September 2005

WE05 PodCasts

"Thanks to the generous permission of the speakers, you can listen to all these sessions from WE05." (Web Essentials 2005) - courtesy of webgraphics

Posted by PJB on September 30, 2005 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Audio Interview with Jakob Nielsen

"To design a usable website, designers need to think how the user is going to use their website rather than present him with what they want him to see." (IT Conversations) - courtesy of usabilitynews

Posted by PJB on September 30, 2005 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Web, Information Architecture, and Interaction Design

"So when thinking about a new Web site, first ask what kind of problem you have, to make sure that you bring the right people - and the right tools - for the job." (Jonathan Korman - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted by PJB on September 29, 2005 | Classification: Interaction design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Computational Information Design

"The ability to collect, store, and manage data is increasing quickly, but our ability to understand it remains constant. In an attempt to gain better understanding of data, fields such as information visualization, data mining and graphic design are employed, each solving an isolated part of the specific problem, but failing in a broader sense: there are too many unsolved problems in the visualization of complex data. As a solution, this dissertation proposes that the individual fields be brought together as part of a singular process titled Computational Information Design." (Ben Fry)

Posted by PJB on September 28, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

A cognitive analysis of tagging

"(...) the beauty of tagging is that it taps into an existing cognitive process without adding add much cognitive cost. At the cognitive level, people already make local, conceptual observations. Tagging decouples these conceptual observations from concerns about the overall categorical scheme. The challenge for tagging systems is to then do what the brain does - intelligent computation to make sense of these local observations, and an efficient, predictable way to ensure findability." (Rashmi Sinha)

Posted by PJB on September 28, 2005 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

bplusd

"Jess McMullin's blog on the intersection of business and design." (Jess McMullin) - courtesy of keith instone

Posted by PJB on September 26, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Designing for User eXperience (DUX) 2005 blog

"We shall use this blog to keep you abreast of developments over the final weeks leading up to the 3-5 November conference." (DUX2005)

Posted by PJB on September 26, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Power of Defaults

"Search engine users click the results listings' top entry much more often than can be explained by relevancy ratings. Once again, people tend to stick to the defaults." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 26, 2005 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Crisis management: your website can help

"A website can be a valuable source of information during a time of crisis. Using your website should become part of your crisis planning." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 25, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Who Will Lead Design In The 21st Century?

"The session was smart, thrilling, provocative—and somewhat frightening. VanPatter answers his own question, “Who will lead design in the 21st century?” almost immediately and this is his response, folks: It might not be designers." (Speak Up) - courtesy of cph127

Posted by PJB on September 23, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Karen A. Schriver: The InfoDesign interview

"Regularly, InfoDesign interviews 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 time, Peter J. Bogaards interviews Karen A. Schriver." (Peter J. Bogaards)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2005 | Classification: Special | Comments (0) | Permalink

Interview with Peter Morville

"(...) findability is only one of many qualities that can be designed into an information architecture, along with accessibility, credibility, desirability, and usability. Sometimes, it’s more important for a product to be attractive. Sometimes, companies rely more on push than pull. But as the Internet increasingly puts the customer in control, making it easy for your people to find your products and your support content becomes a top priority. And as ubiquitous computing propels us toward a massive, networked transmedia environment, findability will only become more important and challenging." (infonomia)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2005 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Blogs: A Global Conversation

A Master Thesis on the Social Phenomenon of Blogs - "I carried out quantitative research by twice sending out a survey via email to 750 Bloggers who are ranked by Technorati. A total 174 Bloggers filled out the survey. Whether you work in advertising, public relations, marketing, are thinking of using Blogs for a business, want to use Blogs to try and create revenue or want to get an understanding of what is going on in the world of Blogs, the paper may be of interest to you." (James Torio)

Posted by PJB on September 19, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

Forms vs. Applications

"Once an online form goes beyond two screenfulls, it's often a sign that the underlying functionality is better supported by an application, which offers a more interactive user experience." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 19, 2005 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why web managers are leaders

"The Web requires leadership if it is to achieve its full potential. That leadership will rarely be given by senior management. So that means it's up to you." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why Ajax Matters Now

"(...) the unexplored ways we can evolve Web conventions without the constraints of the old hypertext interaction model, are why the recent Ajax explosion signals a new chapter in the history of Web design." (Jesse James Garrett - OK/Cancel)

Posted by PJB on September 17, 2005 | Classification: Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Truth About Google's so-called 'simplicity'

"The truth? It isn't simple." (Donald A. Norman) - courtesy of usabilityviews

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2005 | Classification: Complexity | Comments (0) | Permalink

Listening to users considered harmful?

