April 2003

Web Development and Business Goals

"Repeat it until you accept it: business goals, business goals, business goals." (Dirk Knemeyer)

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

The Translation of Information Architecture Project

"The IA translation project (aka Tia) aims to provide tools and support for translation of materials related to information architecture." (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Designers in Health Network + Information Design Plus

Presentation downloads (DIHNet)

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

Microsoft Research Seeks Better Search

"Scientists in the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant's labs are experimenting with new types of search and user interface technology that will let individuals and businesses tap into the vast amounts of data on the Internet, or inside their own computers, that increasingly will be impractical or impossible to find." (Michael Kanellos - News.Com) - courtesy of nooface

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Why XML Doesn't Suck

"Recently in this space I complained that XML is too hard for programmers. That article got Slashdotted and was subsequently read by over thirty thousand people; I got a lot of feedback, quite a bit of it intelligent and thought-provoking. This note will argue that XML doesn't suck, and discuss some of the issues around the difficulties encountered by programmers." (Tim Bray - Antartica Systems) - courtesy of mark bernstein

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

A Comments Pointer

"If you're not the type to pay attention to the comments, I encourage you to make an exception. Dirk Knemeyer has provided two very interesting responses to my 'What's in a name?' post of a few days ago and my subsequent response to him." (Beth Mazur - IDblog)

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

Will Plain-Text Ads Continue to Rule?

"Text-only advertisements work far better than banners, but is this only due to their novelty? Search engine text ads will retain their superiority over time, but text ads on other sites will work only if they focus on directly meeting users' needs." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

Getting Confidence From Lincoln

"(...) when searching large web sites for information, there were some sites where users always seemed to know where to find the content. No matter what content they were seeking, every user somehow knew to make a bee-line for it. Not every site worked this way and we wanted to know what made these particular sites work so well." (Jared Spool - User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-Justified Site Navigation Menus

"The usability of two Web page layouts was directly compared: one with the main site navigation menu on the left of the page, and one with the main site navigation menu on the right. Sixty-four participants were divided equally into two groups and assigned to either the left- or the right-hand navigation test condition. Using a stopwatch, the time to complete each of five tasks was measured. The hypothesis that the left-hand navigation would perform significantly faster than the right-hand navigation was not supported. Instead, there was no significant difference in completion times between the two test conditions. This research questions the current leading Web design thought that the main navigation menu should be left justified" (James Kalbach and Tim Bosenick - Journal of Digital Information 4.1)

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Croquet: A Collaboration Architecture

Alan Kay of HP Labs at the Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Stanford Center for Professional Development) - courtesy of marcus denker

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2003 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Perspectives on HCI Patterns: Concepts and Tools

"This workshop aims to map current understanding and use of HCI Patterns and determine how to make significant advances through two perspectives: 1) a view of the conceptual foundations of patterns and their relationship to other HCI models and approaches 2) a focus on tools and methodologies related to pattern creation and use." - Position Papers (CHI 2003 Workshop)

Posted by PJB on April 25, 2003 | Classification: Patterns | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Dirk Knemeyer Comments on 'What's In A Name?'

"(...) ID provides guidance to all of the 'production disciplines' (no condescension intended or implied) - IA, graphic design, variety of different programming approaches in application development, experience design as some of the more linear examples - without being a production discipline itself." (Dirk Knemeyer)

Posted by PJB on April 25, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

CHI 2003: Opening Plenary Compares On and Off-line Media

"A key issue he identified in working with products that offered the same or similar content across different media was the recognisability of content in different contexts." (Ann Light - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on April 24, 2003 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Differences between Information Architecture and Information Design

"Both require different skills. Information architects come from a variety of backgrounds, but I sense that a majority of them display an orientation toward language. Information designers, on the other hand, tend to be oriented toward the visual arts. As a result, the majority of information designers come from exactly one discipline: graphic design." (Clark MacLeod - Kelake)

Posted by PJB on April 24, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

What's In A Name?

"(...) information design is what happens when you take the visual world of the graphic designer and integrate it with the textual world of the tech writer. Go figure. Like Wurman says, you make the complex clear." (Beth Mazur - IDblog)

Posted by PJB on April 24, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Conceptual Presentations

"Presentations are becoming increasingly visual and less textual. Converting every concept into an image is the challenge and, at the same time, the solution." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

Posted by PJB on April 24, 2003 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Timeline

"Every evolving field has its milestones, none of which exists in a vacuum. The timeline on this page shows a few significant events in science and technology that have shaped the field of technical communication. The timeline also indicates concurrent markers in the development of technical communication in general and the Society for Technical Communication in particular." (STC@50)

Posted by PJB on April 24, 2003 | Classification: TechCom | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Reflections on the User Centered Design Perspective in Research on Wireless Applications

"When new ideas and visions emerge from collective thinking and from a better understanding of current limitations related to technological achievements, the challenge remains as to ascertain how to put these ideas and visions into practice. That opens new research issues. My argument in this paper is that this principle is applicable also to the development of User Centered Design. UCD, of course, may contribute to the improvement, consolidation and verification of ideas and visions in the field. Yet, in order to be certain that UCD perspective is widely accepted and can properly influence the direction followed by technology and service development, we should be able to demonstrate that the approach will be useful and that it can be successfully implemented in relevant projects." (Michele Visciola - ACM Ubiquity)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Game Design Patterns Project

"The focus of the Game Design Patterns project is on studying computer games in terms of interaction, components and design goals with the intension of creating the basis for a common language for game designers. As the basic building block for this language the project uses the concept of Design Patterns, originally developed by Christopher Alexander et al. Design Patterns is a semi-structured formalism that has been used for similar causes in areas such as architecture, software engineering, human-computer interaction, and interaction design." (PLAY Research Studio) - courtesy of purse lip square jaw

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Patterns | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Are You Cultured? Global Web Design and the Dimensions of Culture

"When a company decides to globalize its site, the Web team often learns the taboo colors and appropriate dress codes of a given culture, translates the text, and launches. But cultural differences run deeper than visual appearance or language; they reflect strong values. Rarely do globalized sites incorporate the nuances of a culture's social hierarchy, individualism, gender roles, time-orientation, or truth-seeking attributes." (Aaron Marcus - New Architect)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Semantic Blog

"When the mainstream trade press first started writing about XML, one of the key benefits invariably cited was precise search. You don't hear much about that any more. It wasn't, and still isn't, the wrong idea, but XML-savvy search requires an investment in data preparation that virtually nobody was or is willing to make." (Jon Udell - XML.com)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Future of Web Publishing

"The world's leading expert on Web site usability speaks his mind on the future of Web publishing." (Melissa Reyen - Publish)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Site Navigation: Keeping It Under Control

"Navigation is the section of the page that controls what appears in this content area. The beauty of this is that the page content is malleable. The architecture is not, and should represent a strong, extensible foundation that will last at least ten years. It's like building out floors in an office building. You can change the functionality of the floors as needed without changing the structure of the building." (Indi Young - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Main Themes from the 2003 IA Summit

"This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all topics of conversation, merely a peek into some important topics of discussion for those who did not attend." (Jeff Lash - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Low-End Media for User Empowerment

"Fancy media on websites typically fails user testing. Simple text and clear photos not only communicate better with users, they also enhance users' feeling of control and thus support the Web's mission as an instant gratification environment." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

Profit and Participation

"Participants versus Guests versus Users - the common thread (...) in recent articles is the fact that we live in a customer-centric world." (Wendy Kadens - Thread Inc.)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Trust by Design

"I've become a big fan of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and the Web Credibility Project. Their studies regarding how people evaluate a web site's credibility show the critical importance of information design and structure. Users trust sites that are well-designed and well-organized. Poor navigation is the key element that decreases earned web credibility." (Peter Morville - Semantic Studios)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Art of Explanation

"Poynter Online would like to showcase the efforts of visual journalists as they help readers find clarity. (...) a place to share ideas and processes as we continue to improve the graphics we create." (Poynter Online) - courtesy of iaslash

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Building a Metadata-Based Website

"The intent of using a centralized metadata repository as the basis of navigation for a website is to separate business concepts from the content or functionality about those concepts." (Brett Lider and Anca Mosoiu - Boxes and Arrrows)

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Usability Topic Center

"Balance design and functionality - get the perspective of today's leading Macromedia Flash gurus." (Macromedia) - courtesy of webword

Posted by PJB on April 15, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Why Organizations Think of Web Content Like They Think of Invoices

"Embedded deep within the psychic of the traditional organization is the view of content as an historical record. This view sees content as describing an event that has occurred. Web content is a driver of the event. Web content is action-oriented. That's the big shift and many organizations have not graspe." (Gerry McGovern)

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

Paper Prototyping: Getting User Data Before You Code

"With a paper prototype, you can user test early design ideas at an extremely low cost. Doing so lets you fix usability problems before you waste money implementing something that doesn't work." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on April 15, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Branding & the User Interface - Part 1: Brand Basics

"What is brand? More than just a corporate logo, 'brand' is that tangible - and intangible - something that makes your product jump off the shelf and keep consumers and customers coming back for more. This article is the first in a series that describes concrete aspects of branding, sheds light on how interaction design and brand are related, and provides a primer for talking about the religion that is brand." (Nate Fortin - Cooper)

Posted by PJB on April 15, 2003 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Towards a General Relation Browser: A GUI for Information Architects

"The paper presents the case of ongoing efforts to develop and test generalizable user interfaces that provide interactive overviews for large-scale Web sites, portals, and other partitions of Web space. The interfaces are called Relation Browsers (RB) because they help people explore the relationships across different attribute sets, thus enabling understanding the scope and extent of the corpus through active exploration of different 'slices' defined by different attribute value juxtapositions. The RB concept is illustrated through discussion of six iterations over a five year period that included laboratory usability studies, a field test, and implementations with a variety of data management problems. The current application to design concepts in a digital government setting is discussed, and the concept of the RB as the basis for an interface server is presented." (Gary Marchionini and Ben Brunk - Journal of Digital Information 4.1)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug on UX

"If nothing else, UX could also help provide a framework that would enable interdisciplinary conversations. After all, one of the hardest parts of working in a multidisciplinary environment is that we literally don't speak the same language." (Andy King - WebReference)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Participation Paradigm

"My informal research among non-designers did not return any negative associations to the word. Participant - or better, the verb participate - has very positive connotations." (Dirk Knemeyer - Thread Inc.)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

eNarrative 5: From Weblog to Webtale

"(...) explore exciting developments in the electronic arts -- and their applications to business and personal growth." (May 10-11, 2003 / Boston, Massachusetts USA)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Best Practices and Future Visions for Search UIs

Papers submissions of the CHI 2003 Workshop (CHI 2003) - courtesy of louis rosenfeld

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Flashes of Brilliance and Use-Centered Design

"(...) a construct wherein the focus is on the interactions and relationships among the user, the goals of the user, and the technology." (J. Dawn Mercedes - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

On Semantics and Markup

"The term 'Semantic Markup' is bandied about freely, and with every year that passes, it makes me more and more nervous. Herewith an exploration of what, if anything, those two terms mean when placed side by side." (Tim Bray - Antartica Systems)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture

"Two prestigious speakers will talk on this pertinent and significant subject. Information Architecture is 'the emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age, focused upon clarity, human understanding and the science of the organization of information' (Richard Saul Wurman)." (STC Belgium)

Posted by PJB on April 10, 2003 | Classification: Events | 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) - courtesy of webword

Posted by PJB on April 10, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The TAO of Topic Maps

Finding the way in the age of the infoglut - updated version (Steve Pepper - Land of Ontopia)

Posted by PJB on April 09, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: You Do It, You Just Don't Know It

"Technical communicators stand to gain a great deal from understanding the work of the information architect. Even if you don't build Web sites, by thinking like an information architect, you'll greatly enhance the products you do develop. Whether you build online help systems, develop Web-based training, create or maintain knowledge bases, conduct usability testing, or help maintain your corporate intranet, you'll find it worth your while to get in touch with your inner information architect. Doing so will make your products easier for users to use and for owners/developers to maintain." (Mir G. Haynes - STC Intercom) - courtesy of beth mazur

Posted by PJB on April 09, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Ignored Lessons From Hypertext

According to Mark Bernstein: "Colour is inappropriate for links as it conflates emphasis and linking, while blue is a particularly bad choice as it is the hardest colour to read, making the link content less obvious (...)" (Ann Light - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on April 09, 2003 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Publications on Thesaurus Construction and Use

"(...) a list of printed and electronic publications about the principles of constructing and using information retrieval thesauri. (...) References on facet analysis, systems that provide for thesaurus use by combining terms from multiple facets in search interfaces and lists of thesauri (...) In this context, an ontology appears to be a development of a thesaurus, with a greater number of kinds of relationship between concepts, intended to be useful to software implementing aspects of the proposed 'semantic web'. A topic map appears to be a way of structuring such an ontology, with the addition of links between concepts and information resources." (Willpower Information) - courtesy of karl fast, fred leise and mike steckel

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Edward Tufte on Columbia Evidence: Analysis of Key Slide

"The three reports concerning the possible tile damage on the Columbia prepared by the Boeing engineers have become increasingly important as the investigation has developed. The reports provided the rationale for NASA officials to curtail further research (such as photographing the Columbia with spy cameras) on the tiles during the flight. Here is a close analysis of an important slide from a Boeing report." (Edward Tufte - Ask ET Forum) - courtesy of xblog

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

Creating a Controlled Vocabulary

"(...) we are looking at a process for creating any kind of controlled vocabulary. While our ultimate goal in this series is to explain facets, the details of facet analysis will be described in a future article. At this point, we are still exploring fundamental concepts and techniques." (Karl Fast, Fred Leise and Mike Steckel - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Power of Design: AIGA National Design Conference

"(...) focus on the extraordinary opportunities for designing in the 21st century. Designers will play critical roles in the success of our rebounding economyóboth as agents of social change in a complex world and as leading architects of sustainable solutions for a troubled planet. You'll hear speakers from diverse disciplines who work in a variety of media discuss designing for the economy, environment and culture." (Vancouver, British Columbia October 23-26, 2003)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2003 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Consumers on the Web: Identification of Usage Patterns

"This article analyzes consumer behavior on the Web. The purpose is to research patterns that characterize consumer actions in this environment. The study employs Nielsen//NetRatings Internet panel data in Finland. The four-month data for 65 panelists suggest three interrelated Web usage patterns that are highlighted here. The text will outline how these conclusions were reached and present other observations." (Nina Koiso-Kanttila - First Monday 8.4)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2003 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

ASIS&T IA Summit 2003

Various Acrobat and PowerPoint presentations available.
(ASIS&T)

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack