October 2003

An Interview with Joe Clark

"I use the same definition of accessibility everywhere: accommodating features a person cannot change or cannot change easily." (Craig Sala - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on October 30, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

How Much Information? 2003

"We estimate that the amount of new information stored on paper, film, magnetic, and optical media has about doubled in the last three years. Information explosion? We estimate that new stored information grew about 30% a year between 1999 and 2002. Paperless society? The amount of information printed on paper is still increasing, but the vast majority of original information on paper is produced by individuals in office documents and mail, not in formally published titles such as books, newspapers and journals." (School of Information Management & Systems - University of California at Berkeley)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Controlled Vocabularies: A Glosso-Thesaurus

"(...) the glossary is itself a controlled vocabulary, more specifically a thesaurus. So you will find all of the standard features of any thesaurus: broader, narrower, and variant term indicators, as well as scope notes. In this case, however, the scope notes provide the definition of the particular glossary term being presented." (Karl Fast et al. - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Don't Test Users, Test Hypotheses

"I find that by basing hypotheses on a site or application's goals, I can integrate usability testing into the design process. By thinking in terms of hypotheses based on design goals I can generate relevant, action-oriented findings. In this way, usability doesn't stifle creativity, it focuses it." (Avi Soudack - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 29, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

From Function to Form

Invited presentation at TU/e Industrial Design, Designed Intelligence Group (2003) (Matthias Rauterberg)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2003 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

Aero: The Desktop To Come

"The future of Windows is determined by Longhorn, the new operating system that Microsoft is preparing for 2005 that will imply, according to them, the 'life immersion' of the customers in this new technology. We review what is known about it up to now." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

Posted by PJB on October 28, 2003 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

eXperience People

"(...) a specialty recruitment firm with a laser focus on recruiting Experience Design and User Experience professionals for intermediate to senior level executive positons" (Challis Hodge) - courtesy of louis rosenfeld

Posted by PJB on October 27, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

About Us: Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website

"Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the 'About Us' designs." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on October 27, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Web Design and Integrated Marketing

"A big part of that is the lack of understanding that marketing professionals have for the media. For Web designers who do have a deep understanding of the Web, that spells opportunity. Here are some specific strategies and tactics that we can employ to use Web design as a successful component to organizational integrated marketing." (Dirk Knemeyer - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on October 26, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Good Information Architecture Increases Online Sales

"Information Architecture can be applied to resolve breakdowns in site design and navigation structure. The role of good Information Architecture is to make the Website work not in the technical sense, but from a functional, organized, conceptual perspective." (Ivan Walsh - Sitepoint) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted by PJB on October 26, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

AIGA: The Power of Design

Conference notes by Dirk Knemeyer (AIGA)

Posted by PJB on October 25, 2003 | Classification: Special | Comments (0) | Permalink

Commercializing the Semantic Web

"Whether people deny it or not (...) the Semantic Web really is an attempt to reconceptualize and reengineer AI for the Web." (Kendall Grant Clark - xml.com)

Posted by PJB on October 24, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Faceted Classification

"A faceted classification uses clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive aspects, properties, or characteristics (a.k.a. facets) of a class or specific subject. The idea for a faceted classification really began with the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) in which a standard number representing place (location) was appended to a subject number by a device now known as a facet indicator. However, Dewey did not develop the idea further and in the early 1930s, Ranganathan formalized the use of the fully faceted approach with his Colon Classification. Other classification schemes such as Universal Decimal Classification, now provide facets for places, time periods and forms. More recently, work has been undertaken to develop the Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2) into a fully faceted classification scheme." (School of Library, Archival and Information Studies - The University of British Columbia) - courtesy of james robertson

Posted by PJB on October 23, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

HITS 2003 Presentation Slides

"Interaction design is, now more than ever, a critical resource for business strategy. A growing gap exists between companies' increasing knowledge of technology and taking products to market, and their decreasing understanding of people's everyday needs and wants for interaction with media, services and physical products, all of which are increasingly embedded with digital interactive technology." (HITS 2003)

Posted by PJB on October 23, 2003 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Biomedical Illustrations

"Head anatomy, with internal carotid angiogram. Photoshop, shown aprox. 20% of actual resolution." (Patrick J. Lynch)

Posted by PJB on October 22, 2003 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Value of Usability

