Lou Rosenfeld on Content Architecture
April 15, 2009
Editor’s Note: The Boye 09 Conference in Philadelphia takes place the first week in May 2009, May 5 to May 7, 2009, to be precise. Attendees can choose from a number of special interest tracks. These include strategy and governance, Intranet, Web content management, SharePoint, user experience, and eHealth. You can get more information about this conference here. One of the featured speakers, is Lou Rosenfeld. You can get more information here. Janus Boye spoke with Mr. Rosenfeld on April 14, 2009. The full text of the interview appears below.
Why is it so hard for organizations to get a grip on user experience design?
Because UX is an interdisciplinary pursuit. In most organizations, the people who need to work together to develop good experiences–designers, developers, content authors, customer service personnel, business analysts, product managers, and more–currently work in separate silos. Bad idea. Worse, these people already have a hard time working together because they don’t speak the same language.
Once you get them all in the same place and help them to communicate better, they’ll figure out the rest.
Why is web analytics relevant when talking about user experience?
Web sites exist to achieve goals of some sort. UX people, for various reasons, rely on qualitative research methods to ensure their designs meet those goals. Conversely, Web analytics people rely on quantitative methods. Both are incomplete without the other – one helps you figure out what’s going on, the other why. UX and WA folks two more groups that need help communicating; I’m hoping my talk in some small way helps them see how they fit together.
Is your book “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” still relevant 11 years later?
Nah, not the first edition from 1998. It was geared toward developing sites–and information architectures–from scratch. But the second edition, which came out in 2002, was almost a completely new book, much longer and geared toward tuning existing sites that were groaning under the weight of lots of content: good and bad, old and new. The third edition–which was more of a light update–came out in 2006. I don’t imagine information architecture will ever lose relevance as long as there’s content. In any case, O’Reilly has sold about 130,000 copies, so apparently they think our book is relevant.
Does Facebook actually offer a better user experience after the redesign?
I really don’t know. I used to find Facebook an excellent platform for playing Scrabble, but thanks to Hasbro’s legal department, the Facebook version of Scrabble has gone the way of all flesh. Actually, I think it’s back now, but I’ve gotten too busy to fall again to its temptation.
Sorry, that’s something of an underhanded swipe at Facebook. But now, as before, I find it too difficult to figure out. I have a hard time finding (and installing) applications that should be at my fingertips. I’m overwhelmed – and, sometimes, troubled–by all the notifications which seem to be at the core of the new design. I’d far prefer to keep up with people via Twitter (I’m @louisrosenfeld), which actually integrates quite elegantly with the other tools I already use to communicate, like my blog (http://louisrosenfeld.com) and email. But I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m not likely Facebook’s target audience. And frankly, my opinion here is worth what you paid for it. Much better to do even a lightweight user study to answer your question.
Why are you speaking at a Philadelphia web conference organized by a company based in Denmark?
Because they asked so nicely. And because I hope that someday they’ll bring me to their Danish event, so I can take my daughter to the original Legoland.
Janus Boye, April 15, 2009
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One Response to “Lou Rosenfeld on Content Architecture”
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There’s no mention of “content architecture” in this interview, except in the title. I don’t think that’s what they were talking about…