MAM from Betty Brinn

On Sunday the family and I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see an exhibit (the exhibit was wonderful, but that was the last day, so I won't tease you with the details).  Milwaukee has a wonderful art museum, but there is one downside to the museum and that is that the building itself can be a huge distraction from the works of art inside the museum.  The building itself is a real work of art.

The art museum itself is actually a couple of buildings, and what most people think of as the museum is actually the Quadracci Pavilion that was built years after art museum was opened, although the building is quite often referred to as "the Calatrava", after the architect.  The building was designed by Santiago Calatrava a Spanish architect who has built dozens of structures around the world (including such great works as the Turning Torso).  The crowning glory of the building are the "wings" that raise and lower during the day.  But as you wander around the building (both inside and out) you notice there are many great features to the building.  You can easily spend hours in the building amazed at the elegance of the structure (while you are there, do spend time looking at the art that the building contains).  To me one of the most fascinating parts of the building is actually the parking garage.

MAM Parking Garage

There are a couple of parking garages that you can use, I am talking about the one that is actually a part of the building itself.  It is an underground structure that is located below the Quadracci Pavilion.  The building is actually on the shore of Lake Michigan, so I am sure it is an engineering marvel because the garage is below ground so close to the lake.  But I am amazed how the parking garage has been incorporated into the structure and the theme of the overall building.

Hunter at MAM

Normally you think of a parking garage as a very utilitarian structure and the design usually reflects that notion (imagine concrete pillars that are evenly spaced through the structure).  The garage at the Milwaukee Art Museum reflects the design of the overall structure.  You can see how the lines of the pillars in the photo above are harmonious with the lines inside the building in the photo photo of my son; the spine type structures run the length of the building on both sides (the shape of the garage pillars are different because they are in the center of the building).  I can honestly say that it is the only parking garage that I have ever been in that I would consider elegant.

Gallery Entrance

Applying the principal to software design

Like the parking garage at the museum, most software applications have components that are utilitarian in nature.  The canonical example is the administrative interface that is only used by the system administrator.  Often times these are "CRUD" interfaces used to maintain reference tables used in other parts of the application.  These interfaces are often slapped together (I have heard more than once phrases like "that is a good job for the summer intern").  Even if the interface is not used by every member of the application it does not mean that it should not flow with the rest of the application.

Not just user Interfaces

The administrative interfaces are an obvious example, but there are also non-visible portions of the application that some times don't get the attention that they deserve.  There are always components that are not as "sexy" to build (think of the rating engine for an insurance company), so often times they are neglected.  Often times that are components to the system that don't fit in with the rest of the application just because they lack some attention to detail (no XML Comments, missing or inadequate unit testing).

Craig Counsell at third base

This is the second in a series of blog posts about how we can learn about software architecture by studying and comparing it to the sport of Baseball.  This series was inspired by the book Management by Baseball.

In baseball a Utility Player is one that can several positions well.  In baseball there are 9 distinct defensive positions, each requiring a slightly different skill set.  There is some overlap between the positions (for instance a good right fielder will have many of the skills required to play left field).  But some positions require a vastly different skill set (such as catcher and center fielder).  Often times you will hear about a "utility infielder"; a player who can play 3rd base, 2nd base and shortstop.  You will also hear about a "utility outfielder"; a player who can play any of the 3 outfield positions: Left fielder, Right Fielder and Center Fielder.  There are rare players that have the skills and experience that allow them to play all 8 defensive positions (all save the pitcher which is a highly specialized position).  And there are even instances of players who have played all 9 positions (sometimes in the same game, but that has generally been more of a stunt).

Because there are a limited number of players that a team can have on the roster at a given time (25 players for the majority of the season and 40 players during the tail end of the season) a team needs to have a few players that can play more than one position.  A player that can only play one position may be a valuable player, but they limit the flexibility of the team when it comes to making changes, especially late in the ball game.  Often times these one position players will make up for the defensive inflexibility by shining at the plate.  You will often see these players on first base and in left field, because these positions are thought of as being the easier positions to play.

