Jeff Veen, asked to judge an interactive design competition, rails against those still not on the cluetrain:
User-centered design vs. marketing and image Most sites had no sense whatsoever of how to engage a potential customer through the Web. Of all the consumer electronics sites I evaluated, for example, not one compared to sites like dpreview.com, a deep content web site dedicated to digital cameras. The focus was consistently on “hip and cutting-edge” music and imagery of attractive people having fabulous lives because of their recent purchase. When I buy a camera, I want to download the user manual and see sample photos taken at different qualities and resolution. Who on earth is doing marketing at these companies? Certainly no one who has taken pictures.