"In fact, many of the changes went against what their user feedback seemed to suggest. In other words, in many ways the team deliberately did not listen to users." (Kathy Sierra- Creating Passionate Users)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2005 | Classification: UCD | Comments (0) | Permalink

Web 2.0 Interfaces: The Future of Design

"So, at the end of the talk I re-asked the question about what Web 2.0 means to people. I felt like there was a general consensus: that Web 2.0 is a big deal, especially the architecture of participation. We're turning to new methods to find value for us, and those methods are systems built upon the notion that users add value." (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2005 | Classification: HCI | Comments (0) | Permalink

From Objects to Subjects: Design History and Oral History

"The paper will address questions about the value of personal life story recordings by examining the fate of the role of individual agency and authorship in design historiography. Taking as its starting point that subjectivity is socially constructed and that language is the medium in which that construction is articulated, it will show how life histories are inevitably evidence of broader cultural discourses. With the resurgence of historiographic concerns with experience and memory, The paper will demonstrate the ways in which interviews with designers create a multi-layered document/recording that reflects the complex interactions with constitute a designer's identity formation as well as his/her historical consciousness." (Linda Sandino at Show/Tell Papers)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Is 'user' the best word?

"(...) design is often inappropriately framed in terms of efficiency and ease-of-use rather than the total experience." (Richard I. Anderson - Riander)

Posted by PJB on September 15, 2005 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Google Blog Search

"Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves." (Google)

Posted by PJB on September 14, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

Presentation Zen

"Garr Reynolds' blog on issues related to professional presentation design." (Garr Reynolds)

Posted by PJB on September 14, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

Guru Questionnaire 6

InfoDesign testimonial by Peter Morville - "I rely on InfoDesign by Peter J. Bogaards to keep up with current events in user experience, information architecture, and findability. I met Peter last year in Amsterdam. We had a wonderful dinner and an intense, fascinating conversation about our industry. InfoDesign stands testament to the value of passion, dedication, and human filtering in an age of automation. I use it every day." (Online Information) - courtesy of usabilitynews.
thnx peter; much appreciated - 'sharing knowledge is better than having it'

Posted by PJB on September 14, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Leapin' Lemurs

First Chapter of Ambient Findability by Peter Morville - "Findability is the biggest story on the Web today, and its reach will only grow as the tidal waves of channel convergence and ubiquitous computing wash over our shores. We will use the Web to navigate a physical world that sparkles with embedded sensors and geospatial metadata, even as we diminish the need to move our bodies through space. Mobile devices will unite our data streams in an evolving dance of informed consumers seeking collective intelligence and inspiration. And in this ambient economy, findability will be a key source of competitive advantage. Finders, keepers; losers, weepers." (Peter Morville - findability.org) - congrats with the book and the blog

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2005 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems

"Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content. Recently, collaborative tagging has grown in popularity on the web, on sites that allow users to tag bookmarks, photographs and other content. In this paper, we analyze the structure of collaborative tagging systems as well as their dynamical aspects. Specifically, we discovered regularities in user activity, tag frequencies, kinds of tags used, bursts of popularity in bookmarking and a remarkable stability in the relative proportions of tags within a given url. We also present a dynamical model of collaborative tagging that predicts these stable patterns and relates them to imitation and shared knowledge." (Scott Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman - Information Dynamics Laboratory, HP Labs) - courtesy of vukcosic

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2005 | Classification: Metadata | Comments (0) | Permalink

Why eBay needs Standards-Oriented Design

An Interview with Eric A. Meyer - "They've got to do millions upon millions upon millions probably an hour if not a day. And a typical auction page -- just the HTML document -- is somewhere in the vicinity of 40-45KB. It's all built with font tags, tables and spacer gifs." (David Poteet - User Interface 10 Conference)

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2005 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Time Budgets for Usability Sessions

"Up to 40% of precious testing time is wasted while users engage in nonessential activities. Far better to focus on watching users perform tasks with the target interface design." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 12, 2005 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Proving to senior management your website delivers value

"It's time for public websites and intranets to show clearly how they are delivering value. The first step in doing this is to understand how senior management thinks about value." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 11, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Design as Glue: Understanding the Stanford d.school

