March 2004

Information taxonomy plays a critical role in Web site design and search processes

"Information taxonomy is a Web developer's best friend because it can help reach those two most elusive goals of effective Web design: user satisfaction and return on investment. Conversely, even the most efficient search engine cannot completely overcome problems caused by poorly conceived or completely absent information taxonomy." (ZDNet)

Posted by PJB on March 31, 2004 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The high cost of not finding information

"We need to embed both people and information within a system that fits how people in the organization work, that understands the workflow and when the needs for information arise. People need to use information within the context of their jobs and their environment. It's not just the information that is vital to the organization. It's the exchange of information, the information within the context of the people and the situation of the moment that needs to be recorded and tracked so that when people disappear, the reasons why decisions are made remain behind." (Susan Feldman - KMWorld) - courtesy of john rhodes

Posted by PJB on March 31, 2004 | Classification: Search | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

spiekerblog

The weblog of information designer and information architect Erik Spiekermann - courtesy of jason kottke

Posted by PJB on March 31, 2004 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Top 3 Priorities of the Talking Horse

"Anytime somebody does something new with technology, something nobody else has ever done before, that technology goes through a talking horse stage. It's extremely common and, more importantly, it's critical for the design team to recognize that they are in this stage." (Jared Spool - UI Engineering)

Posted by PJB on March 30, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Red Herring of Usability ROI

"Like all of Rosenberg's observant myths, the misguided belief that statements like these can be made (and more importantly believed!) is the great red herring of usability ROI research. Let's rid ourselves of these top-down, macro-level assertions and get down to the real work of analyzing specific usability interventions at the project level. Only through rigorous and in-depth analysis can larger patterns emerge and applications be developed." (Scott Hirsch - Net Now) - courtesy of ia slash

Posted by PJB on March 30, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Seven Myths of Usability ROI

"Daniel Rosenberg began his talk by confessing that he doesn't believe in usability Return on Investment (ROI). Having spent 30 years in the field of User Experience (UE), and never having been asked to justify usability by its ROI, Rosenberg raises a question: Why are we still discussing this topic?" (BayCHI) - courtesy of nick finck

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

Don't make these mistakes when buying content management software

"Most organizations don't need content management software. Unless you have a very busy website with lots and lots of content being published, the return on investment is not there. The majority of those who do require such software need a very simple, streamlined solution." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on March 28, 2004 | Classification: Content management | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Productivity in the Service Economy

"Yes, it is possible for white-collar workers to work smarter and become more productive. While intranet usability provides substantial initial gains, workflow usability can go much further and will save millions of jobs." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

Content Mapping 

"Content Mapping is the theoretical framework used by Namahn's information designers to turn traditional, sequential information into manageable and re-usable document-like content objects, ready for multiple purposes." (Namahn Research Notes)

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

Smart style for conveying information 

"The catch is that the style ingredients - content, presentation structure and aesthetics - are mutually dependent. Resolving these dependencies is exactly why graphic design is difficult and the reason that our style has to get smart." (Lynda Hardman)

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

The End-All Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev

"The number of wireless visitors using tiny browsers with ever increasing capacities is unlikely to diminish." (Heidi Pollock - Webmonkey) - courtesy of nick finck

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

Technical writers and interaction design

"Technical writers are oft-forgotten constituents in the product development cycle. Although they are rarely tasked with participating in product requirements definition and product design, technical writers are in a unique position to affect product design. However, they will find that subtlety and subterfuge are sometimes necessary to make a politically correct impact in an organization that has not embraced interaction design as a formal part of the development process." (Steve Calde - Cooper)

Posted by PJB on March 25, 2004 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps!

