February 2004

Metadata: Seven tips for writing better keywords

"The shift in how search engines treat keywords is significant. They tend to ignore the keyword meta tag and rather look for keywords in the actual page content. This means that you need to figure out your keywords before you write any content. Then, you include them throughout your content, particularly in headings and summaries." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on February 29, 2004 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

XIAatUT: An Extreme Makeover

"This presentation will discuss the process of designing the research portal of the web site, with emphasis on the lessons learned by the XIA development team." (Jill Burkart et al.) - courtesy of ia summit blog

Posted by PJB on February 28, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Conducting Inherent Value Testing

"We've found having a focus works better than just a random tour without any focus. We get to see how users work with the site as they discuss it. Their commentary is easier to understand and more accurately represents true issues with the site." (Jared Spool - UI Engineering)

Posted by PJB on February 28, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Sad State of Web Content

"Content still is king of the Web and the designers, developers and producers of the Web should be the king's loyal subjects. Trust me, it's in our best interests." (D. Keith Robinson - Asterisk)

Posted by PJB on February 27, 2004 | Classification: Writing | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Röyksopp: Remind me

Before Tom Chi and KC did the world's first HCI rap 'We Got It', MTV did information graphics. (astralwerks)

Posted by PJB on February 26, 2004 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Design Matters

"Design matters. It matters in everyday life. It matters in everything we consume or use. It matters in every human endeavor. Without design and those people that commit their lives to its practice, the world that would result from that absence would be an intolerable place to live." (Andrei Herasimchuk - Design by Fire)

Posted by PJB on February 26, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Wizards and Guides: Principles of Task Flow for Web Applications 2/2

"Although wizards are a common feature of the interface landscape, their rigidity clearly runs counter to one of the basic tenets of user-centered design: providing the user with appropriate control over the interaction. Therefore, like the pointy-hat mystics for whom they’re named, wizards should generally be treated with suspicion and skepticism, and ideally avoided whenever possible." (Bob Baxley - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on February 26, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

How Would You Redo the Google Interface?

Four designers share their (re)visions (Wired) - courtesy of lawrence lee

Posted by PJB on February 26, 2004 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User-Centered Information Retrieval

"To find information, a reader uses either a search engine or the reader browses through metadata. The main difference between search engines and metadata lies in the quality of the links. A search engine offers you a lot of results, yet quite a few of the results refer to unusable information. Metadata cover only a small part of the available information yet the links refer to very useful information." (Marcel van Mackelenbergh)

Posted by PJB on February 25, 2004 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Living with topic maps and RDF

"This paper is about the relationship between the topic map and RDF standards families. It compares the two technologies and looks at ways to make it easier for users to live in a world were both technologies are used. This is done by looking at how to convert information back and forth between the two technologies, how to convert schema information, and how to do queries across both information representations. Ways to achieve all of these goals are presented." (Lars Marius Garshol - ontopia) - courtesy of peter van dijck

Posted by PJB on February 25, 2004 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Design Patterns: An Evolutionary Step to Managing Complex Sites

"(...) a problem that many of our clients are facing and they've tried a myriad of solutions, such as centralized approval processes, standardized templates, and style guides, all without success. However, the one solution that really excites us is now gaining a lot of attention -- design patterns." (Jared M. Spool - UI Engineering)

Posted by PJB on February 24, 2004 | Classification: Patterns | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

List of articles about writing web content

"High quality web content impresses people and search engines." (Quality Web Content) - courtesy of craig marion

Posted by PJB on February 24, 2004 | Classification: Writing | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Vision of George Rorick

"Architect of six different news services for print and broadcast graphics, George has spent his career fine-tuning the craft of visual reporting, discovering talented people and starting business from scratch. Oh ... and he invented the USA Today weather map. Find out what makes him tick and what he's done for the field of visual journalism." (Poynter online) - courtesy of interactive narratives

Posted by PJB on February 24, 2004 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Access to a Unified Web from Any Device in Any Context by Anyone

"A few years ago, virtually the only way to access the Web was through a personal computer or workstation. True, there were variations between the facilities offered by various browsers, some being capable of use on text-based terminals. However, almost invariably, Web access, for individuals without specific accessability needs, involved using a machine with a reasonably large, color display with full graphic capabilities. While this is still primarily true, since the middle of 2000, the number of different kinds of device that can access the Web has grown from a small number with essentially the same core capabilities to many hundreds with a wide variety of different capabilities. At the time of writing, mobile phones, smart phones, personal digital assistants, interactive television systems, voice response systems, kiosks and even certain domestic appliances can all access the Web." (W3C)

