October 2002

Book Review: The Elements of the User Experience

"There is something gratifying about picking up a book by an author whose concept is so elegantly displayed, with a message so clear, that you want to share it with everyone you know." (Elisa K. Miller - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on October 30, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Appliances Herald the New Usability

"This new and emerging area – appliance design – is focused on the development of devices which resemble home appliances in their narrow range of function and ease of use, but resemble computing devices in that they deal with information-based tasks." (Peter Thomas - Usability News)

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

Grokker: Breaking The Page Barrier

"The application quickly converts data, documents, records, and search results into contextually relevant, graphical knowledge maps." (Groxis, Inc.)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web

"Wodtke argues that good site design is complex, nuanced, and context-specific." (Ryan Olshavsky - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Talking with Jesse James Garrett

"A journalist and an information architect face exactly the same problem: how to give shape to the pile of information in front of you in a way that will make it easy and natural for people to comprehend." (Erin Malone - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

"(...) guidelines for designing user agents that lower barriers to Web accessibility for people with disabilities (visual, hearing, physical, cognitive, and neurological)." (W3C)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2002 | Classification: Accessibility - Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

PhotoSemantic Information Architecture

"As an Information Architect with quite a bit of large scale website IA experience, I wanted to include a section on IA for both discussion and resource purposes." (Miguel Graça)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

XUL Defines New User Interface Options

XUL is a new Netscape/Mozilla XML dialect that describes the elements of a traditional user interface. Faster and cleaner than HTML, it might just be the quickest way yet to code a UI. (Nigel McFarlane - DevX)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2002 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

"(...) design principles for creating accessible Web sites." (W3C)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2002 | Classification: Accessibility - Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites

"Even small holiday decorations can increase joy of use and make websites feel more current and more connected to users' lives and physical environment. The key is to commemorate without detracting from your users' main reasons for visiting the site." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

Center for Digital Storytelling

"(..) a non-profit project development, training, and research organization dedicated to assisting people in using digital media to tell meaningful stories from their lives." (About CDS)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2002 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Making the Visual Verbal

"Many people who do not consider themselves writers are intimidated by the thought of writing." (John Paul Caponigro - Communication Arts)

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

Promoting Visual Thinking

"Works of art have no productive function in our economy. Art is politically dangerous. Contemporary art is too difficult to understand." (Wendy Richmond - Communication Arts)

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

Shneidermann Demands Computing Renaissance

"His goal is systems that are usable, universal (...) and useful." (Usability News)

Posted by PJB on October 25, 2002 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Myth of User-Centered Information Architecture

"One of the first things you learn about information architecture is that your Web site needs to be organized the way users think it should be organized. Unfortunately, this never happens. In fact, it should never happen." (Jeff Lash - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on October 24, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Client Centered Design

"Although a Web site development team generally includes a usability expert (...) user centered design is the responsibility of every single member of the team, programmers no less than graphical designers, database wizards no less than usability experts." (Peter-Paul Koch - Digital Web Magazine)

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

Metadata and Taxonomies for a More Flexible Information Architecture

"The presentation (...) illustrates how an information architecture based on taxonomies and metadata can be used to make a number of basic Web site and Intranet functions more flexible and dynamic." (Amy J. Warner - Lexonomy)

Posted by PJB on October 24, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture - Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Introduction to XFML Concepts

XFML is an XML language to share hierarchical faceted metadata. (Peter van Dijck - Evolt)

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

VoiceUI

The Art and Science of Voice Dialogue Design (Sam Horodezky)

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

It's Everywhere and Nowhere, Baby!

"(...) 2002 seems to have been a good year for IA." (Andrew Dillon - ASIS&T Bulletin 9.1)

Posted by PJB on October 24, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Limits of Usability are Challenged Again

"Definitions of usability are part of the problem (...). They not only influence how usability specialists market themselves, but also colour public perception of the profession." (Louise Ferguson - Usability News)

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

Transforming Unstructured Content into Meaningful XML

"Most people who have thought about XML at a high level haven’t thought too much about the problems inherent in converting unstructured content into a meaningful XML format." (Rizwan Virk - CambridgeDocs)

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

Seductive Design for Web Sites

"We used to think it was impossible to design a web site that successfully supported both information retrieval and browsing. We now believe a site can do both — but only when designers know what their audience is interested in." (User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on October 23, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Transitional Volatility in Web Navigation

Usability Metrics and User Behavior (David Robert Danielson)

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

The Dynamic Duo of Information Architecture

An Interview with Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld (John Rhodes - WebWord)

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

Building Online Communities

"The Internet exists to improve communication. Communities can grow anywhere communication occurs." (chromatic - O'Reilly Network)

Posted by PJB on October 22, 2002 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Politics of User Experience

"(...) a few of the more ubiquitous political influences, most of which are not seen outside of government." (Steve Fleckenstein - Boxes and Arrows)

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

The Elements of User Experience

"There is probably no better book on the market that so clearly and rationally covers the entire area of user experience." (Jeff Lash - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Ergonomics Standards & Legislation