"Value" is like 'quality'Ý-- no one seems to be able to define it, and yet everyone knows it when they see it. This ATW feature explores the concept of 'value' in a Web site and looks at how creating usable Webspace is an integral part of creating valuable Webspace." (All Things Web)

Posted by PJB on October 22, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Sliding Doors of CSS

"It's time to take back control over the tabs which are continually growing in popularity as a primary means of site navigation. Now that CSS is widely supported, we can crank up the quality and appearance of the tabs on our sites." (Douglas Bowman - A List Apart 3.0)

Posted by PJB on October 22, 2003 | Classification: Technology - Visual design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Personas: Setting the Stage for Building Usable Information Sites

"Personas are power tools that give a much-needed focus to interface design projects." (Alison J. Head - Information Today)

Posted by PJB on October 21, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

U-Pods: The Business of Usability

"U-Pods focuses on the business of usability and the people charged with the responsibility of managing that business. As a peer-based community, U-Pods brings the right people together within the right scale and structure to foster the right type of dialog, support, relationships, and history. U-Pods' creation of small-scale pods collectively forming a large-scale organization gives you the best of both worlds. " (About U-Pods) - courtesy of usability news

Posted by PJB on October 21, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Emotion and Product Design 

Presentation slides by Donald A. Norman (IBM Ease of Use Conference 2003)

Posted by PJB on October 20, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why Personalization Hasn't Worked

"Personalization hasn't worked because most people don't have a compelling reason to personalize. It hasn't worked because the cost of doing it well usually significantly outweighs the benefits it delivers. It hasn't worked because managers have seen it as some Holy Grail of content management." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on October 20, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Design Models and Processes

A Call for Papers: "A crucial aspect of most (if not all) Web systems is the way in which information is utilised and managed. Recent work on areas as diverse as topic maps, information architectures, adaptation of UML, agile development methods such as extreme programming, and modelling for the semantic Web, have all contributed to an emerging understanding of how to design the information structures that underpin the Web (and of course much of this work has in turn been informed by research in areas like hypertext and HCI)." (Journal of Digital Information) - courtesy of louis rosenfeld

Posted by PJB on October 18, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Attitudes to Web Accessibility

"During the summer of 2003, we ran an online questionnaire, conducted interviews and carried out a literature review on Web accessibility. One hundred and seventeen respondents participated and they included designers, information officers and accessibility advocates. This initial set of results are intended to encourage debate on the subject." (John Knight - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2003 | Classification: Accessibility | Comments (0) | Permalink

People Designing for People

"Every design is defined by three basic components: inspiration, tools and people." (Maria Acosta - Thread Inc.)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

User Expectations in a World of Smart Devices

"I'm increasingly convinced that, as networks of smart objects permeate our environment, people's attitudes toward technology will become more animist. In other words, we'll start to anthropomorphize our stuff." (Mike Kuniavsky - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on October 17, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Inside 'Time for Change'

Q&A with Clement Mok: "Information design, using words and images to communicate and dealing with sustainability constraints are not new skills. They will be more effective when the designer realizes confidently the context in which his or her design can influence." (Garry K. VanPatter - NextD Journal)

Posted by PJB on October 16, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Web wizards weave their magic

"The workings of the internet and magic may seem worlds apart, but to one prominent web design thinker, they share much in common. (...) Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini argues that the secrets of successful websites are the same as those of successful magicians." (BBC News Technology) - courtesy of oskar van rijswijk

Posted by PJB on October 16, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Presentations on Enterprise IA

"I've put up a couple of fresh presentations on my site for your enjoyment/perplexment." (Louis Rosenfeld)

Posted by PJB on October 16, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Technology to make you go 'wow'

"Design expert Dr Don Norman is getting all emotional the older he gets." (Jo Twist - BBC News)

Posted by PJB on October 15, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Design Research: Methods and Perspectives

"How the tools of design research can involve designers more directly with objects, products and services they design; from human-centered research methods to formal experimentation, process models, and application to real world design problems." (Brenda Laurel ed.) - courtesy of chad thornton

Posted by PJB on October 15, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Attitudes to Web Accessibility

"During the summer of 2003, we ran an online questionnaire, conducted interviews and carried out a literature review on Web accessibility. One hundred and seventeen respondents participated and they included designers, information officers and accessibility advocates. This initial set of results are intended to encourage debate on the subject." (John Knight - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on October 15, 2003 | Classification: Accessibility | Comments (0) | Permalink

