George Oleson wrote a piece for Boxes and Arrows that provides a refreshing view of information architecture and user-centered design.
It’s one of the first times I’ve heard an user experience person say “focusing exclusively on users like this is just plain wrong.”
User experience folks can seem a little a clique-ish to the rest of the Web production world, some in particular.
I can only hope that the viewpoint expressed in Oleson’s article is not his alone.
Nor do I think that UX is bad thing. The willy-nilly, who cares about the user attitude that some “designers” take is appauling.
Web design, like all other design, is about solving problems. Balancing the needs of the user, aesthetics, the product, the business, etc. is part and parcel of the design world.
It’s just nice to hear from one camp that the rest of the variables in the design equation are important too.
