November 2004
"Aspects of this worldview derived from his association in the 1940s with Warren McCulloch, John von Neumann, Claude Shannon, and Norbert Wiener et al, who were all present at the creation of cybernetic theory. It was the radical epistemology behind these ideas seemed to inform a lot of this thinking." (John Brockman - Edge)
Posted by PJB on November 30, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"(...) design bugs that have been around so long that we've begun to think of them as folk heros. However, the usual requirement for turning a public enemy into a folk hero is death, not longevity, and so it should be for these worthies: Their executions are long overdue. These bugs aren't necessarily fatal. The are all at minimum highly irritating, and they have all survived for a minimum of five years or five product release cycles, whichever came first." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog) - courtesy of slash dot org
Posted by PJB on November 29, 2004 | Classification: HCI
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"What happens when you run a site in multiple languages/locales and need to manage the information architecture of that site? Can you just translate a taxonomy from one language to another? We are gathering a lot of material, and we'll start sharing that and opening up the conversation. Me, I plan to write a series of blog posts on international or global IA, of which this is the first." (Peter VanDijck - Guide to Ease)
Posted by PJB on November 29, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture
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"E-marketing is about substance over show, logic over emotion, and text over graphics. Good web marketers follow the Google motto: be useful." (Gerry McGovern)
Posted by PJB on November 29, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"The growing field of Technical Communication once primarily focused on the communication of technical information through manuals and help systems. In recent years the field has expanded to include a variety of specialized disciplines that utilize technology to communicate -- and has adopted much more sophisticated theories of communication to accomodate these changes. The Orange Journal of Technical Communication and Information Design is a graduate student journal that strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators." (About Orange)
Posted by PJB on November 28, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Professional UI designers tell us that user interfaces should be the first thing designed when we come to develop an application, and that programmers are incapable of doing this kind of design. They say it can only be done by the professional UI experts; OSS projects don't have access to these kind of people, and therefore can never be truly usable." (Benjamin Roe) - courtesy of slash dot org
Posted by PJB on November 26, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"(...) a project that brings open source developers and usability experts together. The idea behind is simple: There are many usability experts who want to contribute to software projects. And there are many developers who want to make their software more usable, and - as a consequence - more successful." (Open Usability Projects) - courtesy of slash dot org
Posted by PJB on November 25, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides maps for assembling topics into deliverables. By specializing the map elements, you can define a formal information architecture for your deliverables. This architecture provides guidance to authors on how to organize topics and lets processes recognize your organizing principles, resulting in a consistent, clear experience for your users." (Erik Hennum et al. - IBM developerWorks XML DITA)
Posted by PJB on November 25, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture
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"So what does media-neutral content look like? It focuses on tasks and concepts, not on chapters and appendixes. It follows the same basic information design principles that have informed good manual design and good online design for decades: task orientation, minimalism, and scenario-based development. If you author tasks and concepts, rather than sections and paragraphs, you have the makings of a topic collection that can be reordered for different needs, supporting different task flows for different users, and supporting different reading paths for different media. " (Don Day, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley, David Schell, Nancy Harrison - WritersUA)
Posted by PJB on November 25, 2004 | Classification: Technology
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"Online help systems have evolved over the past 20 years to meet the needs of our users. Designers must consider the content, format, presentation, navigation, and access methods of online help systems." (Michelle Corbin - WritersUA) - courtesy of ui designer
Posted by PJB on November 25, 2004 | Classification: TechCom
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"This page is designed to provide helpful information, samples, lessons and tutorials for university level technical illustration students and professional technical illustrators." (Kevin Hulsey) - courtesy of xblog