What is a utility architect?

In the first blog post in this series, I described the 5 general skills that an architect should have (Business Process, Software Design, Software Development, Infrastructure and Communication).  I was focused on general skills required, but not on the various specializations that an architect can play.  You are probably familiar with some of these specializations and might even be able to find some of these on business cards running around your organization:

• Software Architect - Someone who specializes in designing the custom written code in a solution
• Data Architect - Someone who specializes in designing the database (or other data storage system) in a solution
• Infrastructure Architect - Someone who designs the portions of the solution that are closer to the physical implementation.  For example the directory layout.
• Network Architect - Someone who designs the data transfer portions of the solution
• User Interface Architect - Someone who architects the flow of the system for the user perspective.  You may be skeptical about this one, but these architects to exist, I met several of them last year when we did our ArcReady event on User Experience.
• <Insert Technology Name Here> Architect - there is a whole litany of architects who align themselves to a particular technology.  If you don't believe me, go do a search job descriptions for .NET Architect, SAP Architect or Java Architect and see the results that you will get.

A utility architect is someone who can play more than one of these specializations reasonably well.  For instance they may be really good at software architecture, but they can also design databases or design the infrastructure for the solution.  Or more likely, they are going to be a true software architect and be able to design a system in Java or Ruby on Rails as well as they would on .NET.  Being competent in more than one specialization increases your flexibility to the organization, because you can be used in more than one capacity.  This is good in a large organization, but invaluable in a smaller organization.

I personally think that all architects should strive to be a utility architect and not just specialize in doing only one thing.  The antithesis of this is an organization that requires a room full of architects in order to decide anything.  I personally experienced this years ago when I got on a conference call about a network issue.  The person that I talked to had introduced himself as a "Layer 3 Architect" a reference to the OSI Model (if you recall that).  We determined that the issue was probably caused by a firewall configuration problem, I told him the ports that he needed to check.  He stopped me mid-sentence and said "Stop there, we will need to get our firewall architect involved in this issue and I just checked his schedule and he is not available for another 2 days".

I have been studying copyright laws a lot lately.  I find our laws very fascinating, but I don't think that I could practice law professionally (Although my wife Jodie does accuse me of being a closet lawyer when we are having an argument a discussion).  There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing, but if I had to do them day in and day out I would lose interest in them.  But I do find the study of our laws, their origins and how they have changed (or not changed) to accommodate changes in our society fascinating.  Copyright laws are especially interesting.

Lizard

Copyrighted when it is created

One of the fundamental principles of the copyright laws (at least the ones in the United States) is that you own the copyright and can assert your rights without having to register them.  This is in sharp contrast to Trademarks and Patents.  Here is a blurb from the US Copyright office FAQs:

Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

The notion of a "created" work is at the heart of copyright laws and you will see "created" woven in and out of the laws.  I was a bit surprised when I recently saw a sign at a photography studio that said:

If it is created it is copyrighted

along with a very stern warning that the photos that were taken at the studio were property of the photographer, and that taking the photos to a store and having them duplicated was not allowed.  I think a lot of people don't understand this, because it is a picture of you (or your family or child or dog) and you paid the photographer to take the photos.  But according to the law - the photograph is not your yours, it is a work created by the person who took the photo.

Dive

Do we capture or create?

If you have seen me at an event or follow this blog, you will know that I am a photography hobbyist.  I am forever snapping pictures at events and trying to be the official record keeper.  I actually started college as a photojournalism major, so I think it is something that I never quite got over when I changed my major to CIS. 

I also like to take photographs in my spare time as we do things as a family.  Often times it is pictures of Zoo animals, as my son Hunter loves to see the animals at the zoo or other exhibits.  When we the family was on spring break I took some wonderful photos that are on my Flickr Account and I have included some of them in this blog post.  Up until now, you may have wondered, what does a picture of a Lizard have to do with copyright laws?

As I was taking these photos I kept thinking back to the sign at the photography studio.  I was doing a lot of work to take these photos: finding the perfect angle, adjusting the camera to accommodate for the lighting, making sure the focus was perfect.  But fundamentally I don't think I was creating the photograph.  I think the animals that I photographed were the focal point of the photo.  I was just the guy that bought the camera along.  I think I captured the magnificence that was already there.

If you are someone who makes there living off of copyrighted works, please don't take my statements wrong.  I have a deep respect for works that are created, but I think there are times that we overstate the "created" notion.  For example, it is very easy to find photos on photo sharing sights that people have snapped photos of something on the TV and then upload it with "All rights reserved".  There are about a dozen things wrong with that.

Nemo 

Note:  The photographs in this blog post were all taken by me at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, IL.  They are all available under a Creative Commons License. 

Pudge on Deck

This is the first in a series of blog posts about how we can learn about software architecture by studying and comparing it to the sport of Baseball.  This series was inspired by the book Management by Baseball.

In baseball scouting one of the biggest compliments that a player can receive is to be called a "5 tool player".  This is a reference to the skills that make up a good, all around baseball player:

1. Hitting for power: When at the plate the player can hit the ball with a lot of power, home runs and doubles are very common.  Runs Batted In (RBI) and Total Bases (TB) are common stats to measure the power that a player shows.
2. Hitting for average: Hitting for power is only one dimension of the performance at the plate (sometimes a player that hits for power will strike out a lot).  When a player hits for average, that means that they reach base more often when they have a plate appearance.  Batting Average (BA) and On Base Percentage (OBP) are common stats to measure how well the player does in this skill.
3. Base running skills: How well does the player handle himself when they reach base.  The obvious thought is how fast the player is in running between bases, but many of the best base runners are not the fastest, they are smart about the leads they take and are effective at breaking up a double play.  Stolen Bases (SB) is the most common stat for this skill.
4. Fielding: Good fielding is essential for a team to succeed.  Sometimes players can be great at the plate, but will be called a "defensive liability" meaning their fielding is sub-par.  Fielding Percentage and errors are 2 stats to measure this tool.
5. Throwing: how well does the player execute throws once they have fielded the ball.  Double plays turned (for infielders) and Assists (for outfielders) are stats for this skill.

When a player shows above average potential in all of these skill areas, he is considered to be a "5 tool player" and will be highly sought after by major league teams.

What are the 5 tools for a software architect?

Using the baseball term as my guide, I wanted to put together a list of the "5 tools" that make up a good architect.  This exercise was actually a lot harder than you might think.  Like many people I think that an architect needs to be a generalist and as a result there are a 1001 things that a architect must need to know in order to be a good architect.  Categorizing these into 5 tools was difficult.  But here is the list that I came up with.

1. Business Process - Process is the way that we get things done.  Software is becoming an increasingly integral part of business process, but it is still only a small part of how things are accomplished.  Process is the "Bigger picture" of software architecture.  Being able to understand how the software solution fits into the overall business process is a critical skill to being a good software architect.  The danger of not mastering the process is that the software solution may be a masterpiece of software engineering, but may be totally useless in the presence of the business problem (okay maybe not totally useless, but sub-optimal for the time spent creating it).
2. Software Design - This is the probably the most obvious of the architecture tools - you have to be able to design a solution.  You might be surprised at how many people who are otherwise brilliant software engineers have trouble designing a software solution, or struggle with designing a solution so that it fits harmoniously with the rest of the software ecosystem.
3. Software Development - An architect must understand how to develop software.  You don't have to spend 100% , 75% or even 50% of your time time actually developing software in order to be an architect.  You do have to understand the capabilities and limitations of your software environment.
4. Infrastructure -  Infrastructure is the architectural foundation of the enterprise and it is the plumbing that makes our software systems work.  Because it is foundational it is often ignored in the same way that we ignore the plumbing when we are walking around in a building.  However when you are designing that building, you have to pay careful attention to it.  And just like other foundational components infrastructure must be maintained and upgraded over time.  A good architect knows how to leverage the infrastructure.
5. Communication - I know there are some people who get to this point and say "Bah - software development, infrastructure?  Where is the governance?  Architects must know governance!"  Governance is important in architecture, but the real value of governance is not in developing a governance strategy, but in communicating the strategy and the importance of the strategy.  The ability to communicate with the technical and the non-technical audience is probably the most important of the 5 skills identified here.

