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Behind the Headlines: An era of design and IT unity
The emergence of the icon-based vortal, or vertical portal, is a welcome advance in the presentation of information on the internet, marking an era in which designers will be reintegrated into the fabric of technology.

By Deborah Schofield

Published: Friday 30 March 2001

Speaking on silicon.com's Behind the Headlines programme, Richard Sykes, chairman of Morgan Chambers, said that vortal development using icons rather than words and cumbersome file structures is part of a "steady evolution towards designing for things that people can actually use".

According to Rene Carayol, CEO of Voodoo, with the enormous amount of data now available on the internet, "you need to be able to slice it and dice it a little better".

Carayol pointed out that designers must become more integrated into technological development.

"It is only recently that Ericsson, the mobile phone producer, has brought a designer into their organisation," he said. "Ericsson have got fantastic technology, but it looks like crap and it always has."

The internet has been hampered by this fundamental flaw, with a vast amount of important data going to waste due to its inaccessibility. "All this [the vortal] is, to me, is someone making it easier for me to use," said Carayol.

Morgan Chambers' Sykes said: "What worries me about the term 'vortal' is that it sounds like another bunch of techies found another techie word. I would like to see the IT world begin to be flooded by people whose qualifications are as designers. Put the techies back beneath the stairs where they belong."

Other guests on the panel agreed, but were unanimous in their affirmation that the vortal will never replace the portal.

Dr Jacques Hale, director of methods research at the Butler Group, drew a comparison with graphic trading displays used on stock market floors. Designed with a specific industry use in mind, they are ideally suited to their purpose but not universally applicable. Similarly, he said, one vortal will never satisfy the needs of a global e-oriented population.