an experienced online information architect with a passion for creativity."

"Passion for design and eagerness to collaborate with other creative people Passion for and commitment to the profession of visual communication"

"Showcase your creativity, strong work ethic and passion for web design at a company where your talents and career can thrive!"
"We are looking for people who have solid research or industry background on information retrieval and extraction, are proud of their contributions and have a passion to apply their knowledge to a consumer product."
" As a Web Strategist this is a passion topic to me"
"We are looking for candidates with a passion for security"
"User experience is your passion: you can predict and describe user behavior"

I think Teachers are allowed to be passionate about their jobs, maybe doctors. But when people start having a 'passion for network architecture' it's just wrong.

bah.

blogging about blagging it

2006-12-12T12:27:00.000Z

I'm always amused chatting to people about their jobs, and finding out how many are absolutely terrified of being 'found out'.

These are senior people. Heads of this, directors of that, managers of the other. All of them intelligent, thoughtful people who've worked hard and pretty diligently.

Yet all of them are often sure that they've only done it by pulling the wool over other people's eyes. That it will only take one person to notice their invisible emporers clothes and life will suddenly come crashing down. What a relief! No more pretending!

Even people at the 'top' like Russell Davies have little tricks on how to keep the curtain from falling.

It seems like the people who appear to know the most, are the ones who are most comfortable with how very little they know at all.

Whenever i read a book about something new, at the end of it I have a few minutes of feeling slightly cleverer, then almost immediately a crushing sense of how little i know - by learning a little about a subject area, suddenly you realise there is a whole new vast world of knowledge that you didn't even know existed, and by discovering it, you've made your current level of knowledge proportionately smaller.

It's funny, when you're a teenager, you know everything and no-one listens. When you're a 'grown up' people listen to you, actually pay you for your views, and you're starting to realise how little you know.

I can't think of two occupations more susceptable to this than IA & Planning, as from what I've seen people who do these jobs live in 2 states. 1) admitting "it's not a real job, but it's loads of fun so i hope no-one realises too soon." or 2) frantically trying to convince people of how essential and valuable it is.

Similarities between planners & IAs

2006-12-04T23:33:00.000Z

Here's a quick take on what i thik the similarities are between the two disciplines before i head off to bed.

Work Similarities:
A desire to commission and facilitate research
A desire to deal with 'real people'
A belief in 'user/consumer input'

Personality trait similarities:
Huge variety in backgrounds (reducing on the IA side as more and more come via specific degree courses)
Broad range of diverse interests
Tendency to 'over think' problems
Insecure, but confident in intellectual abilities
Humurous
Slightly 'odd'
Elements of artistic tempremant
Desire not to be pigeon holed

Work Differences:
Planners desire to create great advertising that increases the value of the brand
IAs desire to create great user experiences that increase the value of the brand

I think most, if not all, of these traits apply to all the IAs I've met, and the few planners I've met too.

London IA Book club

2006-12-01T18:26:00.000Z

Went along to the London-IA meet up last night. It was fine, never been to one before, so wasn't really sure what to expect.

In the end Leisa turned up with Karl from Flow and his client Alan. Plus Leo, Theba, and a bunch of others that i unfortunately didn't get to meet as i had to scoot off.

Had some interesting chats. No-one really seems to care that much about my current obsession with planning, which is pretty reasonable. Especially as the title of 'planner' seems to apply to lots of different jobs. (eg, Alan the client fella said 'we have planners' then described a mini-project manager)

The IA book club is a go-er, with B.J. Fogg's Persuadability being the first book. It's a bit pricey, and a bit old news, but it's definitely interesting. We'll have it at each other's offices so that we get to have a bit of a poke round each other's offices and can actually hear each other. Few bottles of wine etc.

Need to set a date, probably in the new year, to give time to buy it and read it etc.

Other things that cropped up - use of the word 'creative' purely for design departments, wrong wrong wrong. Design Smackdown - more of which later. Diversity of backgrounds.

Essential for planners, useful for IAs

2006-11-28T23:40:00.000Z

I've just started reading Truth, Lies and Advertising which is the most consistently name checked and recommended book I've so far seen on planning. And after 20 pages on the bus home I'm already intrigued by what's coming.

It sounds like it will have some real relevance to IA - and i've been stuck a few times at how similar the roles sound. Take this as an example:

The planner's role was basically to embrace consumers as partners in the process of developing advertising, to use their input at every stage of the process to inform and sometimes even inspire creative campaigns.

Does that not sound familiar? Swap 'advertising' for 'digital communications', 'online interactions' or just plain old 'websites' and suddenly you've got a UCD practitioner, or Information Architect.

I think this could all be huge amounts of fun. More after tomorrow's bus ride.

I challenge you not to smile

2006-11-28T21:10:00.000Z

Loved these when i saw them. Some even have pigtails.

Where's the fun? That's what innocent seem to be constantly asking.

I like it.

Although i didn't buy it, they're still a rip off...

Information Architecture & Planning 2

2006-11-25T10:37:00.000Z

What agencies currently have both IAs and Planners?

And how do they work together currently?

What used to be Wheel (now LBi) definitely does/did, but friends from the framfab side of things who work there hadn't really heard of the role.

(If this blog is about anything, it's about trying to help me figure out what are the most fun bits of the two jobs, and whether i can just do those bits.
I've got a big amazon order coming soon full of books about planning)

Where's the fun? It's in finding people who've already been down the road i'm starting to plod.

