July 2003

The Why and How of Blogging

"Web logs, or 'blogs', arenít just for personal sites. Sites of all kinds can employ blogs to keep visitors informed and up to date. Learn what a blog can do for your site, and see the best tools for creating and maintaining them." (Nick Finck) - courtesy of dirk knemeyer

Posted by PJB on July 30, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Slings of Boxes and Arrows: Persecuting Jakob

"One of the best things I've ever (co-)written is now up at Boxes and Arrows (...) We aimed for a New Yorker-style review -- to use the subject as a jumping off point for discussing the underlying issues. So, while about half the review is an evisceration of the reports remarkably flawed methodology and lack of usefulness, the other half suggests steps that user experience professionals can take to begin to appropriately value their contribution." (Peter Merholz)

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

Keep Office Politics Out of Your Design

"It happens again and again. You spend hours in design meetings debating a point, and then a single word from upper management squashes your decision. Or maybe your design debates just go on for weeks because of office politics. How can you streamline this process? By deriving your conclusions from research instead of just 'experience'." (Indy Young - Adaptive Path)

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

Interaction and Time

"Interaction is a key element in learning and acquiring information. Interaction is intrinsically dependent on time and on control. In this issue we consider the importance of the first one." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

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

Nielsen/Norman Group's Usability Return on Investment

"This report seems to be directed at usability practitioners, to support their efforts in increasing their budgets. Presumably, usability practitioners will, in turn, show this to management. They will tell management that current 'best practice' is to devote 10 percent of a project's budget to usability efforts. They will also tell management that, 'on average', usability provides measurable improvements of around 135 percent." (Peter Merholz and Scott Hirsch - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience

"Web Traffic Analytics not only keeps us honest, it can, in the best possible sense, help justify our existence and our value. When clients can see that user experience recommendations lead to specific, positive changes in the behavior on their site, that's powerful stuff. And the user experience expert becomes someone to consult not just when testing is needed, but as an integral part of the design and development process." (Fran Diamond - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on July 29, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Gateway Pages Prevent PDF Shock

"Spare your users the misery of being dumped into PDF files without warning. Create special gateway pages that summarize the contents of big documents and guide users gently into the PDF morass." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on July 28, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Is the Computer Desktop an Antique?

"But Apple may be on to something. Interface consistency was a wise strategy for the early years of PC adoption, but the Mac's new Swiss-army-knife approach makes sense now that using desktop interfaces is as second-nature as reading to a whole generation of computer users. After 20 years of point and click, we're ready to handle multiple interfaces within a single operating system. Bring on the zoom!" (Steven Johnson - Slate) - courtesy of nooface

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

Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing

"What's the single most important thing that could improve the Web? It's not broadband. It's better writing. The general quality of writing on the Web is poor. The way you write has a major impact on what people think of you. Avoid these common mistakes and you will achieve more with your website." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on July 27, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

HCI, the Arts and the Humanities

"The digital world has crept out of the workspace and into our homes, our networks and our journeys between places. The new tendency to talk of designing for 'experience' as well as 'performance' reflects this shift towards immersive and ubiquitous computing, but have our analysis and evaluation approaches kept pace?" (Alan Dix et al.) - courtesy of purse lip square jaw

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

Prototyping With Style

"Cascading Style Sheets can be one of the most important tools in a user-centered designerís toolkit when working on rapid prototyping. The combination of valid HTML/XHTML markup and external CSS can be used to rapidly create prototypes, speed up the development process, and easily incorporate more user-centered techniques into the design process." (Jeff Lash - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on July 27, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Communication: Critical to Good Design

"The most complicated challenge we face during the design process has nothing to do with design techniques, understanding media or incorporating industry-best practices. It is a question of communication." (Dirk Knemeyer - Thread)

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

Guarding the Borders or Blocking the Way? IAs to be Banned!

"(...) the Board of Certification for architectural qualifications has a problem with the use of the term 'architecture' in the IT sector since it might cause people to have erroneous expectations of the services IAs offer." (Andrew Dillon - Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology - Vol. 9, No. 6)

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

User Innovation

"Empirical research is finding that users rather than manufacturers are the actual developers of many or most new products and services ñ and that they are a major locus of innovative activity in the economy. This finding opens up new questions and avenues for exploration in fields ranging from economics to management of technology to organizational behaviour to marketing research. Examples are patterns in innovation by users, characteristics of innovating users, design of a user-centered innovation process, economics of a distributed innovation process that includes users as innovators, and social welfare implications of innovations by users." (MIT) - courtesy of fabio sergio

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

Loop: AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education

Issue June 2003 - Number 7: 2003 Annual of Student Projects (AIGA)

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

Personas: Bringing Users Alive

Usability NJ Presentation June 18, 2003 (Whitney Quesenbery Usability)

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

Document Design

Journal of Research and Problem Solving in Organizational Communication (Tilburg University)

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

Going Dutch? Design Pros and Cons of the Netherlands

"One reason for its recent success is that The Netherlands is possibly the most intelligent market for design in the world. Sophisticated public and private sector clients know how to commission and manage design. And most cities and government agencies have procurement policies that enable projects to be awarded to the best design, not just to the cheapest proposal. (...) Connectivity between people and ideas is further hindered by the turf-protecting way professional organizations, and design businesses, are organized. The result is that many designers lack the expertise to tackle the complex and multi-dimensional social questions that confront us." (John Thackara - In the Bubble) - courtesy of chad thornton

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

Adobe's Robert McDaniels Responds (Again) to Nielsen Criticisms of PDF

"He conveniently failed to mention that his own research group makes its for-profit reports available for purchase online in PDF." (Planet PDF) - courtesy of webword

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

A Conversation with Jef Raskin

"(..) when I joined Apple, I had the concept in my head of a computer that would be purchased at reasonable cost, would be graphic from the get-go, and would be far easier to use then existing computers because it would have a much better interface. So I drew up the specs for it and started hiring the people, designed a lot of the software, designed a lot of the user interface and managed to get a project started inside Apple called 'the Macintosh Project.' I called it 'Macintosh' because the McIntosh is my favorite kind of apple to eat. And I figured that if I was going to have an apple I might as well have a tasty one." (ACM  Ubiquity)

Posted by PJB on July 23, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Top Sites' User Experience Teams and Their Challenge

"In short, it comes down to (...) 'integrated customer experience'. Increasingly, in order to fulfill their online goals, customers interact with the company in a way that cuts across internal teams, and even questions how the company is organized." (Mark Hurst - Good Experience)

Posted by PJB on July 22, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

What is Fitts Law? and its relation to HCI

"Fitts Law is a robust model of human behavior which enables the prediction of human movement and human motion based on rapid, aimed movement other than drawing or writing. In Human Computer Interaction Fitt's law is a useful guideline in interface design." (Fredy Ore - Reloade)

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

What's Important To Measure On Your Website?

"Websites are very measurable. However, reams of data can be time consuming and confusing. The knack is to know what is really important to measure. This includes the following: reader actions; reader numbers; most and least popular pages; subscribers; external links; search keywords; page size; broken links and malfunctioning processes." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on July 21, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

SVG: The Sure Thing

"If you mention Scalable Vector Graphics language (SVG) in a crowd of web developers they will immediately gravitate to the question of whether it can 'beat' Flash. Recently SVG Print has focused attention on the question of whether SVG can compete with PDF and Postscript. These are exciting possibilities: it would be great to unify these domains under a standardized, XML-based syntax. Nevertheless, it is ultimately quite limiting to define SVG by its success in replacing these existing technologies. SVG is much more than a Flash and PDF-killer." (Paul Prescod - SVG Open 2003)

Posted by PJB on July 21, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Door Is Ajar

"Today, the human experience of the Net stands at a crossroads, paths diverging into the future, and nobody knows which one weíll be on in a year. A lot of people who will read this have the chance to make a difference in the decision. Letís look at the options." (Tim Bray - Ongoing)

