August 2002

Book Review of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition'

"(...) this book can teach almost anyone the beginnings of what they need to know about how to define a web site's structure to facilitate information retrieval." (James McNally - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 29, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Luke Wroblewski On The Pursuit of Simplicity

"(...) why is the process of making things easy so challenging, and what can we do not to stray from the path to simplicity?" (Luke Wroblewski - Design Interact)

Posted by PJB on August 29, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

What Is 'Usable' e-Learning?

"(...) most major producers of e-learning are not doing substantial usability testing, probably because most major purchasers and consumers of e-learning have no way of evaluating the degree to which a course is usable." (Michael Feldstein - eLearn Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Doors of Perceptions 7: Flow

The design challenge of pervasive computing (Nov. 14-16, 2002 - Amsterdam NL)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tom Moran on Everyday Adaptive Design

"The final plenary session at DIS2002, by Tom Moran, was a hugely important presentation (...)" (Dan Hill - cityofsound/blog)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2002 | Classification: Adaptation | Comments (0) | Permalink

Get ROI From Design 

"(...) some examples on how to measure ROI on design investments and ways to prioritize fixes." (A Forrester Report 2001)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Flow: The Optimal Experience

"(...) we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like." (Michael Cole)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tablet PCs Will Provide New User Interfaces

"Presuming that Microsoft does a good job at developing and integrating the handwriting recognition and voice technologies, we believe these new interfaces will help drive the emergence of a viable tablet form-factor market." (IT insights from Meta Group - IT World.com)

Posted by PJB on August 27, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Shall We Dance?

Ten Lessons Learned from Netscape's Flirtation with Open Source UI Development (Peter Trudelle - CHI2002)

Posted by PJB on August 27, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

The indie life: Talking with Louis Rosenfeld

"We often see interaction design and IA compared. Let's acknowledge once and for all that information architecture is the more difficult of the two" (Paul Nattress - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on August 27, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

International Conference: InfoDesign ed 2002

Sept. 16-17, 2002 - University of Reading, UK (International Institute for Information Design)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink

Smarter Content Publishing

Building a semantic website to increase the efficiency and usability of publishing systems (Victor Lombardi - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Usability Professionals: Stay Prepared for Business Waves

"(...) how you can prepare for the uncertainties of the waves of the current work environment, both how to ride the wave and how to handle it if you fall off your surfboard." (Anne M. Pauker - The UPA Voice)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Design Journal 1979-2001: Table of Contents

Building a knowledge-base for the practice of Information Design (Karel van der Waarde - IDJ)

Posted by PJB on August 23, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Architecture in JASIST: Just Where Did We Come From?

Introduction to the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Special Issue on Information Architecture (Andrew Dillon - JASIST 53.10)

Posted by PJB on August 23, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why XP and UX Have Something in Common

"It's true your initial design may not be perfect the first time, which is why UX works best when you take an iterative approach - and that's where things like card sorting exercises, paper prototyping, etc are just as necessary as the programming prototypes." (George Olsen - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Business Maps: Topic Maps Go B2B!

"(...) how topic maps can be used to help solve interoperability problems between XML B2B vocabularies." (Marc de Graauw - XML.com)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Design for Community: An Interview with Derek M. Powazek

"I advise clients to never call their sites 'communities'." (Christine Perfetti - User Interface 7 East)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

IAnything Goes: The Age of Information Architecture

"This month's issue of Digital Web focuses entirely on information architecture, and this is the first monthly column titled "IAnything Goes" which will address information architecture on its own." (Jeff Lash - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

GNOME: Human Interface Guidelines

"(...) how to create applications that look right, behave properly, and fit into the GNOME user interface as a whole. It is written for interface designers, graphic artists and software developers who will be creating software for the GNOME environment." (GNOME Developer's Site)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Flash Strikes Back: Creating Powerful Web Applications

"(...) Flash delivers the power and flexibility to become a serious contender in the web application space." (Christine Perfetti - UI Engineering)

Posted by PJB on August 21, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Experience Working with HCI Folk

"(...) programmers are relatively open to usability input, especially as it often reduces the amount of implementation they have to do (especially trivial implementation)." (Joel on Software Forum)

Posted by PJB on August 21, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Business Maps: Topic Maps Go B2B!