Information Architecture & Planning

2006-11-25T10:22:00.000Z

My company recently went through a merger with another company. Very different companies with very different, but supposedly complimentary skills (large design & build vs marketing & flash based)

As part of getting to know each other i presented some of my work to the creative director who kept remarking "that's planning, he's a planner".

I personally had never heard of 'planning' or the role of a 'planner', but as time has passed I now completely understand the cross over.

Soon after I went to the EuroIA conference where Jared Folkman spoke of 'Big IA' being comparable to the role of a planner, and that we would have to start using this sort of terminology as competition/dealings with above the line agencies increases.

Having now learnt a lot more about 'planning' it does seem like there's a lot of cross over (understanding the consumer, being the consumer guardian, coming up with strategic direction, performing and analysing user research, etc)

the thing is that they've been doing it for 30 years or so, and have a far more formalised structure to the role, which is worth taking advantage of (see the courses here plenty of these are relevant)

the MORE exciting thing is that the planning community seems to be a wonderfully interesting one. I've recently discovered and been devouring russell davies' blog. If you haven't visited it, you should. Inspiring, funny, and educational. Also seems like a ridiculously nice guy.

If this blog is about anything, i think it will be about this cross over.

Where's the fun? It's in finding a whole new area of untapped knowledge i'd never heard of that sounds brilliant fun

IA School (of the web)

2006-11-25T03:47:00.000Z

Russell Davies has set up his 'Account Planning School of the Web' blog posts here and squidoo lens here.

He sets challenges.
People respond.
Either he, or a well respected mate, ends up marking it.

Wonderful idea, not sure how much longer he'll be able to do it before becoming overloaded, but really helpful, great idea. The more you give, the more you get.

I'm wondering if something similar for IA might be possible?

I'd love to try something like this.

Possible assignments:
On the tactical side:
- With the following information about a company, and nothing else available, create a persona or set of personas that are most appropriate.
- Create a 10 minute executive presentation of the following user testing report.
On the more strategic side
- Sum up the audience, business, and purpose of the website for xxx organisation for an executive.
- Set out a 2 year plan for the development of an xxxxx business online.

Could it work?
I think maybe. I'd need help marking them, just for the fun and also where i have little knowledge.

where's the fun? in learning more by teaching/writing than by reading

Euro IA

2006-11-25T02:42:00.000Z

I was at the Euro IA conference in Berlin recently - or not so recently, back at the beginning of october.

Finally having a catch up in london about it, which i'm looking forward to. I've always been crap at going to 'industry' meet ups, but after EuroIA where the best thing by far was meeting all these lovely people doing similar things to me I've realised how fun it is.

It was wonderfully liberating to spend time talking about esoteric topics without worrying about sounding like a freak. I love my job, more often than not, but it's still a stupid title.

Leisa Reichart has a good summary of the conference here. There's a bunch of others around the place. I should collate them at some point

My 2 second summary of the conference:

Low point - shambolic & rambling panel about 'process' *addendum to this in comments*

High points - meeting many many nice people, Jared Folkmann's talk on his experience framework, the framfab boys doing a great job with their wicked workshops presentation, olly wright provoking some thoughts with his talk on strategy (If you can't draw it, you don't understand it. Be careful with other people's money.). Steven Pemberton in his closing talk showed some very interesting possibilities with XHTML 2 and xforms. Must read more about xforms, i came away extremely impressed, but very aware that i didn't understand it fully.

Wierdest point - Almar van de Krogt talking about Virreal architectures. It seemed like he had a point there somewhere (how can websites be beautiful, memorable like a landmark?) but hasn't got a proper grip on the actual metaphor he's using.

Looking forward to discussing it at the london-ia meeting next week. Which i've organised (ie, sent an email) as the normal organiser is away.

The depravity theory of design

2006-11-24T23:48:00.000Z

This is an idea that's been floating around my head for years now. Thought i'd see if it made sense.

It boils down to this:
1) Everyone is a mixture of normal/nice/kind and wierd/embarrassing
2) In the 'real' world to get by and not be considered a mad person you keep the wierd/depraved side of you in a little hidden box whilst interacting with people.
3) In the virtual world the anonymity of dealing with organisations and people means that there is less need to only show the nice/normal side and hide the wierd side. Often the wierd/embarrassing can dominate.
4) Brands are so used to putting the most positive side of themselves forward that they ignore this different behaviour that occurs online.

My question is this:
Can brands appeal to this different mindset without damaging their reputation

In more detail:
Point 1 - We're all a mix of niceness, generosity, kindness, intelligence, humour but also, dark/dirty thoughts, selfish desires and greediness.
I happen to believe that the first set of attributes are far stronger in most people, but Point 2 says that although the second set is weaker, in normal behaviour with people it is completely repressed. We try, as much as possible, to show and emphasise the nice side - to strengthen our own brand.

Point 3 says that the anonymity allowed by the internet means people can open up the more greedy, selfish, fantasist side of themselves without being judged for it.

So point 4 is saying that currently brands believe they're still talking to real people in a 'real world' way, rather than adapting to the more selfish, greedy behaviour that is so possible on the internet.

Ryan air is an example of this 'Depravity Theory':
This site is appealing to the greedy in all of us.
Joking apart about terrible service at the airport, ryan air is generally pretty efficient and reasonably polite.Yet they haven't transferred that experience online as often seems to be the aim. Here the tone of voice entirely changes.

BUY SOMETHING CHEAP YOU GREEDY BASTARDS! And we do.

I need some more examples (excluding the obvious porn). Or ideas of organisations that would suit this approach.

Or is it simply a stupid idea with no legs at all?