Posted by PJB on July 19, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

International IA Comments

"The issue of internationalization of Information Architecture as a discipline and a profession is not the same in all parts of the world. In some countries they need a translation of articles and websites - in other countries they don't." (Gunnar Langemark Café) - courtesy of logos

Posted by PJB on July 19, 2003 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Four Basic Ontologies of Semantic Interpretation

"This paper compares the semantic interpretation of logical, programming, and natural languages. It shows that they are based on different ontologies, and investigates the relation between the ontology assumed and the analysis of empirical phenomena such as propositional attitudes, truth, and the implementation of procedural semantics." (Roland Hausser - Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Abteilung Computerlinguistik) - courtesy of langemark

Posted by PJB on July 19, 2003 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

NextDesign Leadership Institute

"At the core of NextD is the belief that the traditional model of design leadership needs to be radically reinvented to better adapt to a radically changed marketplace. The ultimate goal of NextD is to help expand designs' reach." (NextD)

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

An interview with Jeffrey Veen

"The Web has been following an enormous pendulum swing for some time now. Back about five years ago, when I was still at HotWired, we could do no wrong. Every stupid idea was a new paradigm and the foundations of a new economy. Now, things are just as silly. Nobody will touch the Web, and everyone is running away screaming." (Craig Salla - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on July 17, 2003 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

To Wax Nostalgic

"The evolution of personal music delivery is directly relevant to the creation of powerful brand experiences. To make strong, genuine connections with our audience, we need to be conscious of the value of rich, multi-sensorial experiences." (Josh Alkire - Thread)

Posted by PJB on July 17, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Power of Process, The Perils of Process

"(...) creating and documenting process has been a good exercise to help institutionalize ways of working, to help educate new team members as well as to unveil the mysteries of what we do for executives, product folks, and development teams." (Erin Malone - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Information Design: The Understanding Discipline

"Information design is not the same as information architecture; it is not merely an 'enlightened' version of graphic design; it is not somehow a niche component in interface or experience design; it is not technical writing. It is a broad and exploratory discipline that encourages research and development, understands that a galaxy of disparate tactics are bound together in creating successful information solutions, endeavors to understand people and the world as thoroughly as possible to enable better design and endeavors to identify and synthesize any discipline that contributes to better understanding." (Dirk Knemeyer - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on July 16, 2003 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Measuring Your Web Content Management Processes

"What's really important to measure for your website? Firstly, you need to measure how successful you are at creating, editing and publishing content. These are your web content management processes. Secondly, you need to measure reader behavior. There will also be some core website performance issues to measure. This week, I'd like to examine key web content management process measurables." (Gerry McGovern)

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

Culture and Usability Feature: Culture as a Design Heuristic

"Culture theories can elicit design alternatives, help us ask the 'right questions' and help designers think about new implementations and new interfaces, she said. To be predictive, cultural theory requires constrained target audience, but it can still be productive." (Ann Light - Usability News)

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

DUX 2003 Case Studies

"The DUX 2003 program featured accepted submissions of real-world design practices, research, and cases from around the globe, creatively combined in sessions moderated by leading design practitioners and theorists." (AIGA) - courtesy of beth mazur

Posted by PJB on July 15, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Personalization on the Web

"As of October, 1999, about 200 million people regularly access the Internet. However, this access is still more or less standardized in that almost everyone uses the same means of information retrieval. It is unlikely that 200 million people are so similar in their interests that one standardized way of retrieving information fits all needs. This paper takes a look at about 50 available personalization systems, proposes a classification scheme and discusses the systems w.r.t. to this classification." (Alexander Pretschner and Susan Gauch)

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

Does Colour Exist?