"Getting to grips with national and international standards in HCI is more of a black art than a science." (System Concepts)

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

Enemies of Usability

"I know lots of usability advocates who speak the language of business quite fluently." (Peter Morville - Semantic Studios)

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

A Taxonomy Primer

"Taxonomies, thesauri, classification systems, synonym rings. (...) All of the terms mentioned above are controlled vocabularies." (Lexonomy)

Posted by PJB on October 21, 2002 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Meet The Elements 

Sample chapter from 'Elements of User Experience' (Jesse James Garrett)

Posted by PJB on October 18, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

First Principles: Some Rules of Thumb, and Some Thumbing of Rules 

Sample chapter from 'Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web' (Christina Wodtke)

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

Educational Programs in Information Design

"More than graphic design, more than technical writing, but not really in the information architecture or interaction design space, the ideal information design program combines coursework that may touch all of these fields." (STC Information Design SIG)

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

Interview: Marissa Mayer - Product Manager of Google

"(...) how Google creates and improves its customer experience." (Mark Hurst - GoodExperience)

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

Usability Must Die

Usability has grown into a monster. (Chris McEvoy)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus Version 2.0

"An experiment in language and interface, Plumb Design's Visual Thesaurus is both an artistic exploration and a tool to explore, study, and analyze the structure of language." (Plump Design)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2002 | Classification: Visual design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Beauty is Only Screen Deep

"People use the web to buy things, find information, make contacts, and what they notice is whether they can successfully buy things, find information, and make contacts." (Sarah Horton - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2002 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Back to the User: Creating User-Focused Websites

Collective Lessons Learned from Listening to and Observing Users (Tammy Sachs - Digital Web)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2002 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Color in Scientific Visualization

"The goal of scientific visualization is to enhance scientific productivity by utilizing human visual perception and computer graphics techniques." (HPSC Group of the University of Colorado)

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

Interview with Taylor and Pennington from Red Hat's UI Team

"(...) the new unified UI on Red Hat 8 was the talk of the town for the whole summer since the Limbo betas." (OSNews)

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

Making Online Information Usable

"Usability problems fall on a continuum. On one end are the nuisance problems, like typos or incorrect grammar. Users may not notice these issues, and can ignore them if they do." (User Interface Engineering)

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

An Interview with Peter Merholz and Nathan Shedroff on User-Centered Design

"The primary benefit of user-centered design is that, when performed well, it ensures that the product is useful, usable, and meaningful to the end-user." (Meryl K. Evans - Digital Web)

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

Mac User Interface Design for New Developers

"The key to usability for Mac applications is consistency with existing Mac applications." (Brook Conner - O'Reilly's Mac OS X Conference 2002 Presentations)

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

TextArc, Visualising Text

"Visualising the structure of the raw text of a document helps greatly in its analysis and compliments techniques like computational linguistics by using the pattern finding capability of the human brain." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

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

Faceted Metadata Search and Browse

"Metadata is information about information: more precisely, it's structured information about resources." (Avi Rappoport - Search Tools)

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

Hypertext Links: Whither Thou Goest, and Why

"This paper explores the semantic and rhetorical principles underlying link development and proposes a systematic, comprehensive classification of link types that would be of use to researchers and Web production teams." (Claire Harrison - FirstMonday 7.10)

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

Global Concerns and How Artificial Intelligence Will Effect Information Design

"What matters is that information designers know how to apply the applications to their quest for high quality knowledge experiences." (Peter Simlinger & Ludwig Haskins - infodesign ed 2002)

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

Persuasive Architecture: How to Get Your Visitors to Take Action

"Architecture as a discipline is a merger of science and art, joining the breadth of engineering and aesthetics with human use." (grokdotcom)

Posted by PJB on October 08, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Ranganathan for IAs

An introduction to the thought of S.R. Ranganathan for information architects. (Mike Steckel - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 08, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Best IA Tool You Never Heard Of

"A good IA tool should work like your brain. Is there one? Yes. It's called Tinderbox." (Sean Carton - ClickZ)

Posted by PJB on October 08, 2002 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Designed for Life

"Don Norman on (...) why gadgets in the real world are still so hard to use, and why computers need emotions." (Wendy M. Grossman - New Scientist)

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville Interview

"(...) we invested in growth at precisely the wrong time." (since1968)

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Improving Business Through User-Centered Design

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

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2002 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Overload: It's Time To Take Your Time

"The technology industry has a blind and zealous faith in speed and innovation. Society in general has bought into the change is good mantra." (Gerry McGovern)

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

14 Principles of Polite Apps

"Software should respond to your obvious needs, not just your commands. Use these 14 principles to create accommodating software." (Alan Cooper - DevX)

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Common Principles: A Usable Interface Design Primer

"When users perform a transaction or action, their cognition is often split between learning and operating the system or user interface." (Rick Oppedisano - UPA)

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2002 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack