Fritz, you are so right about the goals and jargon. I can see you've experienced the tug between program people who are fine with "raising awareness" and the development teams who want to fundraise. I think too often, nonprofits bring in web consultants before they even have their goals defined. Perhaps the lesson is to ask this upfront, and if they don't, ask if they have a plan to figure that out.
Lacey, your point is well taken, but I think it would behove organizations to trust/encourage their internal staff to facilitate a UX process (once they have defined goals). Relying on outside vendors (at least for smaller projects, not full redesigns) to substantiate what internal staff is saying, is not only inefficient and costly, but also inhibits the growth of internal web teams, and often leads staff to be managers of vendors rather than full-fledged UX professionals. Of course, I've hired/worked with vendors, and the management was distrustful of their assessments because they felt that the vendor didn't have a full understanding of the issues to really offer helpful solutions. Comparing apples to oranges (animal rights vs. human rights for example). Another anomaly is that the staff person is often evangelizing on behalf of the vendor and not the other way around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47006 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
