April 2004

The Evolution of Corporate Web Sites

"It's fascinating to see how they have evolved over the years, from the early days of magazine-style brochureware to the most recent trends of two-way Web interfaces." (Richard MacManus - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 29, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Measuring the User Response to ClearType

"We are investigating the user response to Microsoft's ClearType™ font enhacement technology. ClearType is a setting that is manipulated through the operating system of devices using Liquid Crystal Display screens. ClearType works by altering the vertical color stripe within a pixel, allowing for changes in how the text looks at fractional levels. These changes are intended to enhance the resolution of the screen text and improve readability." (Andrew Dillon et al.)

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

Reproduced and emergent genres of communication on the World-Wide Web

"Genres are useful because they are more easily recognized and understood by recipients of the communications. Therefore, we suggest that Web site designers consider the genres that are appropriate for their situation and attempt to reuse familiar genres. More explicit attention to genres may also speed the wider acceptance of newly emerging genres of communication unique to the Web." (Kevin Crowston and Marie Williams) - courtesy of victor lombardi

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

Search Engine Meeting 2004

The Hague, The Netherlands (19-20 April 2004) - Available presentations in PDF (infonortics)

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

Movement in Visualisation

"The correct perception of movement has been an important routine of everyday life since the beginning of humanity. It is also an important resource in visualisation." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

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

B2B: Help Your Fans Convince Their Bosses

"B2B websites must support a more complex buying process than B2C sites. Three key goals are to make a buyer's shortlist, offer a downloadable advocacy kit, and build a reputation for great service." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

Peter Van Dijck: The InfoDesign profile

Each month, InfoDesign profiles a thought leader in the design industry, focusing on people who are identified with or show strong sensibilities to the design of information and experiences. This month, Peter Van Dijck is our 'victim'. (InfoDesign: Understanding by Design)

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

10 Classics from Cognitive Science

"The editorial board of Cognitive Science has identified several classic articles that appeared in our journal over the last couple of decades." (Cognitive Science Society) - courtesy of peter van dijck

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

How much human support does your website need?

"A website should be measured based on the value it creates. What results do you want to get from your website? A 100 percent self-service website may simply not deliver the results you need. The right mix of self service and human support may in fact deliver the best value." (Gerry McGovern)

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

Storytelling: Scientist's Perspective: John Seely Brown

"The implications when technology is brought into the storytelling process." (John Seely Brown: Chief of Confusion)

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

Metadata based search and browse functionality on the NSW Office of Fair Trading intranet: A Case Study

"The NSW Office of Fair Trading launched its first intranet in June 2003. At the very beginning of the intranet project we recognised that unless users could find information easily the intranet would not succeed. We also understood that different people prefer to find information in different ways. To maximise the chances of searchers finding relevant information, and to provide flexibility in search options, we developed and implemented metadata driven search and browse functions. This case study describes the standards, tools and technology we used and how metadata was manipulated to retrieve information in a number of different ways." (NSW Office of Information and Communications Technology) - courtesy of column two

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

Russell Reflects: How the Web is Changing

"But I think a sea-change is on the horizon - readers are becoming more powerful, and more importantly, integrated into websites, and screen scraping is becoming more advanced." (Usability News)

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

The Impact of Design on Stock Market Performance 

"Design is a critical component of business performance. We've heard designers, commentators and companies say it. But, to date, the evidence for the link between shareholder return and investment in design has been scarce and anecdotal." (Design Counsil) - courtesy of jason kottke

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

How To Quantify The User Experience

"Many look to the user experience as an overall indicator of Website success. Analyzing how effectively a Website provides for a net positive user experience can often turn into a subjective affair, rife with opinion and short on objectivity." (Robert Rubinoff - sitepoint) - courtesy of column two

Posted by PJB on April 22, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Usability Guidelines

"These guidelines include most factors to consider during a usability evaluation of a web site. Not all factors apply to every site." (MIT Information Services and Technology) - courtesy of lucdesk

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

Information Architecture Library

"The IA Library is a selection of resources related to the field of information architecture. The collection includes articles, books, blogs, and more." (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture) - courtesy of peter morville