Posted by PJB on November 24, 2004 | Classification: Information graphics
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"Amsterdam was not only centrally located for many of the participants, but it's also small, walkable, dense, vital, complex, efficient, stylish, and civilized. All of which make it kind of perfect for a bunch of designers to wander around for three days taking thousands of pictures. I've felt that Amsterdam tends to embody naturally whatever theme Doors of Perception's focussed on: from 'lightness' to 'play' to 'flow'." (Andrew Otwell)
Posted by PJB on November 24, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Dirk Knemeyer will speak about the present and future of digital product design. Following Dirk's presentation, Dirk, Neil Day, Pabini Gabriel-Petit, James Leftwich, and Luke Wroblewski will participate in what should be a lively panel discussion on this topic. Frank Ramirez will moderate. In addition, every attendee will receive a free copy of the newly published book 'The Dictionary of Brand' from the AIGA Center for Brand Experience." (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)
Posted by PJB on November 23, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"(...) carefully developed metadata provides the foundation for a knowledge-model driven enterprise, representing an enormous opportunity for information architects - a chance to extend their talents to enterprise-wide concerns that go well beyond website design." (Andy Schriever - Boxes and Arrows)
Posted by PJB on November 23, 2004 | Classification: Metadata
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"A website is like an information flow, with you as the provider and your site visitors as the receivers of the information. If you don't plan your website with this in mind right from the start, you could find yourself with a brand new website that solves all your immediate needs, but not those of your site visitors." (Trenton Moss - bytestart.co.uk) - courtesy of james robertson
Posted by PJB on November 22, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"The last 200 years have driven centralization and changed the human experience in ways that conflict with evolution. The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)
Posted by PJB on November 22, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"Our experience illustrates how the simple, but powerful Kano Model is useful in helping teams understand the difference between Basic, Performance, and Delighter features. By designing in and focusing improvement efforts on those features that create customer delight, there is a much greater chance of keeping your current customers and gaining new ones." (Kathy Parker - i Six Sigma) - courtesy of brett lider
Posted by PJB on November 22, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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Resources for Communication Forum for discussion, planning, and collaboration: Experience the conference via audio or video and summaries or papers via html or pdf (May 30-31, 2003, Institute of Design, IIT Chicago, IL). - (About the Expert Forum)
Posted by PJB on November 21, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Never before has there been so much to choose from, and never before has it been more important to eliminate most of these choices." (Gerry McGovern)
Posted by PJB on November 21, 2004 | Classification: Complexity
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"In the literature you find a lot of hints concering web design and usability of web pages. But how do you compare web pages? Which ones are good or bad? What does a homepage say about your organization? This paper is based on research over the last couple of years and uses linguistic strategies to analyze electronic business communications - including newsletters and web sites. Unfortunately, linguistics is usually not used very often for electronic communication theories, but the variety of theories and tools are a good starting point to find synergies between computer science, marketing and webdesign." (Michael Beer - UI4ALL: 8th ERCIM Workshop)
Posted by PJB on November 21, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Usability is one of the critical components of successful Web design. But it doesn't change the fact that the paradigm of usability culture is ending." (Dirk Knemeyer - Digital Web Magazine)
Posted by PJB on November 18, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"Usability: The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Document design: The field concerned with creating texts (broadly defined) that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school or work." (Whitney Quesenbery)
Posted by PJB on November 18, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"An ongoing list of links to Design Engaged presentations." (Andrew Otwell)
Posted by PJB on November 18, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"The proliferation of the XML standard wihin the Technical Communication community of practice is gaining momentum. Many documents are produced on the basis of this markup language. The findability of these documents can be enhanced with the application of metadata. Applying metadata creates new possiblities to improve XML-documents. Concepts and techniques like (faceted) classification, thesauri, taxonomies, and topic maps can all be based on XML. This presentation outlines various metadata applications for XML-documents and identifies the added value of metadata for large document spaces." (Peter J. Bogaards - Tekom European Information Development Conference 2004) - select 'Downloads'