Note:  My colleague and friend Chris Bernard, who is Microsoft's User Experience Evangelist for the Central United States, has written a follow-up post to this one where he talks about the tools that a designer needs.

SXSWi 2008 Sketchnotes: First Spread
By Mike Rohde

Recently I found myself listening to a presentation in a lecture style room and the speaker was giving out some fabulous information (articles to look at, books to reference and blogs of subject matter experts to check out).  I was sitting in the front row of the room and did not want to break out my laptop to take notes.  I think it can be very distracting to the person giving the presentation, and I have a twitter addiction that I have to feed if I have an open laptop in front of me.  I wanted to jot down some of these gems that the speaker was sharing, so I started to send myself e-mails on my mobile phone with the subject containing the item I wanted to check out. 

My thought was that I would later transcribe it into tasks in outlook or just look up the book online to see if it was worthwhile.  I don't know if you have ever done this, but you think for a second that it is terribly clever but after 2 or 3 e-mails to yourself it become tedious.  Also you loose the context in which the "note to self" was written if you don't translate it quickly after sending yourself the e-mail.  I found myself thinking:

If only we had an easy way to take notes during a presentation or a meeting without breaking out your laptop

Then bam - it hit me.  This problem was solved in several thousand years ago: paper.  I promptly went out and bought myself a moleskin notebook and have been carrying it ever since.  Now I can quickly breakout my notebook (opening it is much faster than booting up a laptop) during a meeting and take notes that are all in context. If I need to transcribe it into an Action Item for later I put an asterisk (*) next to the line and create an outlook task next time I have the laptop open.  I also have this great record of the event to look back on.

But don't take my word on it.  Take a look at the sketchnotes that Mike Rhode put together from his recent trip to the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, TX.  He captures the emotional awakening that paper can give you in his recent blog post about his sketchnotes:

For many SXSW attendees the sketchnotes seem to awaken positive memories, even several days later. This is one of the reasons I keep a travelogues when I go on trips. Notes and sketches of my activities help me recall clear memories — even years after the trip. Hopefully this will be true of my SXSW sketchnotes in the future.

I grew up in the Trapper Keeper generation, so I was used to paper.  I was a sophomore in high school before I was in the same classroom with a computer, and that was this mammoth Tandy computer that we used in economics class to simulate a shoe company for economics class, certainly not something to take notes on (after all floppy disks were "kind of expensive", you know).  Somewhere in the last few years I shunned the use of paper as "not cool".  I have taken a complete 180 degree turn on that decision.

So I have avoided putting upcoming events on my blog, but recently a couple people have commented that they wished they had heard about some events.  So I am putting this post out here to announce some really cool upcoming events, but I would also like to know if you as a reader of this blog like these / hate these / don't care either way.  All of these events are in Wisconsin, but other parts of my "territory" (Indiana and Illinois) have some upcoming events soon as well.

March 14th - MilwaukeeDevhouse1 - Part hacking, part coworking and part party, this is Milwaukee's version of the SuperHappyDevhouse.  Bring your project, bring your idea or just show up and have some fun hanging out with the tech crowd.  The guys and gals over at Web414 are putting on this event and Pete Prodoehl has a slideshow about what to expect. 