"(...) how topic maps can be used to help solve interoperability problems between XML B2B vocabularies." (Marc de Graauw - XML.com)

Posted by PJB on August 21, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Recording Screen Activity During Usability Testing

"A visual record of these mouse movements, keystrokes, and other activities is most useful for usability testing." (Karl Fast - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

A hyperlink knows no depth

Unexpected ramifications of deep linking (NUblog)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2002 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Overload: You Need To Get Organized

"Information overload has striking similarities to pollution." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on August 19, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Let Users Control Font Size

"Tiny text tyrannizes users by dramatically reducing task throughput. IE4 had a great design that let users easily change font sizes; let's get this design back in the next generation of browsers." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on August 19, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

KartOO Meta Search

"If there were a beauty contest for search engines, Kartoo - developed in France by cousins Laurent and Nicolas Baleydier - would win the crown." (Contact KartOO)

Posted by PJB on August 19, 2002 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink

Top 10 Design Problems

"Cognitive overload happens when the user is bombarded with too much unprioritized or unfiltered information that is typically not needed for the current task (...)" (Michael Moore - Health InfoDesign)

Posted by PJB on August 16, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Lifelike Computer Characters: the Persona project at Microsoft Research

"(...) exploring social user interfaces that employ an explicitly anthropomorphic character to interact with the user in a natural spoken dialogue." (Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group - Microsoft Research)

Posted by PJB on August 16, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Collaborative Information Retrieval

"The goal of this study is to obtain a better understanding of social aspects of information retrieval in a variety of workplace settings." (UW Information School)

Posted by PJB on August 16, 2002 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink

As We May Think

This article was originally published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. (Vannevar Bush - The Atlantic Monthly)

Posted by PJB on August 15, 2002 | Classification: Classics | Comments (0) | Permalink

InfoGraphics Lab

"Integration of GIS and graphic design tools and techniques for geographic data access, analysis and cartographic presentation are the primary focus of the InfoGraphics Lab's research." (Dept. of Geography - University of Oregon)

Posted by PJB on August 15, 2002 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

A Usability Test of Web-based User Assistance

"We created five versions of the registration process, and used the test to compare the users' success with each version." (Matthew Ellison - WinWriters)

Posted by PJB on August 15, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Map-Based Horizontal Navigation in Educational Hypertext

"There are a number of reasons for the horizontal navigation becoming practically extinct." (Peter Brusilovsky and Riccardo Rizzo - Journal of Digital Information 3.1)

Posted by PJB on August 15, 2002 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink

An interview with Jeffrey Veen and Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path

"Organizing information in a way that is intuitive and accessible to your users, providing navigation and interaction to support that organization, and participating in user research to derive those user goals... that's what we'd been doing, though with a much heaver emphasis on visual design than what I typically see in the IA community." (Meryl K. Evans - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 14, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why Usability Matters

"(...) reading text is essentially unnatural. Nobody is born knowing how." (Monica Moses - poynter.org)

Posted by PJB on August 14, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Beyond Myth and Metaphor: The Case of Narrative in Digital Media

"If we compare the field of digital textuality to other areas of study in the humanities, its most striking feature is the precedence of theory over the object of study." (Marie-Laure Ryan - Game Studies)

Posted by PJB on August 13, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Design of Signage System

"Symbols usually refer to the graphic motif and logo to the way the name is written, but in some cases they are difficult to separate/distinguish." (Ravi Poovaiah - International Design Centre at IIT Bombay)

Posted by PJB on August 13, 2002 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

Deliverables that Clarify, Focus, and Improve Design

"Concept maps, wireframes, storyboards, and flow-maps speak to different audiences at different stages of the development cycle." (Richard Fulcher et al. - UPA 2002)

Posted by PJB on August 13, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Improving Business Through User-Centered Design

An Interview with UCD Innovators Scott Isensee, Carol Righi and Karel Vredenburg (Kerrie Green - WebWord)

Posted by PJB on August 13, 2002 | Classification: Interviews - UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

