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Webware Design Roles
November 13, 2004
A no-fluff clarification of state-of-the-art
information design tasks for busy people:
- User Experience: A broader envelope, touted by some as encompassing
everything listed here, but a more realistic definition might
focus on the coordination between website and brick-and-mortar
services.
- User Interface Design:
- Graphic Design: creating
the art.
- Interaction Design: deciding what gets clicked
and what happens, what they see.
- Information Architecture: choosing the critical
language that breaks the subject matter up
into pieces, and deciding what the pieces are. For
an idea of what goes on in the strange mind of an IA-er,
see Software
Function Tree.
- Text
- Ad
copy writing: composing
words that compel people to buy.
- Writing for the web: deciding which copy
gets included where, what to make into links,
and how
to arrange it.
- Usability:
- Before Development: Document, train, promote,
and build lofty goals into the tools, boilerplates,
methods, and value system.
- During Development: Insinuate usable design into
project deliverables and collateral. Test with
users.
- After Development: Review the work and make
recommendations to fix it. Test with
users.
- Content Technologist
- Web Content Editing
- Updating graphics.
- Updating text.
- Updating rich media (Flash, audio, other downloads).
* Although there
are many multi-talented folks in the various information design
roles, who can do graphic design and ad copy
writing, these two tasks are the most likely to justify
using folks who do it as their sole line of expertise. As you
might imagine, graphic designers and copy writers who move into
info design, are a notable exception.
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