I am currently trying to get clearance from the family to attend the event and if I do, I will be working on a Flickr-based project.  Yes, the one that I came up with over a year ago and have not done anything with - hence the reason to attend the Devhouse so I can work on it.

Who: All are welcome, please register
When: Friday, March 14th, 7:00 PM - ?
Where:  Bucketworks, 1340 North 6th Street, Milwaukee, WI

March 15th - Fox Valley Day of .NET - The Fox Valley has a great .NET user group and they are putting on their first all day event.  They have some neat sessions lined up.  I am actually presenting the session right after lunch on web technologies.

April 5th - Deeper in .NET - The Wisconsin .NET User Group is bringing back their popular Deeper in .NET program after taking a year (or so) off.  They have some great speakers and sessions lined up.  I will be the Emcee for a panel discussion.

Who: All are welcome, please register (must login first)
When: Saturday, April 5th, 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM (registration at 7:00 AM)
Where:   Milwaukee Marriott West, W231 N1600 Corporate Court, Pewaukee, Wisconsin

April 17th  - Heros Happen {Here} launch event in Madison, WI and May 9th - Heros Happen {Here} launch event in Milwaukee, WI - These are the marketing launch events for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008.  Windows and Visual Studio have already shipped and SQL Server will ship after the launch events.  I will be presenting a session at each of the launch events and I have no idea why they added semicolons to the title.

Milwaukee Registration and Madison Registration are both open, and I would recommend registering soon as these events are "selling out".

Zune and iPod 5Gen
By Zengame
Used under Creative Commons Attribution

I was at the Milwaukee Auto Show a couple of weeks ago looking at the latest that the automakers have to show.  My wife and I have gone every year for the past several and we enjoy the event.  This year means a little more to us, as Jodie is in the market for a new car.  So we had to get serious about the cars that we are looking at and more important the features that we want in the car.  For example, I am really interested in getting XM Satellite radio, because they carry the Major League Baseball games.  Jodie is really interested in the Ford Sync product.

Checking out the Sync

Ford (and Mercury) had a couple cars at the show that were wired up to demo the Sync and they had demo people in the cars waiting to show you the features of the platform.  You may find this hard to believe, but I have never seen the Ford Sync in action, despite the fact that I work for the company that helped them build the platform (it is co-branded as "powered by Microsoft").  Fact is that Sync is just not in the part of Microsoft that I work in and we make a lot of products, so it is hard to keep up with all of them.  So I climbed into the Mercury and started talking to the demo guy.  He found it humorous that I worked for Microsoft and had never seen the product in action, but proceeded to give me the demo.   He walked through the various voice commands and then said "I can show you the music off the flash drive or the iPod". 

Where is the Zune?

I said, "Dude, the iPod and not the Zune?".  He said, "Yeah I thought it was weird that the demo kit came with an iPod and not a Zune, I have a Zune and I thought it was weird that our kit came with an iPod".  I was a bit taken aback by this, and I thought about what marketing company screwed this up (we outsource a lot of our marketing with weird results).  I was pumped up enough to even send Steve Ballmer an e-mail (but I did not as you will see in a minute), and I even tweeted it:

at the auto show where I just learned the Ford Sync press kit comes with an iPod, where is the Zune?

Once I calmed down about it (which did not take long), I thought how brilliant it was that they were showing the iPod and not the Zune.  I like my Zune a lot, but I will be the first one to admit that the iPod has out sold the Zune by a 100 to 1 ratio (or so I don't have any official numbers and Wikipedia has somewhat old numbers that are tough to compare).  Regardless of the actual numbers, 100 to 1 is good enough to postulate that for every 100 people with a music player that climb into the demo car, probably only one of them has a Zune, the rest have an iPod.  If they showed the Sync only with a Zune, the response might be:

• This looks cool, but I have an iPod
• What is a Zune?
• Maybe I should buy a car with an iPod connector
• Microsoft is at it again only creating technology that works with their stuff

The last hypothetical response is the one that concerns me the most.  By demoing the product from your competitor, you are showing that you have an open platform and that is a very good thing.

