My job title is officially ‘Information Architect’. That’s sounds fairly specific but the reality is much different which often leads me to really not knowing what my role on a project should be.
My interest and what (i thought) I was employed to do is User Centered Design; to ensure that what we build here at the agency where I work is as empathetic towards who will be using it as possible. I understand that there are often time and budget constraints that get in the way of all the research, testing and iterative design you would like to do. It’s annoying but you get on with it and try and impart as much knowledge of the users as you can from previous experiences.
However I find it strange when you recieve actual user flows and basic layouts from a client based on there own assumptions about what a user might want to do and then ask you to implement that in the site. Then when you take their ideas on board, but adapt to work in a way that you think is better and then explain this to them, they can’t understand why you’ve changed their masterpiece. I think much of the issue here is with the project management and properly educating the client, but the problem is once a project has started off and a process is a assumed, I, the humble Information Architect don’t have too much say in the process.
The question is how do I tackle this issue, when is it being helpful by challenging processes like this and when is it just becoming a spanner in the works?