Posted by PJB on February 24, 2004 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Content Design

"What makes Web content effective? You'll find the answer here. Learn the basics of information design, Web writing style, and content maintenance." (Mazzie Ballheim)

Posted by PJB on February 24, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Usability: Drawing Outside the Lines

"As Web design and development become wider in scope, individual topics within it become equally deeper. Usability has become its own depth area over the past few years, largely due to the influence of usability 'Thought Leaders' attempting to create better interactive Web sites for site visitors." (Molly Holzschlag - informIT) - courtesy of andrew fernandez

Posted by PJB on February 23, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Press releases are awful web content

"In the hierarchy of content, the press release is a bottom feeder. It is a single cell organism. In fact, it was never meant to see the light of day. To most people, reading a press release is about as interesting as reading a parking fine. And yet press releases proliferate on the Web." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on February 22, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Page Paradigm

"In my nine years of working on the Web's user experience, a lot has changed online - but one thing that hasn't changed much is the way that users navigate websites." (Mark Hurst - Good Experience)

Posted by PJB on February 20, 2004 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Influence of Training and Exposure on the Usage of Breadcrumb Navigation

"Recent studies have shown that while the use of breadcrumb trails to navigate a website can be helpful, few users choose to utilize this method of navigation. This study investigates the effects of 'mere exposure' and training on breadcrumb usage. Findings indicate that brief training on the benefits of breadcrumb usage resulted in more efficient search behavior." (Spring S. Hull - SURL 6.1) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted by PJB on February 20, 2004 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Interactivity and MultiMedia Interfaces

"Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design the interactivity in a system." (David Kirsh)

Posted by PJB on February 19, 2004 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Assessing Mobile Devices more Effectively

"Most user studies in the past have focused on the use of static devices. What are the new challenges to us, as designers and evaluators, on how to approach the design and evaluation of multimodal mobile devices and applications? In other words, function, value and meaning are relational and not absolute, as the applications and services reside on the network and not on the device. From the point of view of design and evaluation this presents new challenges. But why should we be interested?"

Posted by PJB on February 19, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Accessibility and Usability

"We see the outlines of a problem here. Does building a perfectly accessible site mean all usability extras should be perfectly accessible, too?" (Peter-Paul Koch - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on February 19, 2004 | Classification: Accessibility | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

European Information Development Conference Presentations

TCeurope is the European umbrella organisation for technical documentation, currently representing technical writers and illustrators in seven European countries. The first European Information Development Conference took place in Wiesbaden, Germany 2003 (TCEurope) - Blatant self promo

Posted by PJB on February 18, 2004 | Classification: TechCom | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Ease of Use

"As information technology devices and applications grow in number and importance, the significance of ease of use in their design grows apace. In this issue, twelve papers focus on aspects of design for ease of use as applied to the entire design process, from understanding user requirements to conceptual design, prototyping, field testing, and redesigning. The history and future of User-Centered Design (UCD) and User Engineering (UE) are discussed, and case studies illustrating the role of UCD and UE in many fields are presented. Topics include the design of wireless devices, on-screen documentation, and database management and data visualization systems." (IBM Systems Journal)

Posted by PJB on February 18, 2004 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The knowledge management puzzle: Human and social factors in knowledge management

"Knowledge management is often seen as a problem of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information, evoking notions of data mining, text clustering, databases, and documents. We believe that this view is too simple. Knowledge is inextricably bound up with human cognition, and the management of knowledge occurs within an intricately structured social context. We argue that it is essential for those designing knowledge management systems to consider the human and social factors at play in the production and use of knowledge." (J. C. Thomas, W. A. Kellogg, and T. Erickson - IBM Research)

Posted by PJB on February 18, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Zurgle: The Squeak Desktop Enhancement Project

"The Zurgle project is a campaign to help clean up some of the sharper edges on the current Squeak desktop by adding things like emulated widgets and window skins." (Squeak)

Posted by PJB on February 18, 2004 | Classification: HCI - Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Tracking user navigation methods by logging where users click on web pages