Posted by PJB on November 17, 2004 | Classification: Metadata
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"Each placement of an object, the choice of materials, the addition of hooks, handles, knobs, and switches, is both for utility and for communication. The physical placement and the perceptual appearance, sound, and touch all talk to the users, suggesting actions to be taken. Sometimes this conversation is accidental, but in the hands of good designers, the communication is intentional. Design is a conversation between designer and user, one that can go both ways, even though the designer is no longer present once the user enters the scene." (Donald Norman) courtesy of ui designer
Posted by PJB on November 17, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"The World Wide Web's markup language has always been HTML. HTML was primarily designed as a language for semantically describing scientific documents, although its general design and adaptations over the years has enabled it to be used to describe a number of other types of documents. The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a vague subject referred to as Web Applications. This specification attempts to rectify this." (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group)
Posted by PJB on November 16, 2004 | Classification: Technology
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Presentation from Design Engaged 2004 in Amsterdam - "Just as Portable Media Players are getting ready to flood the market, bit-based video streams seep into the liquid crystal displays of our connected mobile devices. Scattered findings from a born-again viewer playing auto-ethnographer." (Fabio Sergio)
Posted by PJB on November 16, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"This paper introduces a lot of taxonomies to help understand different form-factors and mobile usage contexts. It is arguing for the application of a User Centered Design process for mobile devices, and presumably within IBM. They strongly differentiate the differences with Fully Mobile Wirelessly Connected (FMWC) devices. A number of examples of UCD activities are given. In particular the effects of context are shown with examples and the need for task-analysis that includes the surrounding activities is promoted." (Mobile Community Design)
Posted by PJB on November 16, 2004 | Classification: UCD
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"An important conversation at an important moment: The nature of business is changing... The nature of design is changing too... Let's try to assess the new role of a switched design experience." (Larry Keeley - AIGA Gain Conference 2004)
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"The web design community thankfully seems to be wrapping up the 'design vs. usability' argument. In case you missed it, the conclusion was: 'Not either/or but both, and it depends.' Design leaders have proved that web sites can be both usable and beautiful, but we lack a vocabulary to talk about this new standard. The question now is not 'Which is most important?', but 'How do we deliver what's most important?' This article introduces the 'Sphere of Design', which is a simple conceptual model that illustrates the relationship and trade-offs between 'looks' and 'works'." (Ben Hunt - Scratchmedia)
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Ultimately, a content management system should be designed to empower writers and editors to do content creation and maintenance themselves. I'd like to see it taken a step further: Empower designers, information architects, and site owners with the ability to make the CMS work for them." (Jeffrey Veen - Adaptive Path)
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: Content management
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Unfinished version of an essay on 'Web applications'. - "The light-weight, Web-based applications ('webapps') of this essay are small, platform-independent programs that are downloaded on demand and execute inside a client program, such as a browser. They are thus like Java applets, but more 'script-like' than 'program-like' and therefore easier to write in many cases (though harder in others). They have a clearly separated user interface, that allows webapps to be easily adapted to different devices." (Bert Bos - The W3C Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents Position Papers)
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: Technology
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"This specification has been produced to establish standards for the documentation of any civil or military vehicle or equipment. It is based on international standards such as SGML/XML and CGM for production and use of electronic documentation. In addition, it defines a Common Source Data Base (CSDB) to provide source information for compilation of the publications and for use in electronic logistics information systems to deliver modules of information direct to the user."
