Re: brainstorming, industry vs. academia

[Shannon Ford <shannon -at- UNIFACE -dot- NL>]

Bonni Graham writes:

> Since we're kvetching, what I'd like to see more of is brainstorming ways to
> address and/or fix the problem, rather than just defining it several different
> ways.  There's a lot of talent and smarts in this group -- can't we use them
> to FIX things?  (Do you see a theme here? My last couple of postings have been
> about this -- I guess it's been on my mind :) .)

I think it's a wonderful idea.

As regards the conflicy between industry and academia:

I get the feeling that a lot of research done by academics can be put to
practical use, if only industry would pay attention. Let's take computer
science for a moment. How many companies still do not think about human
factors when designing their user interfaces? There is scads of research
showing great results when human factors people are involved. How many companies
do no usability testing of their products? How many companies don't adequately
test their product with an independant test team? And so on.

As for communication theory, how many companies listen to research about
minimalist manuals (or even try themselves to see if it works?), or catering
to different learning styles, or the value of good indexing, or the value of
including writers in the early stages of product development?

Yes, some companies do pay attention, but an appalling number do not.

Shannon
fords -at- uniface -dot- nl