"What this gives me is some justification, I think, for getting content owners to focus on labelling in order to give links in the body of the page excellent scent, and it allows me to feel more comfortable exploring ways to modify the local navigation and even remove it in some cases. It definitely helps to have this kind of data when exploring UI modifications with your team. I expect to track this data in the coming months to see how changes in the navigation scheme impact use." (Michael Angeles)

Posted by PJB on February 18, 2004 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Six Steps to Better Interviews and Simplified Task Analysis

"I spend a lot of time helping clients conduct task analysis to form mental-model diagrams. When teams first start analyzing the interview transcripts they’ve collected, they often run into a confidence issue. 'How will we know if we get the task groups right?' This question usually arises because the team doesn't have the kind of details it needs to identify clear tasks. The problem isn't in sorting; it's in the data-gathering stage. If interviews don't provide details, task sorting becomes much more complex. Fortunately, there are six simple things you can do to improve the quality of your interviews, and clarify task analysis." (Indi Young - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on February 17, 2004 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Look at the Blogosphere

"Weblog visualisation uses spatial metaphors like that of the world map or the underground lines of a city. Something so apparently unlinked to localisation requires it in order to establish a reference (?)." (Juan Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

Posted by PJB on February 17, 2004 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Computer Lib/Dream Machines Retrospective

"This astonishingly prescient book originally written and published by by Theodor H. Nelson in 1974 in a glorious oversized format is one of the 'tap roots' of the soon to be born microcomputer and "cyber" cultures. The following pages provide a retrospecitve of this work and Ted's current projects and vision. We will present excerpts from the 1975 (second?) edition, kindly provided to us by Dan Croghan." (DigiBarn Computer Museum) - courtesy of anne galloway

Posted by PJB on February 17, 2004 | Classification: Classics | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength

"E-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred over other media. However, a new study found that only 11% of newsletters were read thoroughly, so layout and content scannability is paramount." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on February 17, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Genre and Multimodality: A computer model of genre in document layout

"Layout and graphics are not random: they are used creatively to express meaning, just as language is. The GeM project analyses expert knowledge of page design and layout to see how visual resources are used in the creation of documents, both printed and electronic. The genre of a page (...) plays a central role in determining what graphical devices are chosen and how they are employed." (GeM Project Team)

Posted by PJB on February 17, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Content Delivery in the 'Blogosphere'

"Blogs can be incorporated into any type of class for all reading- and writing-aged students. They can be used as a knowledge-management tool where teachers and students communicate with each other through the course of the semester, or as a tool to bring reflections or outside material into the class for everyone's benefit. Following are a number of practical suggestions that provide a good environment for successful blog integration." (R.E. Ferdig et al. - T.H.E. Journal Online) - courtesy of dave winer

Posted by PJB on February 16, 2004 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Do you have a smiling face on your website?

"If you think it's great to have a smiling face on your website, join the crowd. It's hard to find a website these days that doesn't have a happy face. Unfortunately, the happy face syndrome is often a reflection of lack of focus. When everyone is smiling, where's the differentiation?" (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on February 16, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

From Brick to Click - Bridging the Divide 5/7: Providing Immediate Gratification

"(...) there are some scenarios, products and situations that eCommerce providers realistically will not be able to match traditional stores on. But in many cases, by re-framing the problem and innovating solutions that are thoughtfully engineered for the needs and desires of our customers, we can not only make our personal eBusinesses prosperous, but completely re-define categories and change what people are buying, and how." (Dirk Knemeyer - Thread, Inc.)

Posted by PJB on February 16, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Education for IA: Talking Heads and That D-Word Again!

"If you consider the subject only to be concerned with organizing websites, then it is pretty clear that a master's degree in the topic may be overkill, and a course or two within a more general program will probably suffice to get you on the path. But if, like me, you think of IA as a more encompassing effort aimed at understanding how information can be organized and presented for human and organizational use, both within and beyond websites, and addressing issues of performance effectiveness and efficiency, user satisfaction, sustainability and indeed aesthetic response to a resource, then a degree program looks to be more like a minimum requirement to get started." (Andrew Dillon - ASIS&T Bulletin Feb. 2004)

Posted by PJB on February 15, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Don Norman on Emotion Design (IT Conversation)

