Get Your Head out of Your...

Department.

I just had a meeting with a HUGE group of people regarding their new website. I've put a lot of work into it, it's a pretty big department and their old site was so disorganized and convoluted. I've tried to find information myself on it in the past, and it was no easy task.

So at this meeting, these people could not get past the fact that the website wasn't designed the way their departments are. Every time I would show them a section, I was met with shaking heads and someone piping up "That's not how the department is organized." By the third or fourth time, I was ready to respond "You know what, lady, the user doesn't give two shits about your department! They just want their information." Luckily, I have an awesome boss who explained it to them in better terms.

Of the way too many people at that meeting, there was like on lady who gets it.

As a user of the internet, it was really hard for me. Have they never seen websites before? Have they never been frustrated because someone organized a website poorly. Apparently not.

On a related note, I've been following caseorganic on Twitter, who is/was at the webvisions conference tweeting about similar topics. It was pretty cool.