Why marketers are not information architects or usability experts
- They don’t know anything about information architecture.
- They don’t know anything about usability.
- They think they know everything about information architecture.
- They think they know everything about usability.
- They are afraid of usability tests and will avoid them at all costs. (Usability tests prove points 3 and 4 wrong for them.)
- They think that just because they “know the content,” they are interface designers.
- They try too hard to completely control how people use a Web site to the point that it makes the experience worse.
- They think that everyone uses the Web exactly the way they do.
Please note that this does not apply to skilled Internet marketers or “traditional marketers” who are smart enough to let the experts be experts.
The notation would apply to me.
I’m a marketer who is smart enough to know that I don’t know everything.
Comment by Sean "Big Daddy" Hughes — June 20, 2005 @ 2:20 pm
Looking at this in hindsight, I guess the content in this entry is a little harsh. This is too general and probably fueled a little too much by emotion due to current circumstances. I get frustrated by marketers handing me requested content and mapping it to a navigation that doesn’t make sense and having little flexibility in improving navigation. All in all, a marketer should have influence in things like navigation and other IA issues, but the person acting in the role as information architect should have more weight in authority of how information is presented.
Comment by Chris Peters — June 23, 2005 @ 10:04 am