September 2002

The Second Bernies Awards

"The Bernies award is an encouragement to engineers and scientists to produce hypertexts." (Mark Bernstein)

Posted by PJB on September 27, 2002 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

How Can You Boost Your Web Site's Credibility?

"We have compiled 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a web site. These guidelines are based on three years of research that included over 4,500 people." (The Stanford Web Credibility Research)

Posted by PJB on September 27, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Iconic Communication

"The popularity of the WIMP interface opens up real possibilities for developing new forms of human communication based around images rather than text." (Intellect Publishers)

Posted by PJB on September 27, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User-Centered URL Design

"(...) in our imperfect world, users have come to depend on URLs to communicate key information as they navigate through the Web." (Jesse James Garrett - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on September 26, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Interaction

"We cognitive agents, humans and computers, currently interact with and process information in order to adapt meaningfully to the world, both directly and through our representations of the world, the latter built up in the coherent pictures we call common sense and science." (P. Duchastel - Information Design Atelier)

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

Getting from Research to Personas: Harnessing the Power of Data

"The usefulness of personas in defining and designing interactive products has become more widely accepted in the last few years, but lack of published information has, unfortunately, left room for a lot of misconceptions about how personas are created, and about what information actually comprises a persona." (Kim Goodwin - User Interface 7 East)

Posted by PJB on September 26, 2002 | Classification: Personas | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies

All sample chapters are in Adobe PDF format. (Ben Schneiderman - MIT Press)

Posted by PJB on September 25, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Standards for Distributed Information Architecture

"(...) there is currently no standard for allowing web sites to share data with respect to their categorization, organization, and labeling." (Jeff Lash - Digital Web Magazine)

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

Understanding Users through Brand Research: An Interview with Mitch McCasland

"User Interface Engineering's Christine Perfetti recently sat down with Mitch to talk about how account planning techniques can benefit designers." (C. Perfetti - User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts

"So you think you are an interaction designer? Not if you cannot answer all the following questions quickly and with authority." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

From Satisfaction to Delight

"The next evolution of our interactive pursuits ought to be toward emotion, specifically delight." (Parrish Hanna - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The New Computing

Ben Shneiderman on how designers can help people succeed. (ACM Ubiquity)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: Using Card Sorting for Web Classification Design

"Card sorting is an excellent approach to help you choose your classifications. It can help shortcut long, tedious and often fruitless debate." (Gerry McGovern)

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

The History of Hypertext

"The history of hypertext begins in July of 1945." (WWW Beyond The Basics - Shahrooz Feizabadi)

Posted by PJB on September 23, 2002 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Knowledge Management in Instructional Design

"This article will review what instructional designers do, describe knowledge management, and indicate how knowledge management is influencing instructional design." (J. Michael Spector and Gerald S. Edmonds - ERIC)

Posted by PJB on September 20, 2002 | Classification: Instructional design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Providing Help in your Application

"Making an application that meets the goals and expectations of its users is a pretty hard task - you really need to know a lot about the potential users." (Sven Ryen - Interface Mafia)

Posted by PJB on September 19, 2002 | Classification: TechCom | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Date Entry Usability on Hotel Websites

"This report reviews the designs used today for entering dates into hotel booking websites. It proposes a tested, easy-to-use, date-entry layout style and format that can be implemented on any hotel booking website." (Travel UCD)

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Inconspicuous Consumption: Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design

"(...) the retail environment, which has centuries of experience behind it, might have a few lessons to teach those of us in the emerging discipline of web design." (Saul Carliner - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Teaching Information Architecture to the Design Student

"(...) approach teaching IA to the designers in a very abstract way instead of giving specific rules and solutions." (James Spahr - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: A Workshop Approach to Classification Design

"To get a quality result, classification design requires a workshop approach." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Road to Usability

"(...) the lack of progress. Today's Web UI doesn't look much different than it did in 1994." (Tim Bray - New Architect)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Babyface Design for Mobile Devices and the Web

"Challenges include limited spatial and color resolution, limited font choice, limited space, and information visualization in the form of miniature charts, maps, and diagrams, particularly table/list navigation." (Aaron Marcus - Next Interface)

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

Mapping User-Interface Design to Cultural Dimensions

"Cultural anthropologists have identified fundamental dimensions of world cultures. User-interface designers have identified basic components of user interfaces." (Aaron Marcus - Next Interface)

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

Information Design Processes: Developing Accessible and Understandable Information

"Aren't all graphic design projects very similar?" (Karel van der Waarde - Icograda)

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

A Meta-Taxonomy for Diagram Research

"What is the common ground for a science of diagrams?" (Alan F. Blackwell and Yuri Engelhardt)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2002 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Contingency Design: Maximizing Online Profitability By Helping People When Things Go Wrong

"Contingency design is (...) the error messaging, graphic design, instructive text, information architecture, backend system, and customer service that helps visitors get back on track after a problem occurs." (37signals)

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

Use Usability to Best Advantage

"The issues affecting usability often have as much to do with your customers as with the design of the site." (Melaney Smith - ClickZ)

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

The Cranky User: Electronic publishing, Usability, and a Free Lunch

The need for open standards (Peter Seebach - IBM developerWorks)

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

What Are Topic Maps?