"Don Norman used to be known as a critic of unusable things but now, he says, he has changed. He has transformed himself into an advocate for pleasurable, enjoyable products. Beauty is good, says Norman. Successful products should a pleasure to use, and convey a positive sense of self, of accomplishment, and pride of ownership. In this keynote address, Norman shares work from his latest book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things." (IT Conversations) - courtesy of ben hyde

Posted by PJB on February 15, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Beyond Usability: Designing the Complete User Experience

(Amsterdam - June 22-23, 2004) "This two-day presentation covers the process of user experience design from gathering initial business requirements through developing functional specifications." (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on February 13, 2004 | Classification: Events | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Don Norman on Emotion Design @EtCon04

"(...) beauty is skin deep, and so is our evolutionary response... nothing wrong with that... it's a layer of decision making we need. If you make something everyone loves, that's a mark of mediocre design, not great design." (Black Belt Jones)

Posted by PJB on February 13, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making

"Whatever we make of the all-embracing umbrella of 'knowledge management', we do find at least one robust concept that opens up and provides useful coverage: the community of practice." (Springer)

Posted by PJB on February 12, 2004 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Visual Language of PowerPoint: Q&A with Bob Horn

"Are we at the verge of the creation of a new global verbal-visual language? In 1998 political scientist and Stanford scholar Robert Horn released 'Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century', a 'must-read' for anyone who communicates with words and images, and an important roadmap for any serious PowerPoint practitioner." (Cliff Atkinson - Sociable Media) - courtesy of ben hyde

Posted by PJB on February 12, 2004 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Accessible Web Typography: An introduction for web designers

"This short(ish) book contains all the important 'stuff' I ever wanted to know about creating accessible text on my own web pages; and now that I have figured it out myself, I am happy to pass it on." (Jim Byrne - ScotConnect) - courtesy of deswozhere

Posted by PJB on February 12, 2004 | Classification: Typography | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Usability: A New International Standard

"ISO is developing a new standard for web usability. The new standard will be of interest to anyone who designs, evaluates or commissions web sites and it is likely to have a significant impact in improving the overall usability of the web." (Userfocus) - courtesy of usability news

Posted by PJB on February 12, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

segusoLand: Screenshots and tutorial

"(..) a program for GNU/linux that enables users to specify any kind of action in a very uniform way, with an artificial intelligence that aids you while you are composing the action, by showing you only the relevant options. segusoLand features a completely new user interaction paradigm called 'reciprocal list narrowing'. You won't find it anywhere else. Some people would call segusoLand a 'desktop environment', some a 'file manager", some a "start menu' ... it is difficult to classify it because it is quite innovative." (Maurizio Colucci - segusoLand) - courtesy of nooface

Posted by PJB on February 11, 2004 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User Interface Design — Is it A Science, An Art, or A Craft?

"My answer is: It's a craft that takes its wisdom from science, its inspiration from art and the design disciplines, its possibilities and limitations from software technology and corporate culture, and its directions — ideally — from the users." (Gerd Waloszek - SAP Design Guild) - courtesy of ben hyde

Posted by PJB on February 11, 2004 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Component Technology and Modeling Support in UML for Developers

"In this article, a try has been made to see CBD from a developer's perspective. We shall see that support does exist in terms of modeling the CBD process, but the level of support differs significantly at different stages of the process. We will see how UML supports a service-based architecture and what sorts of model it provides for the different people in the development team. We try to explore the different models provided by UML to analyze, design and implement the Component-Based systems and see what sort of support do they provide for the different levels in development process." (Amjad Bashir - Journal of Conceptual Modeling)

Posted by PJB on February 11, 2004 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Top 10 Reasons to Not Shop On Line

"Responsibility for many e-commerce problems lies with designers. Responsibility for others lies with engineers, marketers, managers, and executives who are willing to accept mediocrity or worse." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog) - courtesy of lawrence lee

Posted by PJB on February 10, 2004 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Managing the Complexity of Content Management

"Content management systems suck. Or so you would think from the strife heard from analysts and practitioners alike. And yet, many websites regularly publish vast amounts of information with superior control and ease compared to manually editing pages. So where's the disconnect between what's possible and the too-often failure of CMS?" (Victor Lombardi - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on February 10, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Value-Driven Intranet Design

"Fundamentally, your intranet must be tied to value creation like other business services within your organization." (Shiv Singh - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on February 10, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack