[thelist] "Web 2.0 sites with the big friendly fonts"

[Barney Carroll]

I just had another look at that link submitted a while back...

http://www.informationarchitects.jp

I'm wary of falling into dismissal and generalisation, but after 
concluding that the article was criminally irresponsible in its 
authoritative over-simplicity, insensitivity to crucial wider factors, 
and generally listing a bunch of awful sites (look at the links of 
compliant sites - apart from piqniq.jp, which doesn't even abide by the 
set rules, by and wide these sites are far below average in terms of 
readability, let alone the wider scope of web design)... I realised how 
it was that all these terrible things could be presented with such 
magnanimity: The site is defined as being about information 
architecture, and does not deal with information architecture in the 
slightest.

I urge you all to be very wary of information architects sermonising 
about information design. When talking about fields they are not expert 
in (let's face it, that's 99.9% of the world's recognised information 
disciplines), they will tend to be incredibly arrogant while posing as 
worldly-wise. This sounds like awful prejudice, but I have been fooled 
at various presentations. You have to use your head when faced with 
these people.


Regards,
Barney