[lishubert]

I think proper Information Architecture is extremely important especially in the startup land. Proper not necessarily meaning formal, structured, long winded process, but more along the lines of though of how this virtual place called the startup product should be structured, as much as one can in the crazy land of every changing, fast paced stuff.

I would agree that a lot of the stuff that is missing can be in a good tech-company designer's head! Totally with that.

[nullflux]

Sure. On the flip side of my argument there is also something to say: quite a few startup designers could learn a lot from following such a process at some point. There's a lot of "copy this guy's design, it converted well for his product!" that ends up leading people down roads that aren't exceptional for that product.

But can we say there's really a "devolution"? Is there not progress in not following Morville and Garrett to the letter? I find a lot of dogma in "UX" practices that make designers feel comfortable, and I just as often find many UX designers to overstate their impact on things because it is not as easily quantifiable as an engineer's impact.