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

Search Engine Optimisation and Accessibility

"The following chapters describe how search engines algorithms, and attempts to address them through search engine optimisation as marketing technique creates new opportunities for making web content accessible - and equally, how improving the accessibility of a site can help maximise both it's search engine promotion potential and increase user conversions and ROI." (Big Mouth Media)

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

Making 1040s a bit less taxing

"Another big difference is how the instructions are written. When modifying language on the existing 1040, Karen Schriver took care to make statements before qualifying them." (Avrum D. Lank - JSOnline) - courtesy of beth mazur

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

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research

"Design is disorienting. Especially when you are designing something in a collaborative environment, with multiple stakeholders, pressured deadlines, business objectives and budgetary constraints. We all go into design with the firm belief that the user is our pole star, but so often we lose that focus because of tossing waves, buffeting winds, and the crew screaming in our ears—never mind the dense cloud cover that always seems to obscure that trusty star just when a committee forms to gather requirements." (Andrew Hinton - Boxes and Arrows)

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

Remote Contextual Inquiry: A Technique to Improve Enterprise Software

"Remote Contextual Inquiry gives us an opportunity to view our end users' desktops to observe how they are using their current products in a cost and time-efficient manner. It is a marriage between the remote usability lab test and contextual inquiry, allowing us to transcend geographical boundaries without actually having to travel to distant locations. We gain contextual insights such as personalized settings, hidden fields, and added functionality that are typically not obtained during a usability test. It is truly a flexible method that provides a wealth of knowledge about the use of customized enterprise software" (Jeff English and Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo - Boxes and Arrows)

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

The secret of managing a successful website

"The Web is about self-service. To achieve success in self-service you need to really understand how your visitors think and behave. If they are to serve themselves they must feel comfortable and confident. That requires getting to know their needs in a comprehensive manner. It requires an ongoing conversation with them." (Gerry McGovern)

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

Progressive Disclosure: The best interaction design technique?

"Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that sequences information and actions across several screens in order to reduce feelings of overwhelm for the user." (Frank Spiller - Demystifying Usability) - courtesy of design by fire

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

What is Experience Design?

"Eventually, thinking about experience design will lead us into the realm of narrative - those stories that inform our lives and create our private and public identity." (Experience Designer Network) - courtesy of brian alger

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

The Matrix of W3C Specifications

"The specifications in the Matrix are at least at Last Call stage, except if they are working on a Test Suite at Working Draft stage. An empty cell means that the data is either not available or not known by the maintainers of the Matrix. The Matrix contains 70 Recommendations, 18 Candidate Recommendations, 0 Proposed Recommendations and 15 Last Call Working Drafts." (W3C)

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

SIGWEB interview with Douglas Engelbart

"Firstly, can I ask if you're a regular visitor to the Hypertext Conference? - No, sorry to say. Possibly been over a decade; I think in Texas, and Tim B-L described the plans that turned into the WWW. (...) In terms of the concepts and innovations I've been trying to communicate to the world, I seriously feel that I have been a persistent failure." (Simon Harper - SIGWEB)

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

The nonsense of 'knowledge management'

"Examines critically the origins and basis of 'knowledge management', its components and its development as a field of consultancy practice. Problems in the distinction between 'knowledge' and 'information' are explored, as well as Polanyi's concept of 'tacit knowing'. The concept is examined in the journal literature, the Web sites of consultancy companies, and in the presentation of business schools. The conclusion is reached that 'knowledge management' is an umbrella term for a variety of organizational activities, none of which are concerned with the management of knowledge. Those activities that are not concerned with the management of information are concerned with the management of work practices, in the expectation that changes in such areas as communication practice will enable information sharing." (T.D. Wilson - Information Research 8.1)

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

KM Reinventing IA Reinventing KM

"Maybe my error is in assuming that KM is a field like IA, when perhaps it's really more an industry, dominated by vendors, where practice is almost a dirty word. Kind of like content management (although the CM professionals are getting uppity and organized). Perhaps there is more synergy between fields (e.g. IA and usability) than between a field of practice and an industry." (Louis Rosenfeld et al.)