Interoperability as a Strategy

I think one of the strengths that Microsoft has now is a real focus on Interoperability of our products and an emerging story around true cross platform products (chief example being the Silverlight runtime and its sister product Moonlight).  This focus it not a "quick fix" and it is a journey rather than a destination.  We also have our past record of being less than interoperable to overcome.

So what can I do?

As an evangelist for Microsoft, I am on the "front line" with customers and the community on showing our platforms.  I am going to go out of my way to talk about our great stories around Interoperability.  Stories are nice, but I am going to take it a step further and try and always demonstrate Interoperability when doing a presentation.  If you see me showing a web application, make sure I pull it up in Firefox to show you that Microsoft has made sure that ASP.NET AJAX will work on the top 4 browsers (Safari, IE, Firefox and Opera) as an example.  If I show you Astroia, It would be great to show you the services consumed by .NET and then by Adobe AIR.  Next time I show Silverlight, make sure I open the application on Linux in Moonlight as well.  Now clearly there are limits to what I can show, I can not show a WPF application running on OSX, but I can show you WPF as a front end for a rails application running on OSX.  Look for this new focus at a demo near you soon.

Note:  This blog post was updating after publishing to fix a typo.  Hitting publish at midnight will do that to you!

As I mentioned in my last post I am not going to the MIX conference this year.  I am a little bummed about missing the big show.  To prepare myself for not attending the conference, I decided to put together a list of things that you can do if you (like me) are not going to the conference.

Watch the Keynotes live - The MIX team has confirmed that the keynote address will be streamed live over the Internet, so you don't actually have to go to Vegas to see it in real time.  The Monday keynote is from 9:30 AM - 12:00 noon Pacific time (so 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM for those of us in the Central Time Zone).   Tuesday's keynote is 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Pacific time (so 3:00 - 5:00 PM Central).

Prepare a VPC for all the new bits - If the last MIX conference and ScottGu's blog post about what the keynote will include are any indication, then we can expect to get access to lots of new bits to play with during MIX.  I always recommend that you install Beta and CTP software in a VPC (unless you have an extra machine or hard drive laying around).  So while you are watching the keynote, spend some time getting a new VPC ready (don't forget to run Windows Update on the VPC).

Take a Class at MIX University - Mix University is your online connection to some great hands on learning for the products that are showcased at MIX.  One of the best parts about this is that many of the classes are online right now.  You can watch videos, play with demos and take hands on labs on Expression, Silverlight, WPF, Virtual Earth and more!

Attend your favorite MIX sessions - Most sessions at MIX will be available online about 24 hours (give or take) after the session is delivered.  Go to http://sessions.visitmix.com/ and you will be able to search for the sessions and check them out.  Guess what?  Sessions for MIX06 and MIX07 are also out there, so you can check out great sessions from the past already.  Maybe you should check out the keynote from last year to get pumped up for this year's keynote.

Balance by Cherice used under Creative Commons

This is a highly personal blog post that is beyond what I would normally put on this blog.  I am sharing this because I think there might be some of the readers who have faced some of the things I am going to talk about, or might face it at some time in the future.  Also many of the people who read this blog are my friends and close co-workers and honestly this is the easiest way to tell some of them what I have to say.  I will return to my usual blog post style very soon.

Last week I got to attend Microsoft's Techready conference, which our twice a year our internal version of TechEd.  You go to Seattle for a week and get access to many of the product teams and the Technical Evangelists for training.  There are also a lot of side parties and events like Game Night and an attendee party.  You also get to hang out with your co-workers both local to you and those across the globe, many that you may have never met face to face before.  It is a great event, expect for the 5-7 days that you spend away from your family.  This last week was especially hard because Thursday was Valentines Day and it was also Jodie and I's 8th wedding anniversary.  It was a tough week and on Friday I was glad to be headed home.

