council ban ‘jargon’ words

the story has been simmering in various press releases ok i get this, use plain English make it easier for the gerneral public to understand what our councils are doing. but as you look into the story it gets better.

The BBC and Computing magazine both report the story with slightly different lists but looking in to the LGA site proves interesting

Looking at what’s on this list and their alternatives taken from the LGA  site (http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1716341)

we get some ‘interesting’ ideas

initiative – idea  ok so this works kinda i think

Capabilities -  (no alternative) so they don’t have the capability to complete this?

Champion – best poresumably no one acted as a champion for this study

Coterminosity – all singing from the same hymn sheet  wait what…we have to sing?

Coterminous – all singing from the same hymn sheet er what? and doesn’t this have more to do with coverage not singing?

Initiative – idea not the process of having ieas then?

Interface – talking to each other right, to no user interface then

LAAs - Why use at all? local area agreements  that why (http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=1174195)

Outcomes – results ok
Outcomes – focused ok…wait what ? which is it

Paradigm - Why use at all? well its a word used since the 15th century so i guess it has a basis in the english language

Proactive - Why use at all? indeed why be proactive

Single Point of Contact – everything under one roof  i suppose if  i have a single point of contact then they always under on roof…yes?

Social exclusion – poverty really so social exclusion is always basd on wealth not race, religion, geography…?

Sustainable – long term yep fair enough
Sustainable communities – environmentally friendly, um not putting an enforced environmental slant on this but how can Sustainable mean one thing and Sustainable communities be something totally different?

Taxonomy - Why use at all? helps if your talking about…ooh i dunno taxonomies?

Welcome – necessary and needed/step in the right direction what? I’m sorry did i miss somethign here?

finally however one that makes total sense

Process driven – shouldn’t everything be people driven?  finally one that makes sense…

Simple IA - Users, visitors and audience types

In a recent discussion / interview with a member of the Eduserv research group (previously known as (Eduserv foundation) which focused on a study soon to be proposed into CSM and HEI, I was asked to define the ‘user requirements’ for content management system project.

Users.., what are ‘users’ when discussing CMS requirements, and are they the same as website users?

In a traditional sense users are often regarded as the ‘users’ of a website, UX professionals talk about user testing and user centered design processes, but when it comes to CMS the user can be seen as the ‘site; user or the CMS user, each with very different needs and thus differing impacts on your requirements exercise. It’s important therefore to make sure that you are talking about the same ‘audience’ and that you accurately address their needs.

Site users, (visitors) need to be able to find information quickly and need navigation accessible content, they may ‘use’ the functions of the site in the process of finding content but referring to them as users (in the CMS context) clutters the message. Navigation, clarity, language findability structure and design make for the site visitors experience.

The needs of the CMS user however is concerned with editing interfaces, categorization and linking, they need workflow and accessibility checkers, they need to know who did what when and how, the kind of stuff that CMS (WCMS) should do well.

Most of the time the description of the feature needed will be itself explanatory. However you should never allow ambiguity and assumption into your requirements study. (Similarly words such as ‘solution’ ‘system’ and ‘service’ should also be avoided in this context.

For example

“The solution should be accessible to users with disability”…means what exactly?

Then we get to audiences, now these are different again. An audience, in this instance, could be defined as category or group of users (or visitors) who share characteristics, interests or experience levels.

Parents, teaches and students are all audience types, as a parent I am a visitor to my boys school website. The teacher’s who create the site with their CMS is a CMS User,

Users, visitors and Audiences are therefore interlinked, but have differing views of the solution you are defining, if you are going to meet these needs you need to make sure that you and your project sponsor / customer have a shared understanding of these differences and needs to avoid the ambiguities and, even worse assumptions that add risk to your project.