A Brief History of Information Architecture 

"I have experienced first-hand the tumultuous childhood and adolescence of the profession. It was fun. It was painful. It was exciting. It was a lot of work. And, it's over. For better or worse, information architecture has entered a new stage of maturity." (Peter Morville)

Posted by PJB on October 14, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Schools Teaching IA

"Many colleges, universities, and companies offer courses in information architecture. (...) listings of schools that offer courses and full degree programs dedicated to IA. In compiling the above lists, we included courses and programs that explicitly used 'information architecture' or 'information design' in the title. For courses not explicitly using these terms, a course was judged to be IA-related if it encompassed a digital information design/organization theme and used one of four IA books as the text." (Victor Lombardi - AIfIA Educational Curriculum Initiative)

Posted by PJB on October 14, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Learning to Love the Pixel: Exploring the Craft of Icon Design

"As contextually-located objects, icons exemplify the big challenges of communication and interpretation when using codified visual languages to convey meaning." (Uday Gajendar - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 14, 2003 | Classification: Visual design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Devil's in the Wireframes

"There seems to be a parallel relationship between level of detail and accepted-ness. As information architecture grows to be a defined step in my company's process, my wireframes have grown more detailed; more departments must participate in and comment on them." (Liz Danzico - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on October 14, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Web Guru Fights Info Pollution

"Information pollution is information overload taken to the extreme, Jakob Nielsen told BBC News Online while in London for the Nielson Nelson Group User Experience Conference." (Jo Twist - BBC News) - courtesy of lawrence lee

Posted by PJB on October 14, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information Architecture: Webpage mental maps emerge

"When people come to your website they have a mental map of how their 'ideal' webpage should be. They expect to see certain things in certain places. They expect to read certain killer words in your classification and content. The more you meet their mental map, the more successful your website will be." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

A Conversation About Conversation

"To get to a point of understanding, the ignorant must ask a question and there lies Mr. Wurman's belief in the power of design. What is it like to understand what it's like not to understand?" (R.S. Wurman - Visualogue Daily Report)

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

SBI White Papers

"Our white papers (...) provide points of view on topics relevant to our client projects and to the industry overall. SBI Perspectives can examine a current technology or approach, share best practices, or explore emerging trends. Our white papers are based on analyist and industry learning, as well as our fisthand experience with clients." (SBI & Company)

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Semantic Web, Today

"The key point of the semantic web is the conversion of the current structure of the web as a data storage (interpretable only by human beings, that are able to put the data into context) into a structure of information storage. In order to convert data into information we have to put it into context by adding metadata, data that contains the semantics, the explanation of the data it refers to; in the end, the context." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Info@Vis!)

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Ten Best Intranets of 2003

"This year's winning intranet designs emphasized workflow support, self-service content management, and offloading tasks from email to collaboration tools. On average, companies spent three years between redesigns, and one year on the redesign itself." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Squaring Up To Usability At Nokia

"Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive, says usability is at the heart of the company's approach. He adds that it was one of the first to realise that ease of use had to become the main goal in design." (Neil McCartney - Financial Times) - courtesy of croc o'lyle

Posted by PJB on October 13, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Escaping The Organisation Chart On Your Intranet

"This article outlines practical ways to move from an intranet based on the organisation chart to one that is more intuitive and allows people to complete their tasks more easily. It does not describe a full intranet redesign process, but focuses on those issues that are most likely to occur if you wish to break your organisation chart." (Donna Maurer - Step Two Designs)

Posted by PJB on October 10, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

TV's Tipping Point: Why The Digital Revolution Is Only Just Beginning

Text of the speech by Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC New Media & Technology, at the Royal Television Society on Oct. 6, 2003 (paidContent) - courtesy of vanderwall

Posted by PJB on October 10, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Experience Design: An Interview with Nathan Shedroff

"Experience Design considers elements that are beyond the expected boundaries to ensure that designers attack the problem at its most important points. In my work, I focus on helping designers create a full-sensory design solution that takes into account rich interactions like user emotion, personality, attention, and meaning." (David Poteet - UIConf 8)

Posted by PJB on October 08, 2003 | Classification: Interviews - User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Depth Cues for Information Design

"This paper details a way to apply the cognitive science of visual perception as a means to improve the practice of information design. Environmental cues trigger our sense of depth, and influence form, organization, attention. The paper outlines how we may apply the cues for more effective communication." (William Bardel)