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

Searching versus Finding: Why Systems Need Knowledge to Find What You Really Want

"Read about how one would query to retrieve the longest word in the English language: is it 'floccinaucinihilipilification' (a possible answer) or possibly 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' (a better answer?) According to Bill: These tasks will require systems that can determine what passages are saying and reason with the resulting knowledge, and they will require additional sources of knowledge and advancements in automated reasoning. An active research area devoted to question-answering is currently pursuing such goals." (W.A. Woods - Sun Microsystems Laboratories)

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

Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness

"On this page, I list wacky, bizarre, surreal and otherwise strange examples of technical documentation, particularly illustration." (Darren Barefoot) - courtesy of xblog

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

Digital Dashboards

"Digital Dashboards are real time visualisation tools of critical business indicators that help in decision making. Its use is spreading and advancing from the executive elite towards the ubiquity of weblogs and personal computing." (Juan C. Dürsteler - InfoVis!)

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

Gurus v. Boggers Design Shoutout

"Playing for the Gurus: Richard Saul Wurman, Bruce Tognazzi, Peter Merholz, Jakob Nielsen, Edward Tufte, Gerry McGovern, Donald Norman, and Andrei Herasimchuk. (...) Playing for the Bloggers: Jeffery Zeldman, D. Keith Robinson, Andy Budd, Didier Hilhorst, John Gruber, Greg Storey, John Hicks, and Josh Williams. (...) The Bloggers win in a shut-out, 8 to 0. A total Guru smackdown. Completely knocked out of the ring." (Andrei Herasimchuk - Design by Fire)

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

Why Mobile Phones are Annoying

"Bystanders rated mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

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

The three core principles of great web design

"The essence of a website is self-service. There are three core things that self-service needs to get right: convenience, speed, and price. Convenience means task achievement with minimum effort. Speed means that you get in and out of a website as quickly as possible. People are cheap on the Web." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Aaron Marcus on interaction design

"There are design documents which designers make, that convey wisdom and are part of transactions with colleagues from other disciplines, and users. We as designers must talk increasingly with and communicate with other professionals from other disciplines." (Sharon H. Poggenpohl - Institute of Design)

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

Fundamental issues with open source software development

"The lack of focus on user interface design causes users to prefer proprietary software's more intuitive interface. Open Source software tends to lack the complete and accessible documentation that retains users. Developers focus on features in their software, rather than ensuring that they have a solid core. (...) If Open Source software wishes to become widely used and embraced by the general public, all issues will have to be overcome." (Michelle Levesque - First Monday 9.4)

Posted by PJB on April 09, 2004 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Indirect Authoring Paradigm: Bringing Hypertext into the Web

"Building hypertext systems to provide the required functionality to write hypertexts has always been a goal of hypertext research. The parallel development of hypertext research prototypes and the World Wide Web has resulted in repeated attempts to replace the Web or offer world-wide all-purpose services to augment the Web with 'missing' functionality." (Hartmut Obendorf - Journal of Digital Information)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: Hypertext | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

SVG and Typography

"Mixing the worlds of documents, programming, and visual design is a familiar experience for XML developers, especially when dealing with presentation technologies like SVG. Such mixtures can produce exciting new representations of information." (Fabio Arciniegas A. - XML.com)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Newsmap

"Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator." (Marcos Weskamp) - courtesy of reloade

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: InfoViz | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Designer Is Dead, Long Live The Designer!

