August 2006

The Big Picture of Microformats

"In this article, we’ll review what people are doing with microformats right now, and finish up by looking at a couple of cool projects that might whet your appetite for microformats' future prospects." (John Allsopp - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 31, 2006 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

User Experience 2.0

"The remixability of content and applications, paired with the rapid speed of development, form the foundation of a collaborative architecture that promises to result in richer user experiences. However, a richer user experience isn’t necessarily a usable experience. In order for Web 2.0 to deliver on its promise, it must provide richer, usable experiences." (TechSmith)

Posted by PJB on August 29, 2006 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Refining Data Tables

"Many articles have been written on what is probably the single most ubiquitous interface element within Web applications today: the form. Forms justifiably get a lot of attention because their design is critical to successfully gathering input from users. Registration forms are the gatekeepers to community membership. Checkout forms are how eCommerce vendors close deals. But what goes in must eventually come out, and the information users provide to Web applications often makes its way back to users in the form of tabular data" (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Visual design | Permalink

Double Consciousness: Back to the Future with John Chris Jones

"Looking across the 35+ years in which Design Methods has been in use in multiple languages, what from your perspective is the biggest misconception about Design Methods?" (GK VanPatter - NextD)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Experiencing CHI 2006: From a Practitioner's Viewpoint: Part IV/V

"This course was packed full of useful content." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Events | Permalink

Use Old Words When Writing for Findability

"Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won't find your site." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Search | Permalink

On Arranging Books by Color

"(...) organizing his books by color allows him to discover new and unexpected relationships between books he knows well already. When two unrelated books are forced to occupy the same shelf simply because of their spine color, the shelver is asked to think about whether they have ideas to share between them. Perhaps, the designers of these chromatically-related books saw something in the books' content that even their authors did not. Maybe their ideals share a common hue?" (Rob Giampietro - Design Observer)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Metadata | Permalink

The end of deference and the rise of customer power

"The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. This shift in power is only beginning to be felt." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on August 28, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Why Doing User Observations First is Wrong

"Usability testing is like Beta testing of software. It should never be used to determine 'what users need'. It is for catching bugs, and so this kind of usability testing still fits the new, iterative programming models, just as Beta testing for software bugs fits the models. I have long maintained that any company proud of its usability testing is a company in trouble, just as a company proud of its Beta testing is in trouble. UI and Beta testing are meant simply to find bugs, not to redesign." (Donald Norman - uiGarden.net)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2006 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Keynote at Hypertext conference

"Wikis were created in 1994 by Ward Cunningham, so he is considered the pioneer of wikis, and is the author of design patterns. Here are the notes from his talk." (Notes by Alvin Chin - GadgetMan's Blog)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2006 | Classification: Hypertext | Permalink

Is it broken?

"Good design is possible with PowerPoint, so long as one knows a little something about design and how to best display information appropriate for their own unique situation." (Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen)

Posted by PJB on August 26, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Scan This Book!

"What will happen to books? Reader, take heart! Publisher, be very, very afraid. Internet search engines will set them free. A manifesto." (Kevin Kelly)

Posted by PJB on August 25, 2006 | Classification: Hypertext | Permalink

A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise

"It's a mistake to think Web 2.0 is all about the technology, but it's also a mistake to dismiss the technology. The architecture of participation is baked into the architecture of the software." (Shiv Singh - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on August 24, 2006 | Classification: Collab Web | Permalink

Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis

"The symposium proceedings also include abstracts for the keynote talks, panels, workshops, and demonstrations to provide a record of the whole of the symposium as well as an interview with Angela Beesley, the opening keynoter, on the topic of her talk." (WikiSym 2006)

Posted by PJB on August 24, 2006 | Classification: Collab Web | Permalink

Design Futures: Part 1

"In July 2006, a group of designers with nearly 50 cumulative years of experience designing products for companies like Apple, eBay, Macromedia, Nike, Palm, and Yahoo got together to talk about the future of design. We weren't looking to predict what’s next but instead to discuss the patterns and trends affecting the design industry as we move forward." (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)

Posted by PJB on August 23, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee

"Originator of the Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium talks about how far we've come, and about the challenges and opportunities ahead." (IBM developerWorks) - courtesy of readwriteweb

Posted by PJB on August 23, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Edward Tufte, Offering 'Beautiful Evidence'

"(...) good design is timeless, while bad design can be a matter of life and death." (Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr - NPR)

Posted by PJB on August 22, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Adding design process attributes to patterns

"The idea of adding design process attributes to patterns expands the focus of patterns to include the context of design." (Peter Boersma)

Posted by PJB on August 21, 2006 | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

The Language of Interaction: Rich Interfaces, Networks and Design Patterns

"Inside any organization, you've already evolved your own set of patterns and should have some way of collecting this knowledge. Knowledge management and sharing should focus not only on patterns, but also on methods for knowing when to use a particular pattern and when not to. You don't have to create a complex Web application. Wikis and blogs are easy to set-up and maintain, and they offer a simple way to manage information about patterns." (Austin Govella - ASIS&T Bulletin: Special Issue on Information Architecture) - courtesy of petermorville

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

Data Visualization of Web Stats: Logarithmic Charts and the Drooping Tail

"Using a linear diagram to plot data from website traffic logs can lead you to overlook important conclusions. Sometimes advanced visualizations are worth the effort." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Give users a Hollywood ending

"We can all take a lesson from filmmakers: endings matter. The way we end a conversation, blog post, user experience, presentation, tech support session, chapter, church service, song, whatever... is what they'll remember most. The end can matter more to users than everything we did before. And the feeling they leave with is the one they might have forever." (Kathy Sierra - Creating Passionate Users)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Do you know what's in your Long Neck?

"A website that doesn't understand what's in its Long Neck is doomed to underperformance, if not outright failure." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Display 2.0: A Look Forward to the High-Definition Web and Its Effect on Our Digital Experience

"As we begin to explore this high-resolution digital world, we may find that familiar user interface models are no longer viable." (Jonathan Follett - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

New Life for Product Documentation

"We usually assume that documentation is used after a product has been purchased, as part of the process of learning or setting it up. But these are all examples documentation as part of the purchasing-decision process, looking for information beyond the lists of features or simple technical specifications on data sheets." (Whitney Quesenbery - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: TechCom | Permalink

Experiencing CHI 2006: From a Practitioner's Viewpoint

"This course explored the operational, organizational, and strategic impacts of user experience groups within product development companies and provided a conceptual framework for relating UX activities to strategic business processes." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on August 20, 2006 | Classification: HCI | Permalink

Experience Design

"(...) the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, and environments -- each of which is a human experience -- based on the holistic consideration of an individual's or group's needs, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions." (according to Wikipedia)

Posted by PJB on August 10, 2006 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Rebecca Blood interviews Jason Kottke

"Tinkering with the medium of the web was always the attraction for me and weblog structure was another way of doing that." (rebecca's pocket)

Posted by PJB on August 10, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

IDEA 2006 blog

"Over the next few months leading to the conference, and probably for a little while afterward, this blog will be the main source of news and information about the forthcoming IDEA conference. There will be links to concepts related to the conference, interviews with conference presenters, and who knows what else." (IDEA 2006 Conference: Seattle Public Library - Oct. 23-24, 2006) - courtesy of peterme

Posted by PJB on August 10, 2006 | Classification: Weblogs | Permalink

Clickstream Study Reveals Dynamic Web

"A new browser study revealed a shift in how we interact with the Web. University of Hamburg researchers found the Web moving from static hypertext information to dynamic interactive services. Clickstream heatmaps and web page statistics show rapid interaction over smaller areas of the screen. The authors recommend that web developers create concise, flexible, and fast loading web pages to keep pace with the speed of web navigation." (WebSiteOptimization) - courtesy of guuui

Posted by PJB on August 10, 2006 | Classification: Navigation | Permalink

10 DITA Lessons Learned From Tech Writers in the Trenches

"This exclusive and informative top ten list is based on interviews with technical writers at more than 20 software companies - tech writers that are actually using DITA to create documentation today. It's jam-packed with useful advice, practical tips, honest warnings, and lessons learned." (The Content Wrangler)

Posted by PJB on August 10, 2006 | Classification: TechCom | Permalink

E-Learning 2.0

"E-learning as we know it has been around for ten years or so. During that time, it has emerged from being a radical idea—the effectiveness of which was yet to be proven—to something that is widely regarded as mainstream. It's the core to numerous business plans and a service offered by most colleges and universities. And now, e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it's changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0." (Stephen Downes - eLearn Magazine)

Posted by PJB on August 09, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

A Conversation with Steven Johnson, Part 3/3

Jesse James Garrett interviews Steven Johnson- "Tufte played a huge role in popularizing the story — to this day, most of the people I meet who are familiar with it read about it in Tufte first. He actually wrote about it twice, (...). His original assessment was factually wrong on a number of fronts - it greatly overstated the role of the map in solving the mystery of where the cholera was coming from, and the map itself that Tufte included was a heavily modified replica created for a 1912 textbook on public health. In the later book, he got the story right, though I think he’s a little too bullish on the map’s originality as a work of information design." - (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on August 08, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Is Design Political?

