March 2007

UX Methods

"The cards briefly describe 16 different methods, deliverables, and ideas that user experience professionals can use in their practice." (Jess McCullin - nForm)

Posted by PJB on March 30, 2007 | Classification: | Permalink

Shared Presentations from the IA Summit 2007

"Slideshows for tag: iasummit2007." (SlideShare) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted by PJB on March 30, 2007 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

Ruining the User Experience

"There's a lot we, as designers of the web experience, can learn from something as simple as a water glass." (Aaron Gustafson - A List Apart)

Posted by PJB on March 29, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data

"(...) content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design." (Rachel Lovinger - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on March 27, 2007 | Classification: Content management | Permalink

Effective Prototyping for Software Makers

"This book will help software makers - developers, designers, and architects - build effective prototypes every time: prototypes that convey enough information about the product at the appropriate time and thus set expectations appropriately. This practical, informative book will help anyone - whether or not one has artistic talent, access to special tools, or programming ability - to use good prototyping style, methods, and tools to build prototypes and manage for effective prototyping." (The Book)

Posted by PJB on March 27, 2007 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Does User Annoyance Matter?

"Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on March 26, 2007 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Learning Interaction Design from Las Vegas

"My SXSW 2007 presentation. People seemed to like it. Sam Felder's transcription of the talk. Podcast supposedly coming from SXSW eventually." (Dan Saffer - odannyboy)

Posted by PJB on March 26, 2007 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

LEMTool: Measuring emotions during interaction

"The project is about developing a web based measurement tool to measure emotions during interactions with websites. This is a long sentence with many important words, but it’s basically about an appliance that helps web designers improve the user experience. A better experience will satisfy the user and will most likely improve his or her thoughts and certainly feelings about the owner of the website. All of this results in trust, loyalty, credibility, profitability and returning customers that are willing to purchase products." (Kevin Capota - Design & Emotion)

Posted by PJB on March 23, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Experiencing and Experience

"Technology, from my father's point of view, was always be an extension and enrichment of experience not a substitute for experience. (...) One of his great gifts as a speaker was the fact that he made you experience his ideas and carried you along with the connection between your experience and his experience. 'Information is experience. Experience is information.'" (Allegra Fuller Snyder - The Buckminster Fuller Institute)

Posted by PJB on March 23, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Intelligent Designs

"When information needs to be communicated, Edward Tufte demands both truth and beauty." (STANFORD Magazine)

Posted by PJB on March 23, 2007 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

User Research Doesn't Prove Anything

"Recently, I was reading through a sample chapter of a soon-to-be-published book. The book and author shall remain nameless, as shall the book’s topic. However, I was disappointed to read, in what otherwise appeared at first glance to be an interesting publication, a very general, sweeping statement to the effect that qualitative research doesn't prove anything and, if you want proof, you should perform quantitative research. The author's basic assumption was that qualitative research can't prove anything, as it is based on small sample sizes, but quantitative research, using large sample sizes, does provide proof. This may come as a shock to everyone, but quantitative research does not provide proof of anything either." (Steve Baty - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2007 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Wireframing With Patterns

"When you’re starting out as an information architect (IA), being part of a strong community of fellow practitioners helps immensely. A little over a year ago, on Sunday, February 22, 2006, I participated in an informal workshop on wireframing techniques that took place here in Toronto. Bryce Johnson, Director of User Experience Design at Navantis Inc., facilitated and hosted the workshop at his workplace. The knowledge sharing and the wireframing best practices that emerged from the workshop, plus the sense of community I experienced there, helped me build a foundation as an information architect and got me started on developing my own design workflow. Now, I'd like to share the techniques I've learned with a broader community of information architects." (Lindsay Ellerby - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2007 | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

Winning Against Linux The Smart Way

Including related podcast - "Tune in to learn about how to proactively and effectively sell to Linux users in the mid-market space. We’ve recently completed Linux Persona market research that groups Linux users into 5 personas. Find out what each persona means and how you can use our new screening tool to profile your own customers. - (...) this tutorial will provide you with extensive interactive content that you may require as you apply the personas in the sales and marketing aspects of your business." (Microsoft) - courtesy of slashdot

Posted by PJB on March 20, 2007 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

The Experience Evolution: Developments in Design Practice 

"Designers today have opportunities to design much more than simply static objects. We are designing integrated and dynamic interactions with objects, spaces and services and helping companies with more strategic decisions. Expanded opportunities have spawned developments in traditional design practice." (Jane Fulton Suri - IDEO)

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Tools for Experience Design

"This is a project-based studio course in which students from a variety of disciplines work together in small teams on a quarter-long design project. It attempts to answer the question, 'How do you support the innovation design process in a complex world with tangible, real world solutions?'." (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design)

Posted by PJB on March 19, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

The Difference Between Usability and User Experience

"User experience takes far more effort to do well, but the results have far better impact." (Jared Spool - User Interface Engineering Brain Sparks)

Posted by PJB on March 16, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing across Libraries, Archives and Museums

"Integrating digital content from libraries, archives and museums represents a persistent challenge. While the history of standards development is rife with examples of cross-community experimentation, in the end, libraries, archives and museums have developed parallel descriptive strategies for cataloguing the materials in their custody. Applying in particular data content standards by material type, and not by community affiliation, could lead to greater data interoperability within the cultural heritage community. In making this argument, the article demystifies metadata by defining and categorizing types of standards, provides a brief historical overview of the rise of descriptive standards in museums, libraries and archives, and considers the current tensions and ambitions in making descriptive practice more economic." (Mary W. Elings and Günter Waibel - First Monday 12.3)

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2007 | Classification: Metadata | Permalink