I had a lay over in Minneapolis / St Paul on Friday for a couple hours and I called to say goodnight to the family.  During the conversation Jodie told me that my 7 year old son, Hunter, had been talking with his grandparents (my mom and dad) and told them:

Dad picked work over me, that is why he is in Seattle

So you can imagine how I felt: kicked in the gut to say the least.  I know that I did not pick work over him and that travel is a necessary part of of my job (and many people's jobs).  But that is very hard to explain to a seven year old and I guess to a child of any age until they are closer to being an adult.  Jodie had talked to him about it and tried to explain it to him.  I spent most of the day on Saturday with him, and it was nice.  But I honestly think that I need to make some changes in my priorities.  I am going to have to "dial back" how much time I spend on the road and more than that, I have to switch from "tuning out the family" to work (picture me on the couch with the laptop while the family is watching a move) to just flat out turning off work during family time.

I am still very committed to visiting customers and community groups in the district that I cover (Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana).  I just need to be smarter about when I take on a trip that will have me away from the family for long stretches of time and when I am home I need to unplug from work (I am very bad about that).  I am taking the first step by not going to MIX in March.  It is going to be a cool conference, but I can get a lot of the information on the web (I am putting a blog post together telling you how to get the most out of MIX without actually going to Vegas).

A Card Sort in Progress
By Yandle

I recently attended a session on on User Experience where they talked about the need for good UX, showed some good and bad examples of UX and shared some best practices.  I liked the session a lot (and not just because I won a copy of Don't Make me Think a book that I have wanted for quite some time).  One of the techniques for improving UX that they described got me thinking a lot and that is the process of Card Sort.

What is Card Sort?

Card Sort is where you put individual items that make up the system on a 3" x 5" index card and you have someone who is going to use the system in question organize them logically.  You do this several times with different stake holders and record the results.  Depending on the users the results can vary wildly, so you usually have to go through a process of reconciling the differences.  There is an alternate mechanism where you create a "straw man" card sort and see how your users go about finding something to see how the hierarchy needs to be adjusted.  Card sorts are not a new technique and the deliverable of the sort is usually a site map if the system in question is a web application.  It can also be used in the development of breadcrumbs and a lot of other ways to describe the "hierarchy" of the application.

Does Hierarchy Matter?

The reason I was so intrigued by this technique is that I can remember participating in these exercises and the painstaking detail that you can go through to create the content architecture and hierarchy of a system.  This is often a consensus building exercise, as there is no real correct answer to the hierarchy.  The other reason that I was thinking about it was I can't remember the last time that I actually followed a hierarchy in an web application and I even use hierarchies less in less in desktop applications as well.  When I want to find something that is not obvious I search for it.  Search is not perfect (I don't care what web search engine or desktop search engine  you are using), but it seems to get me there much faster than navigating most hierarchies.

Is it is hierarchy or the Interface?

We are sorely in need of a better way to navigate hierarchies.  I will pick on an internal site within Microsoft that I use frequently, but this problem seems to be pervasive to many applications.  The site in question follows this hierarch to get to most of the content that I need on the site:

Site > International > Regions > North America > United States > Central Region

That is just the beginning, there a several layers below that (but below that level is content that I am interested in).  The part that frustrates me is not the hierarchy itself (when I think globally I understand the need for it), but it is the JavaScript fly out menus that I have to navigate in order to get to a level that I am interested in.  It is usually quicker for me to use a search engine than it is to navigate the complexity of the hierarchy interfaces.

Is it just me?

I raised the question of hierarchy versus search during the UX presentation.  The presenter said that different users will search things in different ways.  He considered someone who uses the search instead of navigating the hierarchy is probably the sign of a power user of the system (as an aside I don't consider myself a power user).  So I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this.  Are hierarchies still important?  Do you navigate or search?  What are your thoughts on the the state of interfaces?  Leave a comment or contact me.