opencomponentry

IA in this instance is of course our old friend “Information Architecture”, and if you don’t know what that means and consider yourself a good software engineer you might want to take another gander at figuring out the definition and how it applies to you.

Aesthetic design is a totally different matter, something which I know nothing about (though my wife knows plenty ). I just don’t understand why engineers think it’s funny to laugh and say they aren’t good at the things they are paid to do. :/

As far as I see it there are two major IA areas in my little soft engineering world:

• Visual Design - This is what everyone traditionally thinks of when they hear these phrases thrown around. Many should have heard of Jakob Nielsen by now at least. Most of this deals with how end users of software interact with it who may or may not have a strong technical background…That’s really generalizing what is definitely an industry that deserves a lot of respect, but I’m tired so it’ll have to do.
• API Design - The whole reason I’m writing this post. As much as people like to think of applications as being the only area where you need to think about this I “beg to differ”. I’ve found that designing API code has been one of the most humbling design tasks I’ve experienced in my entire career. Taking into account all the human factors involved, where people might get tripped up , what might lead them astray , etc…It’s an awful lot to think about - but when you get it right it’s obvious and people will love you for it.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by some of my first real career experiences? Like working at www.adrenaline.com. For each and every software project we worked on we always had a minimum of at least 1 IA person on the team. There were also product development groups with lots of smart people helping our customers work some of their new products into their overall business plan. (like ex m$ -ites and such..)

Ever since then all the employers/companies/etc I’ve worked at have all been downhill. If design is looked at at all it’s miracle, let alone usability design. I think that’s pathetic.