LIFT 2007 Videos

"Here you can watch and download the videos of the presentations given at the conference over the years." - including Adam Greenfield (Studies and Observations), Jan Chipchase (Nokia), and Florence Devouard (WikiMedia). (LIFT07)

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2007 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Web Typography Sucks

"It's all our fault!" (Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton)

Posted by PJB on March 14, 2007 | Classification: Typography | Permalink

Deep Context

"(...) by exposing ourselves to different cultures, we develop a deeper understanding of our own, and this will make us better designers. When we create an information architecture for a website—irrespective of its intended target audience - we will inevitably be called on to express the contextual assumptions that allow the website’s messages to be properly understood. Knowing that these assumptions exist (and understanding how the various audiences may interpret them differently) is the first step in creating sites that communicate more effectively across cultural lines - even if they are within our own society." (Jorge Arango - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on March 12, 2007 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

Content Analysis Heuristics

"Many Web professionals consider content inventories critical parts of most projects. Are there certain specific things to look for during a content inventory? Fred Leise definitely thinks so. He proposes a set of content analysis heuristics and discusses how to utilize each one." (Fred Leise - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on March 12, 2007 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

UX Zeitgeist

"UX Zeitgeist combines input from the UX community with data from a variety of web services to generate an unequaled collection of UX books and related topics. UX Zeitgeist also profiles the trends that describe the field's evolution." (Louis Rosenfeld - Rosenfeld Media) - congrats!

Posted by PJB on March 10, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities

"Several usability findings lead directly to higher sales and increased customer loyalty. These design tactics should be your first priority when updating your website." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on March 10, 2007 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

The Future of the World Wide Web

Testimony of Sir Timothy Berners-Lee (CSAIL Decentralized Information Group - Massachusetts Institute of Technology) before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce (Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet). Hearing on the 'Digital Future of the United States: Part I - "(...) some of my experience of having designed the original foundations of the Web, what I've learned from watching it grow, and some of the exciting and challenging developments I see in the future of the Web." (Tim Berners-Lee)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Marc Hassenzahl on User Experience

"Usability [with its focus on effectiveness and efficiency] wants us to die rich; user experience wants us to die happy." (HOT Topics) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Instructional Text in the User Interface: Some Counterintuitive Implications of User Behaviors

"User assistance occurs within an action context—the user doing something with an application - and should appear in close proximity to the focus of that action - that is, the application it supports. The optimal placement of user assistance, space permitting, is in the user interface itself. We typically call that kind of user assistance instructional text." (Mike Hughes - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: TechCom | Permalink

UIE Web App Summit 2007 (Part I/II/III)

"The UIE Web App Summit took place at the Monterey Marriott, in Monterey, California, U.S.A., on January 21st through 23rd, 2007. It drew a capacity crowd of 218 people, who had traveled from far and wide to attend the event. While most attendees came from the United States and Canada, nine came from the UK and Europe and four hailed from Oceania and Asia." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: Events | Permalink

Better Content Management through Information Architecture

"Content Management Systems promise so much: content is easier to publish, easier to update, and easier to find and use. Lots of promises, but do CMSs really deliver? Masood Nasser examines why Content Management Systems often fail and shows how Information Architecture can come to the rescue." (Masood Nasser - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: Content management | Permalink

By any medium necessary: How interaction designers can save the world

"The job of interaction designers is to provide pleasure and power to people through the design of products, services, tools, and processes that satisfy their goals. With the discipline of interaction design still in its infancy, some people believe the medium in which we work is pixels. But this is manifestly untrue." (David Fore - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

Ajax and the Old World

"Today, complex layout methods have made it possible to borrow from interaction patterns of desktop applications, including drop down menu bars, expanding trees and tabs. It's this exact inevitable shift of desktop application design patterns to the page metaphor that has more than often led to confusion amongst both web designers and end users. In this era of AJAX en RIAs, the possibilities for user interface designers have become infinite. Hence the question arises: Have all of these developments actually led to an improved user experience?" (Cornelis Kolbach - cornae)

Posted by PJB on March 09, 2007 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

Web 2.0: What Is It Really?

"To truly do Web 2.0, you must do something that absolutely can not be done without the Web. It's as simple as that." (Sean Carton - clickz) - courtesy of usabilitynews

Posted by PJB on March 06, 2007 | Classification: Collab Web | Permalink

Five Principles to Design by

"(1) Technology Serves Humans. (2) Design is not Art. (3) The Experience Belongs to the User. (4) Great Design is Invisible. (5) Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication." (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted by PJB on March 05, 2007 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Taxonomy Out of the Box

"Taxonomies - at least some of them - reveal the order of things. They increase knowledge by manifesting multifaceted relationships among things. In that light, tagging and folksonomies look like the vulgarizing of knowledge, and well-bred taxonomies turn up their perky noses at the ill-manner interlopers. But the new taxonomizing does more than increase knowledge. It reveals meaning." (David Weinberger - ASIS&T Bulletin Feb/Mar 2007) - courtesy of theiainstitute

Posted by PJB on March 02, 2007 | Classification: Metadata | Permalink

More Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture

"How 'information architecture' is defined much too broadly, frames design in the wrong way, and suffers from infoprefixation." (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted by PJB on March 02, 2007 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

The Architecture of Complexity: Albert-László Barabási

"(...) apparently unrelated networks behave in similar ways and have similar structures – they're the result of similar laws. This knowledge allows us to have common thinking about networks. But many questions remain. How are the networks used? What are the dynamics of how they’re being used at the smallest scale?" (Albert-László Barabási - ASIS&T Bulletin Feb/Mar 2007)

Posted by PJB on March 02, 2007 | Classification: Complexity | Permalink