"To be faced with a document collection and not to be able to find the information you know exists somewhere within it is a problem as old as the existence of document collections. Information Architecture is the discipline dealing with the modern version of this problem: how to organize web sites so that users actually can find what they are looking for. Information architects have so far applied known and well-tried tools from library science to solve this problem, and now topic maps are sailing up as another potential tool for information architects. This raises the question of how topic maps compare with the traditional solutions, and that is the question this paper attempts to address. The paper argues that topic maps go beyond the traditional solutions in the sense that it provides a framework within which they can be represented as they are, but also extended in ways which significantly improve information retrieval." (Lars Marius Garshol - Ontopia)

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

High Accessibility, High Design: CSS to the rescue

"I'm going to make a sweeping generalization here and say there are two grand reasons why people get involved in Web development: They like the programming and coding (they're technical) or they like visual design on the Web (they're artistic)." (Joe Clark - Naar Voren)

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

Using the 5Es to Understand Users

"(...) look at usability requirements for different aspects of the user experience. For each of the five dimensions of usability (the 5Es), we think about how it is reflected in requirements for each of the user groups." (Whitney Quesenbery - WQusability) - courtesy of beth mazur

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

Didier Hilhorst Speaks

"Colors and design are direct interface features. In my opinion the level of attractiveness directly affects ease-of-use, enjoyment and usefulness. A good website, as opposed to just a usable website, should seamlessly blend accessibility, usability and aesthetic quality." (skinnyj) - courtesy of nick finck

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

It's all in the process 

"Information design isn't necessarily about databases, spreadsheets, or even infographics. It's about process - designers and clients working together to solve problems and convey complex information though design systems that are functional and beautiful." (Ann Senechal - Adobe Magazine)

Posted by PJB on March 23, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The People-Centric web

"I like to say that the Web is about people. It's been one of my many mantras over the years and it's becoming more and more apparent to me that I'm not the only one who feels this way." (D. Keith Robinson - Asterisk)

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

New design rules: Yield to consumer

"Now that the consumer is in control, the industry may simply have to come hat in hand and adjust the expectations it's built up over the years" (Brian Fuller - EETimes)

Posted by PJB on March 22, 2004 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

How to tell people what else you do on your website

"People come to your website on a mission. They want to do something specific. They are tunnel readers. Telling them what else you do - without annoying them - is a major challenge. Doing it well is about relevance and context. It’s about presenting the right content at the right time." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on March 21, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Programmers, designers and the Brooklyn Bridge

"Do engineers design? Can designers engineer? Looking back at great projects throughout history, it seems these kinds of questions never needed to be asked. There was a philosophy that surfaced in many great works that to do anything well required more than one skill set or discipline. On the contrary, unchecked specialization breeds fragile and shallow ideas. As technology has progressed, I think we’ve lost our connections with the great works of the past and the philosophies and attitudes that enabled their creation. The design and engineering of modern technology, software and the web has bred a hubris that anything older than a few years can’t possibly be relevant, and I think it’s a mistake. To argue this point, there is no better place to start as a basis of comparison and learning than the story of the Brooklyn Bridge." (Scott Berkun - UIweb) - courtesy of lawrence lee

Posted by PJB on March 21, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Next Big Thing: From Hypermedia to Datuments

"The concept of a datument as a hyperdocument for transmitting and preserving the complete content of a piece of scientific work is introduced. Currently the scientific publishing process loses almost all of the information environment that the author creates or possesses. It is shown that datuments can record and reproduce experiments and act as a lossless way of publishing science. This is illustrated with specific examples drawn from scientific documents and molecular science, showing how a datument containing molecular coordinates can be viewed in various styles and how typical documents deriving from organic and physical chemistry and expressed in XML can be transformed using XSLT." (Peter Murray-Rust and Henry S. Rzepa - Journal of Digital Information)

Posted by PJB on March 21, 2004 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

A republic of information designers

"The introduction of an information elite does little to reassure us. Wurman (1995) sees a heroic role for 'a group of people, small in number, deep in passion, called Information Architects', struggling forward through the 'field of black volcanic ash' constituted by current design, in order to save humanity from the 'tsunami of data that is crashing onto the beaches of the civilized world'. This sounds more like a blurb for the next Spielberg blockbuster, with Information Architects as the good guys, than as a serious proposal about the role of information design. However, the conference brochure similarly suggests that the 'Republic of Information' is 'going to be laid out and planned by a new breed of architects, informed with a new level of understanding and purpose'." (Jos de Bruin and Remko Scha - Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam)