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: TechCom
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Presentation from Design Engaged 2004 in Amsterdam. (Matt Jones)
Posted by PJB on November 15, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"Our results about the connection between Design Look and perceived credibility suggests that creating Web sites with quality information alone is not enough to win credibility in users' minds." (Consumer WebWatch)
Posted by PJB on November 14, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"There are two types of people involved in websites today: those who see content as an asset, and those who see it as a commodity. The latter better start looking for a new career." (Gerry McGovern)
Posted by PJB on November 14, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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A conversation with Liz Sanders and GK VanPatter - "So much of what is talked about today under the name of co-designing or human-centered innovation is still based on the expert-driven model. Informed ethnography is just not enough to support human-centered innovation. Participatory design practices together with an attitude adjustment are needed. Experts design for people. In the future we will be designing and innovating with people, not just for them." (NextD Journal)
Posted by PJB on November 13, 2004 | Classification: Interviews
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"Place for participants in the November 2004 Design Engaged workshop to put photos" (flickr beta) - courtesy of thomas vander wall
Posted by PJB on November 13, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"Usability culture has unquestionably made the Web a much more usable place. Given the way the Web generally worked just five years ago, the role of usability and related disciplines to the evolution of the Web was vital. But usability culture has steered the Web development ship long enough. It's time for a new approach. To understand the urgent nature of making that shift, we need to understand how we got where we are today." (Dirk Knemeyer - Digital Web Magazine)
Posted by PJB on November 11, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"The use of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for complex, transactional web applications is a significant leap forward for user interface design and development. It fundamentally changes the foundation of the presentation tier for today's web applications." (Benjamin Wigton - Avenue A / Razorfish Perspectives) - courtesy of brett lider
Posted by PJB on November 11, 2004 | Classification: HCI
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"The two or more overlapping circles that make up a Venn diagram are often used in mathematics to show relationships between sets. In the context of User Experience, however, Venn diagrams are frequently used to 'quickly convey a message or vision, as a visual reminder to support change/focus, and to easily identify the cause or source of something.'" (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)
Posted by PJB on November 11, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"Starting in 1992, Michel Biezunski and Steven R. Newcomb created, named, standardized and pioneered the application of the Topic Maps paradigm. Biezunski and Newcomb serve as co-editors of the ISO 13250 Topic Maps standard. They also co-founded TopicMaps.Org, where they co-edited the XML syntax (the 'XTM Specification') that was added to the 2002 version of the standard." (Luminary Lectures - Library of Congress) - courtesy of peter van dijck
Posted by PJB on November 11, 2004 | Classification: Metadata
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"An election is a perfect usability case study. It bring together large numbers of diverse voters, an unfamiliar interface and an outcome that shapes the future of our society. With such a seeming simple task, usability was not on the curriculum for elections officials. However, despite the focus on technology and security, it was poor information design and usability in the 2000 Palm Beach ballot that taught us all new words like 'chad' (hanging or pregnant)." (Whitney Quesenbery)
Posted by PJB on November 09, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"Once again, the candidate who scored highest on usability guidelines won the U.S. presidential election." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)
Posted by PJB on November 09, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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Presentation - "This show-and-tell session describes the results of combining three points of view: (1) It is useful to manage design projects as a collaborative work of "translating research into design. (2) It is useful to manage the design process not as a series of activities, but as a chain of milestone artifacts, each of which requires collaboration by the whole team to complete. (3) Collaboration is better, and therefore translation better accomplished, when the milestone documents are created in large-scale physical form using walls, paper, ink, tacks and glue, rather than digital form." (Marc Rettig - about, with and for) - courtesy of louise ferguson
Posted by PJB on November 08, 2004 | Classification: UCD
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"(...) most of the conference presented a rather different story. Speakers from the business world offered their views on the role of design; designers shared cases in which they'd helped businesses; and even the presentations on design methods were squarely in 'service' of business innovation." (Nico MacDonald - Usability News)
Posted by PJB on November 08, 2004 | Classification: UCD
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"User research offers a learning opportunity that can help you build an understanding of user behavior, but you must resolve discrepancies between research findings and your own beliefs." (Jacob Nielsen - Alertbox)
