Geeks vs. Users

In my relatively short working career since my undergrad degree, I have worked in various roles broadly in the area of media and communications.  The last three of these have involved a lot of work on websites; coordinating, improving, completely re-working them.  This means I have had the questionable pleasure of working with website developers many times.

There is always a sense of promise and excitement when you are discussing changes to a website. Little things which have always annoyed you can be resolved – and because developers have specialist knowledge, it’s like someone doing your homework for you.

Except that like someone doing your homework, there are sacrifices to be made in return.

Worst Nachos EVER!

With apologies to anyone who knows/loves a website developer, they are on a completely different – and somewhat bizarre – planet.  My usual analogy is the comic geek from the Simpsons. I know it’s really unoriginal to use an archetypal nerd to illustrate my feelings for a software developer, but I have met about 6 in my life, and everyone of them reminds me of that character. Very often, they barely manage to hide their disgust at having to talk to someone who does not speak a computer language (I’m not sure if you say ‘speak’ HTML, but that’s what I’m saying, and it only supports my point).

Anyway, this rant was inspired by a tweet I just saw from Jay Rosen at NYU, who wrote:

Geeks lack empathy for users and most users lack geek. Meanwhile, designers make it look good. Usability eludes them all.

This might be a little simplistic, but it does summarise the dilemma of dealing with developers, and how to do it well.

Generally, if you are working as an editor, or consultant, or coordinator on a website, you have to act as a translator between developer/customer or geek/user.  And, because the geek, user, and designer all lack an awareness of usability, that has to be your primary concern.

Image: Worst Nachos Ever by Elvissa. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.

Update: In related news, this article from A List Apart, ‘Usability experts are from Mars, graphic designers are from Venus’.

Little Web Places

Taking a cue from classmate Ernesto on his favourite websites, these are a few of my favourite places to visit on the web. There are a couple of blogs that I read regularly, but otherwise these places are little nooks in a greater website. The theme seems to be that I like reading about books, people’s stories and media. In other words, there is no theme – except that like most people, I read about people who like the same things as me.

Spike – The Meanjin Blog: The blog for the literary magazine Meanjin, Spike is mostly written by editorial assistant Jessica Au, and Editor Sophie Cunningham. As one would expect from a bookish publication, the posts are well-written, considered, concise and interesting. I first became interested in it when the Editor posted this photo from her trip to the Northern Territory. I have an ongoing interest in public memory, Australiana and history and I have been trying to write a story about those statues ever since (it’s almost there…). Apart from highly nuanced and intellectual literary debate, they also include a lot of pretty book stuff, like these shelves around which I will one day build a house.

Stair(book)case by Levitate Architects

Audrey and the Bad Apples: A friend put me on to this blog, around the same time as she introduced me to Marieke Hardy’s now defunct blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me. We were both quite bored with our jobs at the time. I think the reason I keep going back to Audrey’s is because she is so unafraid to be personal, to an extent I would never be brave enough to be online. She is entertaining, witty, interesting and recently went traveling to the US and Spain.

The Content Makers: Margaret Simons’ blog on the Crikey blog network is all about media. There are many like it (I also really like Mumbrella) but I really like Simons’ writing style – it is so accessible and readable and doesn’t assume you are part of some media-journo club like so many media commentators.

Since You Asked: Salon’s Agony Aunt for smart people. The questions can vary but Cary Tennis’ responses are nuanced and genuine. My favourite post addressed the common malaise of twenty to thirty-year-olds; indecision and anxiety about the future (relating to Camilla’s post about the Quarter Life Crisis, which we are now calling the QLC). Tennis gives this revolutionary advice:

The truth is that you’ve been hurt and you’re going through a tough time. This is a good thing. This is your chance to admit some new knowledge into your core being — knowledge of setbacks, lostness, the difficulty of making your way, the many false starts and illusions that are placed in your path.This is the classic course of youth into adulthood.

If I were you, I might be a little angry that my culture neglected to tell me the truth about these things, that my education did not prepare me for adversity. I might be upset that I had not gained an understanding of economic forces, of class forces, of the way power is wielded in hidden ways in the workplace, how we are led to believe that things will be easy when they are actually hard.

That is all I can think of for now – I do quite regularly check out some other literary blogs, but none that I consistently love. I’ve found Twitter amazing for finding stuff on the web – by following people you are interested in, its like a human search engine.

Links: Iran Tweets and Editing

This is an interesting visual depiction of the Twitter revolution in Iran. Once it starts, run the mouse over any of the columns on the graph to see which tweet it refers to. Beautiful.

Also, a good case for editing in general, on author Dan Baum’s blog.

I am increasingly getting all my news from Twitter….thanks @zephoria and @meanjin for the above.