"I strongly believe that design, not usability, is the main driver in shaping user experience. That is, aesthetics, thus attractiveness, directly affects perceived ease-of-use, usefulness and enjoyment." (Didier P. Hilhorst - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Information Architecture: A Rose by Any Other Name…

"As more web practitioners have assumed the title of Information Architect to describe the work they do, and as more information architects (and user experience designers and user interface designers and information designers) are multitasking on reduced staffs, information architects have uncovered a wide range of ways to view both the practice and ourselves practicing." (Lynn Stott - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Card sorting: A definitive guide

"Card sorting is a great, reliable, inexpensive method for finding patterns in how users would expect to find content or functionality." (Donna Maurer and Todd Warfel - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The myth of navigation

"Data, content and functionality operate in a similar manner in the digital experience. There is a set of data, content, and functionality that exists in a binary form on some hard drive, yet how one interacts with it is through some expression of an interface." (Andrei Herasimchuk - Design by Fire)

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2004 | Classification: Navigation | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Interview with Donald Norman on Mental Models

"Intuition is a name that we give to knowledge structures that are so well 'routinized' that they occur subconsciously -- but intuition is something that requires a tremendous amount of learning." (Avi Parush - Carlton HOT Lab) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2004 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Changing Lives Through Technology

"David Nagel, CEO of PalmSource, talks about his work at NASA, Apple and AT&T, and gives examples of success and failure in human factors design. (...) The fundamental problem is that if the underlying system model incorporates abstractions that are difficult for normal human beings to understand, it's always, always going to behave in unpredictable and non-understandable ways to them." (ACM Ubiquity)

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2004 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Way Forward with Web Standards

"Even though Web standards are being embraced by many Web authors, some businesses are reluctant to invest in standards-based Web sites without concrete reasons to do so. To help Web authors interested in advocating Web standards, this article assembles arguments and information about Web standards into one document and explains Web standards in terms of how they affect business." (MACCAWS) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted by PJB on April 06, 2004 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

What they didn't teach me in Design & Usability school

"People who make things happen do so through the credibility they earn over time. It can take months or years to develop the relationships needed to make great things happen, so be patient. Be smart. Be helpful. Listen to ideas from other people and show them that you appreciate their help, and consider what they say." (Scott Berkun - UIWeb)

Posted by PJB on April 06, 2004 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

The Structured-Unstructured Information Continuum

"If you've fallen into the trap of thinking of databases as 'structured' information, and files as 'unstructured' information, you're not alone." (Joseph Martins - Data Mobility Group)

Posted by PJB on April 05, 2004 | Classification: Content management | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Are you publishing too much on your website?

"Many websites are still publishing content that is not core to their business. The justification is that such content will indirectly deliver benefit. This is not a good idea. Focus on the content that is directly applicable to your organization’s objectives. Any other content confuses. It wastes time and money." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on April 05, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Web Design is Information Design

"Whereas the graphic designers job is usually to make something look good, the information designers job is to make something as logical and as easy to understand as possible. The information designer is less artist and more information architect and usability expert." (Andy Budd - Blogography) - courtesy of d. keith robinson

Posted by PJB on April 03, 2004 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Designing the User Experience: An Evolving Partnership for Collaborative Research and Development

"This paper describes a collaborative partnership between the University of Central England and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. The project evolved out of the University's mission to serve local and regional communities and the needs of Birmingham Museums Service to improve its provision in line with local and national directives on social inclusion, audience development and lifelong learning. This paper describes the evolution of the relationship from a series of collaborative MA design projects to user-centered design research and the creation of a jointly supervised full time PhD studentship looking at the role and future development of on-line collections." (Marie Jefsioutine et al. - Museums and the Web 2004 Papers)

Posted by PJB on April 03, 2004 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Jared Spool: The InfoDesign interview

"Jared is one of the most important - and best-recognized - voices in the field of usability. User Interface Engineering, the firm that he founded in 1988, is the world's largest research, training and consulting firm specializing in website and product usability." (Dirk Knemeyer)

Posted by PJB on April 02, 2004 | Classification: Special | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Why Content Management Fails

"This is more than just a way to manage content, it's the beginning of a content strategy - a plan for how your site will respond to your customers, inform them, and help them make decisions that will ultimately increase their loyalty to you and your site." (Jeffrey Veen - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on April 01, 2004 | Classification: Content management | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack

Use Cases and interaction design

"Use cases are widely used in large projects to capture the functional requirements of software systems. In the hands of interaction designers, use cases can serve as a powerful tool for brainstorming workflows and bridging the gaps between design and development." (Henrik Olsen - guuui)

Posted by PJB on April 01, 2004 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink | TrackBack