Hello Cristiano,
A couple of points to defend our site (and myself).
(1) You entered "woman" as a search term
This retrieved a very large number of records. You got the message:
"Over 500 records match your search term.
Try using additonal criteria (e.g. "and Glasgow") to refine your search, or
click here for search help."
(2) had you entered "woman and glasgow" you would have retrieved 37 records
- nicely displayed
I assume you entered just "and glasgow", and again retrieved over 500
records. I can see why the help might not have been 100% unambiguous - I'll
even change the wording today, based on this feedback. But our experience
is that lots of users do use the site, and we have lots of very positive
comments and hardly any negative ones - in fact I think that yours may be
the first or second this year.
Search tools across web sites and the internet vary widely, and I'm not sure
there is such a thing as a perfect one. All are different compromises
between complexity and ease of use. Our site was tested extensively on
non-museum audiences during development and, meets normal access
requirments. I would not claim it's perfect, or the best, or anything like
that, but it exists, and does work.
As regards my project managment skills, I think it's a bit unfair to comment
publicly on this, based on what I admitted was a deliberately provocative
"rant" to an email list.
Cheers
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Cristiano Bianchi [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12 December 2003 09:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Why are so few museum catalogues online?
John (and others),
I reply to the original post, although I have read all other and there
are some good ideas in all of them. But you touch a sensible point,
both in terms of your question (totally agreeable) and approach (which
I have some concerns about).
On one hand, while it its true that all technologies exist and are
cheap or even free to use, the expertise to do so isn't. You need to
care about information architecture, interface design, front end and
back end development, accessibility and much more. It takes years to
learn all this and it cannot be reduced to
> Again, any half-competent IT person, and a lot of people who are not,
> know
> this, and can do it. Why are these things not being done?
or:
> OK, you do need a bit of programming expertise to use things like PHP,
> ASP
> etc. However, these skills are very widespread, and compared with most
> other
> kinds of programming, very easily learnt.
If you talk like that, I'd be worried to have you manage such a
project, to be frank. We have an excess of work here and I've been
trying for weeks to find a competent person in these technologies with
no success. People call themselves expert after reading a book and play
with PHP with 6 months. Then they do a project and nothing works. The
code is all wrong, it might do some thing, but it becomes unmanageable
and SQL searches take 10 seconds instead of 10 milliseconds.
I did try your site. I went to Art and entered "woman" as a keyword. No
result. Then I tried "Glasgow", as suggested in the help text. No
result again. I have closed the page and I'm likely to never go there
again. Do it well, and people will use it and go back. Do it wrong it
once and you'll be most likely to alienate your potential users and
loose them forever.
The fact that you can buy car component cheap in a car demolition
facility does not meant that you have the ability to build a car, let
alone maintain it.
I take your point and agree that it doesn't take much to put a
collection catalogue online, but it still take a professional approach
and professional skills and competence, not a "half competence". This
is what ruined the sector two years ago and what drives us away from
competing with students. You want a amateur job, then get an amateur.
Then don't be surprised if the site disappear or doesn't work.
The problem is elsewhere, as you point out yourself. The money is
there, but spent in stupid ways. We were shortlisted for re-designing
the site of a major museum in London. Budget: £7.5k. I probably lost
the job as I asked the directors: "Are you aware that you're planning a
major asset in your strategy?" Answer: "Yes". "So why is the budget so
low for it?". "Because we spent all the money on the Content Management
System".
This is like, using the car example again, getting a great Aston Martin
engine and put it in a peeled tomato tin can as a body. With no wheels.
We all know design is just about fiddling with colours, don't we :-) ?
Kind regards, Cristiano
------
Cristiano Bianchi
keepthinking
t +44 20 7346 0305
m +44 7939 041169
e [log in to unmask]
w www.keepthinking.it
Unit 32, 63 Lyham Rd
London SW2 5EB
UK
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