A conversation between GK VanPatter and David Kelley (Co-Founder of the Stanford Design Institute) - "(...) businesses today are looking for ways to become more innovative. Corporations are expecting that revenues will come primarily from new innovations, rather than simply sprucing up existing products and services. What we've learned from companies is that they're looking for students to be able to come out and help them with their innovation strategy. Our goal at the d.school is to train students to be innovators." (NextD Journal 7.3)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2005 | Classification: Interviews | Comments (0) | Permalink

Mixed Reality Check: Mobile User Experience in the age of Ubiconn 

"Today efficiency and effectiveness end up informing most design decisions (...) and in many cases rightly so (...) but leaving people missing a 'sense of delight' from their constant interactions with mobile connected devices." (Fabio Sergio - freegorifero)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2005 | Classification: Mobile design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The internet circa 2010: How to recognize the future when it lands on you

"The Adaptive User Environment suggests that the most successful technologies will be those that can fit user needs; proponents of 'Not the Smart Internet' want a simple, user-friendly web; Rich Media advocates want to be able to see 'any content, on any device, in any format, at any time'; and the Chaos Rules school holds that the internet 'may be in a continual state of decay and worsening disorder'. The report says 'ubiquity will be the byword of the net's future'. (...) Instead of the net society, it's about the net in society. It will become this indispensable lifestyle tool." (Smart Mobs) - courtesy of langemarkscafe

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Designing for the Sandbox

"This is a weblog dealing with Web 2.0, and issues of openness, control, trust, authencity, and whatever else deemed relevant. The 'sandbox' is a metaphor for this space where information, people, and tools interact in this spirit of openness and freedom." (Peter Merholz)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2005 | Classification: Weblogs | Comments (0) | Permalink

Registration Forms: What to do if you can't avoid them

"(...) the sad thing about registration forms is that users hate them. Stick a form in front of them and they leave your site, they lie, or if they are really web-savvy they use a privacy protection service. But organisations love them." (Caroline Jarrett - Usability News)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

Blogging over Las Vegas: Seven Challenges to our Shared Mobile Future

"How will we explain to our children that before, when you wanted to call someone, you needed to stand against a wall? Mobile phones today have become ubiquitous, embedded into the fabric of everyday life. They have become a mobile essential. If someone owns a mobile phone today it is likely to be one of the three things that she always carries with her, the other two being keys and some form of payment." (Marko Ahtisaari) - courtesy of purselipsquarejaw

Posted by PJB on September 06, 2005 | Classification: Mobile design | Comments (0) | Permalink

The Slow Tail: Time Lag Between Visiting and Buying

"Users often convert to buyers long after their initial visit to a website. A full 5% of orders occur more than four weeks after users click on search engine ads." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 06, 2005 | Classification: Usability | Comments (0) | Permalink

Revealicious

"(...) a set graphic visualisations for your del.icio.us account that allow you to browse, search and select tags, as well as viewing posts matching them." (Ivy)

Posted by PJB on September 05, 2005 | Classification: Information graphics | Comments (0) | Permalink

Mapping An Information Architecture's Scent

"Today many users of the Internet are using information-based web sites to try and satisfy their information needs. How well they satisfy these needs (finding relevant information) can often depend upon one common feature - the site's information architecture." (Mark Game - HOT! Topics Newsletter) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2005 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Web manager: You can't serve everybody

"Every time you serve someone, you make someone else wait. Every time you publish a piece of content you make other content less findable." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on September 04, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink

What's Happening

Programme of the Europe's first information architecture summit - "'Building our community' is the theme of this inaugural European Summit. No, we are not talking about the EU. We are talking about our professional community - information architects and other people involved in structuring information for electronic media. And we want to see YOU!" (ASIS&T 2005 Euro IA)

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2005 | Classification: Information architecture | Comments (0) | Permalink

Designing for Experience: Frameworks and Project Stories 

"To accomplish our work, we must first understand the forces as best we can, then begin attempts to make something that fits the shape they suggest. A good process helps manage this difficult work: refine understanding, attempt to fit within their pressures." (Marc Rettig and Aradhana Goel) - courtesy of jasonkottke

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2005 | Classification: User experience | Comments (0) | Permalink

Design+Innovation Collaboration Wiki

"It's polite to say 'hello' and welcome to you very important members of this vibrant Design, Innovation and Leadership community. Feel free to join and form the thoughts, writings and ramblings on and about these very important issues that forms you, the companies you know and the society you live in. Welcome on board." (CPH127 Weblog)

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2005 | Classification: Information design | Comments (0) | Permalink