"We think of colour as an objective thing: Red is red and can't be seen in any other way. But this is not so. The colour we perceive depends on things like the words we have in our language (our culture) to describe it, the other colours surrounding it and what the brain is expecting to see." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

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

Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues

"In the First Era of browser history Mosaic and the other early browsers ruled. The Second Era was that of Netscape dominance. Microsoft's challenge to Netscape marked the beginning of the Third Era, the Heroic Age of the Browser Wars. Netscape's bleeding to death marked the start of the Fourth Era of Explorer dominance. The recent news about Explorer shows that this Era has come to an end, too. We stand at the beginning of the Fifth Era of browser history. What will it bring?" (Peter Paul Koch - Evolt)

Posted by PJB on July 14, 2003 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

"Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on July 14, 2003 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

International Information Architecture

"Connecting people from diverse disciplines, countries and cultures is a strategic imperative, not only for AIfIA but for the information architecture community as a whole. Our competitive advantage derives from our very ability to build bridges and span networks." (Peter Morville - Semantic Studios)

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

Branding and the User Interface, Part 2: Tips on New Media Branding: Behavior and Color

"Because of its increasingly significant impact on your company's brand, the quality of software's behavior is a crucial factor in your organization's success." (Nate Fortin - Cooper)

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

Design The Experience, Not The Participant

"Experience design is a lot like parenting. In both cases, it is my job to create a safe, creative and inspiring environment in which children, adults or businesses can thrive. As a parent, or as a marketer, I strive to provide the right tools to create desired outcomes. Clarity, consistency, honesty and engagement serve as guideposts in my personal and professional communications. So why is it that sometimes, even with the right pieces in place, the outcome is horribly wrong? I believe that this often happens because, although we can do our best to drive the experience, we cannot control the participants in it. We create the environment, draw the map and try to set a good example. But, even if you're with your children - or your brand participants - every minute of every day, eventually they will do their own thing." (Wendy Kadens - Thread)

Posted by PJB on July 11, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Search Engine Personalization: An Exploratory Study

"Web search engines are beginning to offer personalization capabilities to users. Personalization is the ability of the Web site to match retrieved information content to a user's profile. This content can be set explicitly by the user or derived implicitly by the Web site using such user profile information as zip code, birth date, etc. (...) Our findings show that despite the high level of interest in Web personalization, most search engine Web sites currently offer no or limited personalization features." (Yashmeet Khopkar et al. - First Monday 8.7)

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

The Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams

"Every Web team has its own take on dividing up roles and responsibilities and implementing processes for design and development. Formal titles, job descriptions, and reporting structures can vary widely. But the best teams (...) have one important thing in common: their team structure and processes cover a full range of distinct competencies necessary for success." (Jesse James Garrett - Adaptive Path)

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

The Seven Virtues of the Interaction Designer

"Interaction design is the design of things and systems, typically combining computing and telecommunications, to allow a relatively inexpert user to interact efficiently, transparently and pleasurably with the technology." (Gilliam Crampton Smith - Interaction Design Institute Ivrea) - courtesy of antenna

Posted by PJB on July 10, 2003 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Too clever for our own good?

"Unless technology developers change their approach (...) their products could suffer a negative response from the public." (Andrew Lee - e4engineering)

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

Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter 'C' Unusable

"Our research indicates that 83% of the words being looked up are words that contain the letter 'C'." (Uncle Sharky - BBspot) - courtesy of theotherblog

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

Prototype the Experience

"The context within which a product exists strongly influences the user experience and provides meaning." (Ian White - Core77) - courtesy of croc o'lyle

Posted by PJB on July 08, 2003 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Start Measuring The Cost and Value of Your Content

"Frederick W. Taylor, in his book, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), wrote about how waste in activity was a greater problem than material waste. He wrote about planning, organizing, training, management and measurement, as ways to address the problem. Today, we require a new form of Taylorism; one that addresses efficiency in content publishing." (Gerry McGovern)

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

User-Centered Information Design Workbook

"A user-centered design process involves the participation of users from the very first stage of development, and continues to involve users at each step of the process. The goal of user-centered design is to create a product that works for the potential users and is well-designed for that user group. The first step in this process is to identify the target audience and to meet with them." (University of Washington) - courtesy