A recent survey feature from The Economist magazine focused on a growing demand for “talent” around the world. While defined in varying contexts, one common theme identified in this special report was the idea that as the baby boomers retire, and as the knowledge-based economy continues to grow, there is, and will continue to be, an insufficient supply of talented workers to meet the increasing demands.

While reading these articles, I tried to relate the idea of “talent” to my world and my career track, and in doing this, the one big question that loomed was this: Where exactly does talent fit into the world of web professionals, specifically for those of us who specialize more in the communication of information versus the intuitive appeal of a design?

Although certainly not clear cut, there is a more obvious case to be made for spotting the talents of a web designer. Aesthetics are a strange thing to get your finger on, but you know a good design when you see one. There are tangible elements to design like colour theory, typography, ratios and the like, that all contribute towards the appeal of a design.

Beyond the looks, though, many of the best-designed websites out there are the result of a clearly thought out information organization and process flow. Sometimes this is the result of tried and true usability testing along with iterating through revisions and improvements. But sometimes this is the result of a talented information architect.

For a long time I was a firm believer that what most “bad” websites or web applications needed was “usability testing”. While this may be the case in some instances, these days I’m more inclined to believe that what these bad sites need is the work of a talented information architect / information designer / user experience specialist or what I’d be inclined to call a “usability designer” or “user experience designer”.

In his article, ia/recon, Jesse James Garrett touches on this same notion:

If you asked an editor at a magazine or a newspaper if the structure of her product had been tested with readers before its publication, she would laugh at you. To her, developing effective structures is a matter of exercising her professional judgment — judgment honed through years of trial and error and hard-won experience with her craft.

To her, the proof of her effectiveness in her discipline is her ability to exercise that judgment. To her, that judgment is the very reason for the existence of her role. To her, the idea of abandoning that professional judgment and recasting her role as a conduit through which research findings become structures would be simply absurd.

And you know what? She’s right.

And in my world, this is spot on.

Usability testing is something of a luxury. While it would be great to be able to conduct tests along with more extensive user research, the reality of my day to day world is that it’s the small decisions that are made everyday that affect the overall effectiveness, ease of use, and aesthetic appeal of a website or web application.

You can dedicate all the time and money in the world to fix up an interface and an information structure, but over time, with each passing change or update, that picture-perfect “information infrastructure” will change. It’s in these small daily changes where the site can diminish and wither into an unusable mess of information, but it’s also in these small daily changes where the site can grow and continue to thrive as well-organized, easy to use, and aesthetically appealing web presence.

What’s the difference? To me, it’s the talent of the people working with the information. It’s a talent that requires an intimate understanding of an organization’s communication goals, it also requires a deep appreciation for the way people interact with information in online mediums, along with the skill to work with the web technologies to create and maintain the overall design patterns that keep this standard consistent.

It may not be the easiest skill to define in concrete terms, but this ability – this talent – to organize and design information in a way that is easy for people to interact with is, and will continue to be, a valuable asset in the modern knoweldge-based economy where talent may be in short supply.