Actually one topic of interest from the whole AA thing comes to mind. How to deal with the scenario of not owning the whole page. The AA employee spoke of various groups running different corners of the site. How does everyone deal with scenarios like that inside there company. Luckily I work for a small company so we haven't experienced that sort of scenario.
Sean On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 4:47 AM, Jared Spool <jsp...@uie.com> wrote: > > On Nov 23, 2009, at 6:25 PM, Alan Wexelblat wrote: > > Start here: http://dustincurtis.com/incompetence.html >> It's a story about user experience and American Airlines, both in the >> real world and their online presence. The main blog post links back >> to Curtis' original complaint about AA's horrid user experience, and >> to a response he received from an Interaction Designer inside the >> company. Who was then outed and fired. >> >> At heart it's a small story about fitting user experience into a (big) >> corporate culture. Or not. >> > > Really, it's a story about how an independent designer doesn't get the > world of big corporation politics. And, it's a story about how a company > which doesn't like its laundry aired in public deals with employees who > reveal stuff publicly. > > This is not the first time an employee was canned because he spoke out of > school. It won't be the last. > > AA has a history of both being an innovator in experience design. They were > the first airline to embrace mobile. They've done amazing things with > wayfinding. They were the first with online checkin. They've done some > innovative things on the web. Go back 25 years and you can see real > innovation in ticketing and loyalty programs. (Don't get me wrong -- I'm not > an AA fan boy. In fact, they are one of my least favorite airlines to fly. > Personally, I regularly tell my friends to avoid them if possible. But > credit is due for their innovative approach to IT.) > > They also get bogged down in politics like many great companies. > > From a design standpoint, there's really no story in the Dustin Curtis > thing. Any of us could sit down and, ignoring all the political realities of > a big company, come up with an "improved" redesign. But, that's not where > the challenge is, is it? It's working within the constraints that gives > design its real challenges. > > There's nothing to see here. Move along. > > That's my opinion. > > Jared > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