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

Calm Technologies in a Multimedia World

"In an ideal world, computers will blend into the landscape, will inform but not overburden you with information, and make you aware of them only when you need them." (Alexandru Tugui - ACM Ubiquity)

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

Day 2: IA Summit 2004 Wrapup

Trip Report

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Day 1: IA Summit 2004 Wrapup

"Is there an information architect who doesn’t love facets?" (Boxes and Arrows Staff)

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Ontology, Metadata, and Semiotics

"The Internet is a giant semiotic system. It is a massive collection of Peirce's three kinds of signs: icons, which show the form of something; indices, which point to something; and symbols, which represent something according to some convention. But current proposals for ontologies and metadata have overlooked some of the most important features of signs." (John Sowa)

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

Towards a Semantic Web for Culture

"New ways are proposed of visualizing knowledge using a time/space horizon to distinguish between universals and particulars. It is suggested that new visualization methods make possible a history of questions as well as of answers, thus enabling dynamic access to cultural and historical dimensions of knowledge. Unlike earlier media, which were limited to recording factual dimensions of collective memory, digital media enable us to explore theories, ways of perceiving, ways of knowing; to enter into other mindsets and world-views and thus to attain novel insights and new levels of tolerance. Some practical consequences are outlined." (Kim H. Veltman - Journal of Digital Information)

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

The Joy of Navigation Design

"Navigation design isn't just about finding things -- it imbues meaning based on the contexts it provides." (Peter Merholz)

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

Vocabulary Mapping for Terminology Services

"The paper describes a project to add value to controlled vocabularies by making inter-vocabulary associations. A methodology for mapping terms from one vocabulary to another is presented in the form of a case study applying the approach to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Thesaurus and the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Our approach to mapping involves encoding vocabularies according to Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) standards, machine matching of vocabulary terms, and categorizing candidate mappings by likelihood of valid mapping. Mapping data is then stored as machine links. Vocabularies with associations to other schemes will be a key component of Web-based terminology services. The paper briefly describes how the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is used to provide access to a vocabulary with mappings." (Diane Vizine-Goetz et al. - Journal of Digital Information)

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

Massacre in Madrid

"The March 11th tragedy in Madrid has given rise to a cataract of information (and of emotions) some of which have been converted into visual representations that bring us closer to the what and the how of what has happened these dreadful days." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

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

Aristotle's Categories

Original text translated by E. M. Edghill (The Classical Library)

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

Information Design: A young discipline 

"Information Design, ID, comprises research on analysis, planning, presentation, and understanding of a message - its content, language, and form. Regardless of the selected medium, a well designed information material will satisfy aesthetic, economic, ergonomic, as well as subject matter requirements. The study of information design can be summarised as a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional, and worldwide consideration." (Rune Petterson - Information Design and Product Development, Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna, Sweden)

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

An open letter to Jakob Nielsen

"Prove to the world that you understand what it takes to provide the world with good design. Prove that you understand that good design, especially as it pertains to the field of high-technology product design, is also about nuts and bolts, honest, straight-forward usability. Prove to the designers out there you understand the principles of good design by tackling your own little spot on the World Wide Web." (Andrei Michael Herasimchuk - Design by Fire)

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

Eyetrack Is Not a Solution

"Eyetrack is an effort to show how online news users process information on a Web page. We look through the eyes (literally) of a group of consumers as they view broadband-era news websites and multimedia editorial content." (Poynter Online)

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

Infolution: Technology in depth and white paper

"Having the right information at the right time is absolutely essential to one's business. 'Information is power!' or so the saying goes. But while information is a valuable resource, overwhelming information can pose a serious problem." (Tarchon)

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

Fourth Annual Weblog Awards: The 2004 Bloggies

"The Weblog Awards ceremony was held at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival for the second time in Austin, Texas, USA on Monday, March 15, 2004 at 12:30 PM. Webloggers including previous winners and prize donators presented the certificates and prizes to those present." (Fairvue)

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

SXSW: Web Awards

"During the awards, I sat at the same table as Kevin and Tom from OK/Cancel, a great web site for geeks. I scored two of their trading cards featuring two of my design heroes, Don Norman and Edward Tufte, as superheroes with special powers." (Terrie Miller - O'Reilly Developer Weblogs)

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

I am USER, hear me roar!

