In most Oz corporations responsibility for their Web presence has been given over to the Information Technology department. Hey, it’s computers right? So it’s gotta be IT! Yeah baby!
Fatal mistake. IT departments’ focus is on maintaining the technology required to deliver information. They’re staffed by programmers and run by programmers. Programmers are neither communicators nor designers. They’re programmers, for God’s sake. So corporate Web sites become exercises in the application of technology, not in communication.
Customers don’t give a shit about nifty new IT technologies. They want to communicate, they want to learn, and they want to discover. They don’t want to be impressed by a funky rollover effect. They are not getting what they want.
The results of a survey about IT employment prospects was published in Tuesday’s newspaper. Prospects are down all over the IT sector, but programmers are still doing OK. Designers are the least likely to find a job right now. Content creators are never even mentioned in these surveys.
IT sector job ads stem from IT departments by way of IT recruitment firms, most of whose staff do not have a clue what IT is, or anything much else for that matter. There was one job ad for a Web designer that day. It was defined as a hardcore programming job. Not even mention of Webcentric programming languages such as JavaScript, ASP, JSP, PHP, Java and so on.
So it seems IT perceives Web Design as a traditional programming function. No wonder the vast majority of corporate websites are shit.
NOTE: Apologies to all the enlightened, sophisticated and well-rounded programmers I know. My gripe is not with you, Davide.
10:13:34 AM 
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