UI Patterns and Techniques

"There's nothing new here." (Jennifer Tidwell)

Posted by PJB on August 13, 2002 | Classification: Patterns | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Necessity for Information Space Mapping for Information Retrieval on the Semantic Web

"The Semantic Web offers exciting possibilities for information retrieval." (G. B. Newby - Information Research 7.4)

Posted by PJB on August 12, 2002 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink

Links and Power: The Political Economy of Linking on the Web

"Links have become the currency of the Web. With this economic value they also have power, affecting accessibility and knowledge on the Web." (Jill Walker)

Posted by PJB on August 12, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Information Architecture Knowledge Base

"(...) devoted to knowledge accumulated about the design of information spaces. The material in this site is divided into cases, templates, and principles. It is being developed with a view to create a knowledge-based information space design environment." (Information Architecture: Shaping Knowledge into Form)

Posted by PJB on August 07, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

The JAIR Information Space

"An information space is a type of information design in which representations of information objects are situated in a principled space. In a principled space location and direction have meaning, so that mapping and navigation become possible." (Information Architecture - MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory)

Posted by PJB on August 07, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Navigational Issues in the Design of On-Line Self-Administered Questionnaires: The Effect of Training and Familiarity

"Dual navigation refers to the act of navigating information records to retrieve specific information, while simultaneously navigating through the survey." (K.L. Norman et al. - HCI Lab. University of Maryland)

Posted by PJB on August 06, 2002 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink

Questions for Robin Kinross

"You've been consistent in going to the Netherlands to produce recent Hyphen books. (...) Why do you choose to go abroad to produce books?" (Andy Crewdson - New Series)

Posted by PJB on August 05, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Business Models for Information Design and Development Departments

"Based on observations of information design and development departments in practice, I propose that six types of models govern information design and development groups." (Saul Carliner)

Posted by PJB on August 05, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Zooming User Interfaces

"These interfaces create an intuitive information landscape - the user moves 'further away' to get an overview, or "closer" for more detail, while keeping a sense of orientation and structure that traditional 'pop-up' windows and dialogues can't match." (NYU Media Research Lab)

Posted by PJB on August 04, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Inform Graphic Design

Combining creativity and information for effective communications. (informativity)

Posted by PJB on August 04, 2002 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Design

A Select Bibliography (Mantex)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Is Your Help System Usable?

"(...) there is a shift from the technology to what I call the psychology behind the technology. This shift to end-user concerns and usability issues is essential for effective help system design." (Donna Timpone)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Visual Metaphors

"The use of Visual Metaphors is one of the most common ways of elaborating interfaces and visual representations. However, not all the developers think the same way." (J.C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis: The digital magazine of InfoVis.net)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Humane Environment

"But once you have learned THE, you will wish that all your software had at least some of its interface features. This we guarantee; it happens every time." (Jef Raskin - SourceForge Humane)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Toward a New Breed of Computers

"Jef Raskin, 'father of the Macintosh', looks at how to build a better computer user interface." (Josh Lawrence - TechTV)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Extreme & Radical User Interfaces: Exploring New Interaction Paradigms

"The world of computer-based interaction is changing again." (NPUC 2002 - IBM Research)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink

User Interface, User Experience -- Where's It Going?

"Maybe the best user interface is none at all (...)" (Dan Gillmor - Sillicon Valley News)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Backlash against Jakob Nielsen and What it Teaches Us

"While the Web involves a convergence of presentation, content and behaviour, Nielsen has historically taken a fairly narrow view that's focused around solely functionality." (George Olsen - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Stanford University Interactivity Lab

"Our goal is to develop new devices, techniques, and theories that support the design of fluent interaction in a ubiquitous computing environment." (Stanford Computer Science Department)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Emergent Architecture

"(...) the science of information architecture is still incredibly young, and we are only scratching the surface of the possibilities" (Eric Scheid - IAWiki)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

An Information Design Timeline

"(...) I didn't say *the* information design timeline!" (Beth Mazur - The STC Information Design SIG)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition

"Beta chapters may contain errors such as broken links, missing images, empty tables, and incomplete code." (Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville - O'Reilly and Associates)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink