March 2002

Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice

"Although communities of practice develop organically, a carefully crafted design can drive their evolution. In this excerpt from a new book, the authors detail seven design principles. The payoff? Knowledge management that works." (Etienne Wenger et al. - Harvard Business School Press)

Posted by PJB on March 28, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Taking the 'you' out of user: My experience using personas

"You describe them, in a surprising amount of detail, and then design your system for them." (Meg Hourihan - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on March 27, 2002 | Classification: Personas | Comments (0) | Permalink

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

A Review By Austin Henderson (ACM Ubiquity)

Posted by PJB on March 27, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (2) | Permalink

Summit Beginnings

"We have gathered our notes and images together in this highlights of the two day event." (Boxes and Arrows)

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

Art, Science, and Magic: What Really Happens During User-Centered Design?

"One of the great debates in user-centered design centers on whether UCD is an art or a science." (Carol Righi - TaskZ)

Posted by PJB on March 27, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Dan Brown's Portfolio

"At the IA Summit in March 2002, I presented a poster defining wireframes and exploring their pros and cons." (Green Onions)

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

IsaViz: A Visual Authoring Tool for RDF

"(...) a visual environment for browsing and authoring RDF models represented as graphs." (W3C)

Posted by PJB on March 25, 2002 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink

Company and Customer Insight for Information Architects

"(...) it's critical that IAs be involved in deeply understanding organizations and their customers." (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on March 25, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

From Construct to Structure: Information Architecture from Mental Models

"In practicing user-centered design, there are few tools for making that leap from user research into the design process." (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on March 25, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

What is an Architectural Dimension?

"Dimensions are the key features or aspects that are used to describe or understand information." (Roger Evernden - 4thresource)

Posted by PJB on March 25, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Presentations from the 3rd Annual ASIST Information Architecture Summit

More will be added as they become available. (ASIS&T 2002 IA Summit)

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

IA Column: On Optimism, Credentials and Ethics

"(...) information architecture needs more than a loosely knit band of adherents rallying around the label." (Andrew Dillon - ASIST Bulletin 28.3)

Posted by PJB on March 21, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Random Comments on the 3rd ASIS&T IA Summit

"The IA Summit, held in Baltimore last weekend, was a smashing success (...)" (Louis Rosenfeld)

Posted by PJB on March 21, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Next Generation of Interfaces: Responsibility and Control

ASIST 2001 plenary debate between Ben Shneiderman and James Hendler (Steve Hardin - ASIST Bulletin 28.3)

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

Attendee-Centered Conference Design

"Clearly identifying an attendee's expectations before the event, and an awareness that seemingly small things can have a disproportional impact on a session (...)" (Meg Hourihan - O'Reilly Network)

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Self-Organization and Identification of Web Communities

Despite the decentralized, unorganized, and heterogeneous nature of the web, where millions of individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, and goals operate independently, the study shows that the structure of the web self-organizes into communities of related information." (Gary Flake et al. - NEC)

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Design Recast Symposium

Jan van Eyck Academie - April 12-14, 2002

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink

Hypertext Structure as the Event of Connection

This paper (...) won the SIGWEB Ted Nelson Newcomer Award. (Adrian Miles - JODI 2.3)

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

Linking in Context

"This paper explores the idea of dynamically adding multi-destination links to Web pages, based on the context of the pages and users, as a way of assisting Web users in their information finding and navigation activities." (Samhaa R. El-Beltagy et al. - JODI 2.3)

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

Designing A New Information Architecture

An interview with Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path (User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Personas: Exploring the Real Benefits of Imaginary People

"A persona is a concrete representation of a target user of a product; an imaginary person derived from user research and described in rich detail." (Tamara Adlin et al. - CHIplace)

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2002 | Classification: Personas | Comments (0) | Permalink

What's in a name?

Or, what exactly do we call ourselves?" (Adam Greenfield & George Olsen - Boxes and Arrows)

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

TED 2002 Conference Weblog Reports

"(...) an eccentric mix of presentations and performances, celebrities and civilians." (David Weinberger - JOHO)

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

Sticky Sites on a Shoestring: One Year Ago ...

"I hoped to have a budget that would cover: A series of IA studies with a firm like Argus $300,000. (...)" (The Rogue Librarian)

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

Got Usability? Talking with Jakob Nielsen

"Design is creating something that has a purpose in life; Art is creating for the sake of creating." (Chad Thornton - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Guide To Ethnography

"Ethnography is a fascinating technique to do research on human behaviour." (Poor But Happy)

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Empirically Validated Web Page Design Metrics

"A quantitative analysis of a large collection of expert-rated web sites reveals that page-level metrics can accurately predict if a site will be highly rated." (Melody Y. Ivory et al. - ACM SIGCHI '01)

Posted by PJB on March 13, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

ASIS&T 2002 IA Summit 2002

Conference Full Schedule (American Society for Information, Science and Technology - Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

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

Boxes and Arrows: Because We Can

"(...) the definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape." (About Boxes and Arrows)

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

What Is Information Design?

"Information design has a much broader focus than the appearance of information." (Saul Carliner)

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

Taxonomy, Classification, and Metadata Resources

Set of Online Resources (Scottish Electronic Staff Development Library)

Posted by PJB on March 12, 2002 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Kevin Carey: Ambassador for Information Design

"His mission is to explain why information presents people with problems and what to do about it." (Usability News)

Posted by PJB on March 11, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

User-Centered Design For Different Project Types: Part 1

"Much has been written about methodologies for designing software that meets user needs. But little emphasis has been placed on what types of activities are truly essential in achieving these goals." (Jack Scanlon & Lynn Percival - IBM developersWork)

Posted by PJB on March 11, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Immersed in Structure: The Meaning and Function of Taxonomies

"Taxonomies are an increasingly popular method of organizing information in a digital environment." (Katherine C. Adams - internetworking)

Posted by PJB on March 10, 2002 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Evaluating Web Information and Design

"(...) methods for critically evaluating the content and design of existing Internet document can also usefully inform the production of new documents." (George McMurdo - Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)

Posted by PJB on March 08, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Building Taxonomies

Sample Chapter from 'Unlocking Knowledge Assets' (Susan Conway & Char Sligar)

Posted by PJB on March 07, 2002 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Wurman's Last Waltz at TED12

"A star-studded crowd gathers in Monterey as the annual conference prepares for a major transition." (Gary A. Bolles - Business 2.0)

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

Visual Journalism

A Guide for New Media Professionals (Christopher R. Harris & Paul Martin Lester)

Posted by PJB on March 06, 2002 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface

"(...) users will more and more expect to be able to search automated information stores in ways that are comfortable and familiar to them." (Marcia J. Bates - Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of California of LA)

Posted by PJB on March 06, 2002 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink

IA/Recon 6/6

Secrets and Messages (Jesse James Garrett)

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

Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines

"(...) authoritative information on the theory behind the Macintosh 'look-and-feel' and the practice of using individual interface components." (Apple Computer)

Posted by PJB on March 05, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Perceptual User Interfaces 2001 Workshop

"(...) to make the user interface more natural and compelling by taking advantage of the ways in which people naturally interact with each other and the world, both verbally and non-verbally." (PUI Workshops)

Posted by PJB on March 04, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink

UI Expert Jef Raskin Talks Skins

"(...) which is better: the ability to customize an ideal desktop for a platform, or the use of a less-than-ideal desktop in order to achieve consistency." (Kelly McNeill - osOpinion)

Posted by PJB on March 04, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Fighting (with) Hierarchies

"Hierarchies are a way to structure complex systems, such as organizations, technical devices, or software." (Gerd Waloszek - Usability Engineering Center of SAP AG)

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

The Visual Display of Quantitative XML

"This article discusses the creation of useful graphical presentations of quantitative XML data using XSLT and SVG." (Fabio Arciniegas - O'Reilly's XML.COM)

Posted by PJB on March 01, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Jakob Nielsen Told Me To Do It

"(...) the man widely regarded as the king of Net usability, whose rules of Web design have been followed by millions of people" (Dan Oliver - .Net)

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

Communicating Health Messages Effectively

"(...) a mutual support group that aims to raise the profile of design as an integral part of the UK National Health Service." (Designers in Health)

Posted by PJB on March 01, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink

Create Usable Web Sites

"(...) giving users the experience they want and expect. Good design is what it's all about." (Jane Falla - Advisor)

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