Posted by PJB on November 08, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"Do Personas have to be accurate? Do they require a large body of research? No, I conclude. The Personas must indeed reflect the target group for the design team, but that is about all. A Persona allows designers to bring their own life-long experience to bear on the problem, and because each Persona is a realistic individual person, the designers can focus upon features, behaviors, and expectations appropriate for this individual, allowing the designer to screen off from consideration all those other wonderful ideas they may have." (Donald Norman) - courtesy of elearningpost
Posted by PJB on November 08, 2004 | Classification: Personas
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"The most common web design mistake is to design for the exception, and to ignore the obvious. That's because designing for the obvious is boring, while designing for the exception is fun." (Gerry McGovern)
Posted by PJB on November 07, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"(...) it is time we re-label the field of Big IA into User Experience." (Peter Boersma)
Posted by PJB on November 06, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"This pioneering study on the user experience of retail sites is invaluable for any company processing sales online. It will demonstrate beyond doubt that improvements to Search, Promotion and Support will lead to increased sales and happier users." (E-consultancy.com)
Posted by PJB on November 05, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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"We subscribe to the view (...) that a satisfying experience of understanding does not result from invoking objectivity, the truth, or a compelling argument, to achieve agreement by the force of reason, nor from a process of information exchange, but from some other qualities of the biological interaction itself." (Lloyd Fell and David Russell - Radical Constructivism)
Posted by PJB on November 05, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"(...) technology is for human beings and any technical solution that does not take human needs and desires into account is bound to fail." (Colleen Taugher - Center to Bridge the Digital Divide)
Posted by PJB on November 04, 2004 | Classification: Weblogs
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"The greatest danger is waiting until we have the wrong skills for our particular market. If we actively seek out the future opportunity that exists, if we actively continue our educations, if we actively pursue research and development of new ideas, we can all thrive in the future world economy." (Victor Lombardi - Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)
Posted by PJB on November 04, 2004 | Classification: Information architecture
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"This essay is an excerpt from the book 'Peer-to-Peer Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies'. It presents the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer systems, the problems they've faced, and the technical solutions they've found." (Rael Dornfest and Dan Brickley - O'Reilly openP2P)
Posted by PJB on November 04, 2004 | Classification: Technology
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"Collaborative filtering is increasingly present as an integral part of commercial web sites. 'Memory based' algorithms are the most simple to implement, yet the most effective when recommending products and predicting preferences." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)
Posted by PJB on November 03, 2004 | Classification: InfoViz
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"Usability studies tend to focus entirely on software, ignoring the impact of hardware design and features on a system's usability. In this first installment of a two-part miniseries, Peter takes a look at the interactions between hardware and usability." (Peter Seebach - IBM Developers Work) - courtesy of lawrence lee
Posted by PJB on November 03, 2004 | Classification: Usability
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"A nuclear power company named Areva has released a new TV commercial
done in that 'info graphics' style. Available online." (AREVA) - courtesy of dirk brandts
Posted by PJB on November 02, 2004 | Classification: Information graphics
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"Here is a long chapter from Beautiful Evidence. Comments appreciated. The chapter will be up on the board for a few weeks. Thanks, E.T." (Edward Tufte)
Posted by PJB on November 01, 2004 | Classification: Information design
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"The Next Big Thing is not a thing at all: it is simplicity. - In the 90s they [IT companies] operated under the principle, 'build it and they will come' - even if it was too complex and would never be implemented, they would build it! That has changed." (Andreas Kluth - The Economist) - courtesy of ui designer
Posted by PJB on November 01, 2004 | Classification: Complexity
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"Semantic World is a web community dedicated to the use of semantic information management methods in industry. Semantic World will include relevant news and analysis, a comprehensive resource center, and interactive forums for practitioners of semantic methodologies to share experiences, problems, and initiatives. Semantic World aims to support and influence developing standards for ontology modeling, semantic mapping, and the use of semantic information management methods in IT." (About Semantic World) - courtesy of gunnar langemark
Posted by PJB on November 01, 2004 | Classification: Metadata
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"In the spirit of convergence, the user experience diagram rationalization brings together the goals, processes, and disciplines that are responsible for great products. It also draws on the diagrammatic work of two information architects, one experience designer, and a cantankerous visionary." (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)
Posted by PJB on November 01, 2004 | Classification: User experience
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