Posted by PJB on October 08, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Information on the Assembly Line: A review of Information Design and Its Implications for Technical Communicators

"Technological advances have made endless amounts of information on nearly every subject easily accessible, while at the same time fostering an economic climate conducive to international trade and partnerships. The challenge for companies then becomes one of figuring out how best to manage and use this mass of information, a task complicated by the increasingly global nature of business that requires products to be tailored to more specialized user groups in a wider array of formats and in different languages. Hence the emergence of information design, a field that technical communicators would do well to associate themselves with. Information design is centered around solving many of today's communication problems, and technical communicators are well suited to participate in those discussions. This thesis seeks to understand what information design is and the role that technical communicators can play in this important and emerging field. A comprehensive literature review, this thesis seeks to represent and summarize the overall body of work within the field of technical communication concerning information design and its related issues, as well as to suggest ways in which technical communicators can better participate in the design and implementation of information design systems." (Jason Nichols - University of Central Florida) - courtesy of victor lombardi

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2003 | Classification: TechCom | Comments (0) | Permalink

Studying special collections and the Web: An analysis of practice

"Many digital library collections are the virtual analogs of special collections in libraries, museums, historical societies and archives today. A field study of people responsible for collection maintenance across a variety of institutions was carried out. It aimed at improving our understanding of issues involved in collection description and access. A second study examined the current state of Web access to materials from the previously studied special collections. Data concerning the availability of online finding aids, externally accessible databases for collection content, digitized images and Web exhibits are presented." (Lorriane Normore - First Monday 8.10)

Posted by PJB on October 07, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Architecture of Unusual Things

"Strap on your mental protective gear and join IBM Fellow Grady Booch on a high-energy tour of things unusual, curious, and just plain weird. Of course there are lessons to be learned along the way, as we discover how common design principals inform even the most uncommon of entities. We'll also explore the evolution of different genres of architecture, the forces that have shaped them, and their practical manifestation in today's Web- and services-oriented architectures." (IBM Rational Events)

Posted by PJB on October 06, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture - Interviews - Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

You need a five-year plan for your website

"Websites change the way an organization communicates with its staff, customers, investors and general public. A change in communication is a major shift for the organization. To effectively implement such a change will take time. You need a five-year plan for your website." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on October 06, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

What Does Your Audience Want?

"Successful visual designers well know the audiences they are designing for, and realize that their audiences exist at multiple levels." (Dirk Knemeyer - Thread Inc.)

Posted by PJB on October 03, 2003 | Classification: Visual design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Setting The Stage For Success: Information architecture earns performance kudos from customers

"Information architecture is the process of organizing and structuring information so that it is logical in design and presentation. It establishes categories and relationships among different pieces of information. It defines metadata schemes, navigation and search interfaces. Good architecture not only helps users find information, but also facilitates updating content by having clear rules for adding new information. And its effects show up on the bottom line with surprising speed when users can get what they need in just a few clicks." (Judith Lamont - KMWorld) - courtesy of elegant hack

Posted by PJB on October 03, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Compassion and The Crafting of User Experience

"In trying to teach my students and junior employees how to manifest this quality of compassion in their work, I haven't had an authoritative reference to point them at. How to set up a usability lab, how to produce impressive deliverables, how to categorize and prioritize options: volumes have been written on each of these more concrete facets of the work. But historically I've found that the proper mindset is much harder to convey than the toolset, and regarding this question the gurus are largely mute." (Adam Greenfield - v-2)

Posted by PJB on October 02, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Making Rich Web Application Architecture Usable

"Learning requires a cognitive investment by the user. It doesnít make sense to learn new interactions if there's no return on the investment we must make to learn them. Using standard elements in the interface, and keeping those elements visually consistent among interactions, enables the user to learn once and then apply that knowledge anywhere " (Viswanath Gondi - SitePoint) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted by PJB on October 01, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

Draft versions of sample chapters - Publication date: January 2004 (Donald A. Norman) - courtesy of brad lauster

Posted by PJB on October 01, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Balancing Visual and Structural Complexity in Interaction Design

"By reducing visual complexity at the cost of structural simplicity, you will give your users a hard time understanding and navigating the content of a web site." (Henrik Olsen - guuui)

Posted by PJB on October 01, 2003 | Classification: Interaction design - Usability - Visual design | Comments (0) | Permalink