"In 2001, design and politics hit the news big time when it was revealed that Florida's badly designed butterfly ballot could have cost Al Gore the U.S. presidency. It is perhaps the most widely quoted example of the political impact of design. Yet pose the question, 'Is design political?' to the design industry and you'll get back a big, resounding, 'no'." (Jennie Winhall - uiGarden.net)

Posted by PJB on August 08, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Oz-IA 2006 Conference Programme

"On the last weekend of September 2006 there will be a conference/retreat on information architecture in Sydney." (Oz-IA 2006)

Posted by PJB on August 08, 2006 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

ASIS&T Euro IA 2006 Conference Programme

"The 2006 Euro IA Summit will take place in Berlin during the last weekend of September (30 September - 1 October). This year’s theme is ’Building Our Practice’." (ASIS&T Euro IA 2006)

Posted by PJB on August 08, 2006 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

What's Happening to Knowledge?

"The old principles for the organization of knowledge turn out to be based on principles for organizing physical objects; in the digital age we're creating new principles free of the old limitations. This is changing the basic shape of knowledge, from (typically) trees to miscellanized piles. This has consequences for the nature of topics, the role of metadata, and, crucially, the authority of knowledge. In short, the change in the shape of knowledge is also changing its place. Despite the hysteria too often heard, knowledge is not being threatened. We are way too good at generating knowledge, and it is way too important to us as a species. But, much of what we're doing together on the Web is about increasing meaning, not knowledge. That re-frames knowledge -- traditional and Wikipedian -- in ways that are hard to predict but important." (David Weinberger - Wikimania 2006 Proceedings)

Posted by PJB on August 06, 2006 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

A Crash Course in User Interfaces

"Whenever the topic of interface development comes up, I'm always surprised to see most software engineers cringe as if they’re being told they need a root canal. Almost all modern applications require some sort of graphical user interface, and yet the UI is commonly the last consideration of development. Worse yet (particularly when it comes to web development) the user interface is often created by a graphic designer who isn't familiar with software development. The resulting separation that occurs between the application's internals and its interface can cause serious problems with the project." (Nate Kohari)

Posted by PJB on August 03, 2006 | Classification: HCI | Permalink

Conversation with Michael Bierut - Part 3/3

Peter Merholz interviews Michael Bierut - "Making room for the real world is even harder today than it was 30 years ago. The amount of technical skills a young designer needs is vast, and the degree of professional specialization is staggering. All of this helps to foster an atmosphere that seems to reward tunnel vision. But in the end, the designers who are doing the most exciting work — and in some cases it coincidentally happens to be the most beautiful work — are the ones who don’t hesitate to claim the whole world as their subject matter." (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on August 02, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

A Conversation with Steven Johnson, Part 2

Jesse James Garrett interviews Steven Johnson- "Clearly interfaces are tools for understanding the world. So many of the most interesting debates in the 'new media' space revolve precisely around the question of how specific interfaces will shape the user’s view of the world. And those debates play back into the design decisions that shape the next generation of software." (Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on August 02, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Interaction Design: An Introduction

Liz Danzico interviews Dan Saffer on his new book - "Genius design is when the designer relies on his or her own experience and skill to design, without any input from users. It's done by designers who either don't have the resources or the inclination or temperament to do research. Too often, it is practiced by inexperienced designers with little skill, but it can and has been used by many designers to create impressive things. Reportedly, the iPod was made with no user research, for example." (BusinessWeek.com)

Posted by PJB on August 02, 2006 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

AJAX Seminar

"By now there isn't a software developer on earth who isn't aware of the collection of programming technologies known as AJAX. But you can't bank awareness. So, how in concrete terms can you take advantage in your own projects of this newly popular way of delivering online content to users without reloading an entire page? How soon can you be monetizing AJAX?" - including a webcast by JJG. (SYS-CON Media)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2006 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

Screen Resolution and Page Layout

"Optimize Web pages for 1024x768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on August 01, 2006 | Classification: Usability | Permalink