"There are some things, that have been and are done successfully throughout the years of the internet. The biggest one is the big C - content." (Chris Heilmann - Evolt)

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

Why Consumer Products Have Inferior User Experience

"Physical products, from consumer electronics to cars, are needlessly complex because they're developed by insular companies that continue to ignore the growing usability trend." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on March 15, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Geography of Cyberspace Directory

"Does Cyberspace have a geography? What do we know about the nature, shape, size, distribution and geography of the Internet, the World-Wide Web and Cyberspace?" (Cyber Geography)

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

Structure and Style in Use Cases for User Interface Design

"Various styles for writing use cases are presented with examples and discussions of their relative advantages and disadvantages, particularly their consequences for user interface design and software usability. Essential use cases, a variant employed within usage-centered design, are contrasted with conventional use cases and scenarios. For the most efficient support of user interface design and particularly for large, complex projects, a highly-structured form of use case has evolved. New narrative elements and relationships among use cases are introduced. These include means for expressing partial or flexible ordering of interaction, relationships with business rules, as well as a clarification of the often misunderstood concept of extension that recognizes two distinct forms: synchronous and asynchronous extensions." (Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.) - courtesy of guuui

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2004 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

How to design for the tunnel reader

"People may initially scan read on the Web; their eyes moving quickly across a page. However, when they find the keywords they are interested in, they tend to tunnel read. What this means is that they focus on a specific set of content. They basically don’t see anything else on your website." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

User Experience in India: State of the Profession 2004

"Overall, the survey reveals the picture of a profession that is rapidly maturing. Many practitioners have more than four years experience. Some institutes are playing a key role in educating students in the field. Practitioners have knowledge of many of the techniques and methods of the field. Practitioners face a number of constraints in their work which seem very similar to those faced by practitioners in other countries and regions. In short, User Experience in India has arrived!" (Uzanto Consulting)

Posted by PJB on March 12, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Emotional about design

"Visceral design is what nature does. (...) Behavioural design is all about use. (...) Reflective design is about the meaning of things." (Guardian Unlimited) - courtesy of lawrence lee

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

MSN Personas

"We try to understand an audience through numbers, charts and graphs, but often times we lose sight of the people who represent these statistics. The MSN audience is comprised of a broad range of users at different stages in their life, who use MSN in their own unique way. To help better define the people behind the numbers, MSN has created personas for some key audience segments." (MSN Advertising) - courtesy of brett lider

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

Optimizing Your Chances with Accessibility

Effectively increasing search engine ranking with W3C Accessibility guidelines and Section 508 (Brandon Olejniczak - Digital Web Magazine)

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

Taxonomy and Metadata Strategies for Effective Content Management

"There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo like the word 'taxonomy' that is being thrown around to describe how to manage so-called unstructured content like business documents, web site pages, and old fashioned technical reports and articles. On the one hand, we want to remember what we already know about how to create a useful core catalog record to describe a content object so it can be found again later when needed. On the other hand, there are some bad habits and obsolete ideas like inverted file indexes that we need to get beyond. This talk is about what we have seen in dozens of applied information management projects over the past few years, and how you can take advantage of what you already know to solve big problems like these in your own organizations." (Joseph Busch - Potomac Valley Chapter of ASIS&T)

Posted by PJB on March 10, 2004 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Supporting enterprise knowledge management with weblogs: A weblog services roadmap

"Presentation at the Computers in Libraries conference." (Michael Angeles)

Posted by PJB on March 10, 2004 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Content Management for Information Architecture

Video of presentations at the Fifth IA Summit 2004 - including Poster Sessions and the presentation of Jared Spool (CMSReview) - courtesy of columntwo

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) |