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Following up on an observation I made a week ago:
| Wandering a bit from the topic...organizations of all sizes and types seem
| to have lost interest in large-scale, valid statistical market and
demographic analysis.
Mark Hurst, in his excellent Good Experience blog
(www.goodexperience.com), has noticed something similar (quoting in
turn from a New York TImes article):
> Then just now I came across a quote that describes the trend perfectly. I've edited it
> slightly from the original, which appears in David Brooks's column today::
>
>> One gets the sense, at least from the outside, that the intellectual energy is no
>> longer with the [practitioners] who construct abstract and elaborate models.
>> Instead, the field seems to be moving in a humanist direction. Many [practitioners]
>> are now trying to absorb lessons learned by psychologists, neuroscientists and
>> sociologists. They're producing books about subjects such as how social identities shape choices.
>
> Brooks is actually talking about economists, but I think this could - or should - be applied
> to user experience professionals, if and when they really start a transformation of the discipline.
We've already discussed the economic factors behind the current
decision-making climate, but I sense a more fundamental, widespread,
Postmodern-leaning philosophical shift underway. This shift affects
how we market ourselves (resumes), how we measure our work, how we
make decisions, and how we advance the field of technical
communication.
--
Paul Goble
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