"(...) something that collects the key concepts in the organization's information and ties it all together, is nowhere to be found. This is where topic maps come in." (Lars Marius Garshol - XML.com)

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

GAIN 2.0

The Journal of Design and Business (American Institue of Graphic Arts)

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

UI Guidelines versus Usability

"(...) how usability testing should be used to find out if your product meets the needs of your users and allows them to do their jobs effectively." (MSDN)

Posted by PJB on September 12, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User Study Techniques in the Design and Evaluation of a Ubicomp Environment

"To be successful, ubicomp applications must be designed with their environment and users in mind and evaluated to confirm that they do not disrupt the users' natural workflow." (Sunny Consolvo et al. - UbiComp 2002 Lecture Notes)

Posted by PJB on September 12, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Network Society: A Shift in Cognitive Ecologies?

"By examining the psychodynamic effects on human cognition of the adoption of the technology of writing we can logically assess and contextualize the potential effect of the massification of networked information systems on our day-to-day thought processes." (Mathew Wall-Smith - First Monday Issue 7.9)

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

Site Navigation: A Few Helpful Definitions

"(...) collaborating with your team on the design of a navigation system can be difficult unless you all share the same vocabulary when talking about the different parts that make up the navigation UI." (Indy Young - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on September 11, 2002 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Evolution Trumps Usability Guidelines

"Designing a web site, either usable or unusable, is hard work." (Jared M. Spool - User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on September 10, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Lessons to be Learned

"There are serious problems with the way user experience-related programs are being taught." (George Olsen - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on September 10, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Building the Beast: Talking with Peter Morville

"When we wrote the first edition, we had relatively little experience. Most of our massive IA projects at Argus came afterwards." (George Olsen - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on September 10, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Switch to Mac OS X

A guide to key user experience differences between Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X (Apple - Mac OS X User Experience)

Posted by PJB on September 10, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: Carrying out a Classification Situation Analysis

"Classification design should follow the 'geniuses steal, beggars borrow' rule. Your job is not to come up with some innovative way to classify your content. It is to find a classification that works." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Humane Environment

"(...) a few of Raskin's ideas have been turned into usable, open-source, open-ended software so that you can try them for yourself." (Jef Raskin - SourceForge.net)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Being User-Centered When Implementing a UCD Process

"The goal of user-centered design focuses on the actual users of the product, but the users of a process are the members of the product development group itself." (Whitney Quesenbery)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

On Beyond Help: User Assistance and the User Interface

"Users are becoming increasingly aware that they need more efficient ways to find the information they need." (Whitney Quesenbery)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2002 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Flash Design

A guide to usability and design issues for the Flash developer (Anthony T. Dunn)

Posted by PJB on September 06, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Color, Contrast & Dimension in News Design

"The concise text and interactive exercises provide an unparalleled online tutorial and the successful content management makes it beautifully usable." (Communication Arts Interactive Annual 8)

Posted by PJB on September 06, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Search Interfaces

"This investigation is about the ordering and structure of the search fields themselves, not the results, which have been the topic of much discussion already." (Liz Danzico)

Posted by PJB on September 06, 2002 | Classification: HCI - Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Signs of the Times

"As an information designer, Mijksenaar's specialty is taming chaos." (Patricia Leigh Brown - The Age)

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

XML and the Second-Generation Web

"The combination of hypertext and a global Internet started a revolution. A new ingredient, XML, is poised to finish the job." (Jon Bosak & Tim Bray - Scientific American)

Posted by PJB on September 05, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Demystifying Metadata

"Creating metadata is really just techspeak for cataloging." (Marty Lucas - Mappa Mundi)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Interaction Design and Agile Methods

"(...) design-intensive approaches have at least paid lip service to the idea that users -- to the extent it was feasible to inject them into the design process -- could improve the outcome." (Jon Udell - O'Reilly Network)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (1) | Permalink | TrackBack

Bridging The Gap With Requirements Definition

"One effective method is to conduct a requirements definition phase before developing a new product." (Ryan Olshavsky - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Turning Requirements Into Product Definition

"(...) to work from a form and behavior specification that provides a final and coherent description of what the product is and how it should work." (Jonathan Korman - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete

"(...) the symptoms of disease and decay have already started to appear." (Jeffrey Zeldman - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Design

"From Ricci Street, an online MBA community at Medaille College, Buffalo, pioneering new media in the 21st century." (Douglas Anderson - Gizmos, Inc.)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Design: A Dynamic and Rapidly Growing Field

"Concerned with issues and techniques in the design and communication of messages, Information Design has been greatly impacted by the rise of electonic media." (Coventry School of Art and Design, UK)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Design That Works For Everyone

October 18-19, 2002 - Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, U.S.A (Adaptive Environments & Rhode Island School of Design)

Posted by PJB on September 03, 2002 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Interview: Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville on Information Architecture

"We didn't intend to write a longer book, but the truth is we've learned so much in the past four years, we simply had more to say." (Web Reference)

Posted by PJB on September 03, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack