Web Producers

[The Big Glee Bopper]

On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Eric H Schnell wrote:

>    The process of editing a Web site/document is very much like
> a multimedia production. The use digital imaging and audio in a Web 
> site requires skills which are more akin to media production than
> to traditional Librarianship. (Unless you had a few media courses
> in Library Schoool) We have Radio Producers, Television Producers,
> Movie Producers, etc.  Since the Web is certainly a new medium,
> how about Web Producer?

If you look at radio, TV, film, almost any of the _electronic_ media you
find that they have producers but also _directors_ who tend to be the
artists. The reason most web sites are almost unbearable in terms of
enjoyable experience is because they a build by programmers and librarians
who are _not_ also artists. I say the core requirements for a web director
are a variety of courses in: graphic design, video, story-telling/script
writing, programming at least two languages, usability evaluation,
knowledge organization, and game design. I don't think it matters what 
school this core is taught in just that it is taught.

Paul Heckel in the Elements of Friendly Software Design" 2nd ed. 1991
	"Movies did not flourish until the engineers lost control 
	to artists -- or more precisely, to the communication craftsmen." 
	p. 4

There are two illusions in _information science_ the first is that this 
is all about _information_ when it is probably more about _communication_. 
The other illusion is that it is a _science_ when it, like computer science, 
is more an _art_.

--Thom