January 2011

to_be_classified

"This paper examines the use of the postulational approach to facet analysis to manually induce a faceted classification ontology from a folksonomy." (Elise Conradi ~ Journal of Information Architecture Volume 2 Issue 3)

Posted by PJB on January 31, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture - Metadata | Permalink

An Information Architect by any Other Name

"Is information architecture dead? No way! It ain't even sick. Let me share some personal observations about our field." (Eric Reiss ~ Journal of Information Architecture Volume 2 Issue 3)

Posted by PJB on January 31, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

Building an Information Architecture Checklist

"Government environments often have prescribed complex processes for obtaining and implementing technology solutions. In order to encourage and enable information architecture (IA) in government systems, it is essential to embed IA within the current processes and to view IA as part of the overall architectural framework. The definition of IA used here is broad and inclusive spanning applications, the Web and the enterprise. A common focus exists aimed at organizing information for findability, manageability and usefulness, but the definition also includes infrastructure to support organization of information. This case study describes the development of an IA checklist in a large United States government agency. The checklist is part of an architectural review process that is applied 1) during assessment of proposed information systems projects and 2) design of solution recommendations before system implementation." (Laura Downey and Sumit Banerjee ~ Journal of Information Architecture Volume 2 Issue 3)

Posted by PJB on January 31, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

The Future of Publishing

"Nostalgia, anxiety and optimism mix in this panel devoted to imagining what lies ahead for the book, as publishing professionals and others discuss the impact of digital technology on the business." (Videolectures)

Posted by PJB on January 31, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Test-Taking Enhances Learning

"People remember much more after reading if they retrieve information about the text from memory. Quizzes are one way websites can help users remember more." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on January 31, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

A model for UX design reviews

"Design reviews are so important for our work as user experience designers, but they too often fail us. Here is a model for design reviews that overcomes the problems of ego, emotion, and communication that so often get in the way of helpful feedback." (Davin Granroth)

Posted by PJB on January 28, 2011 | Classification: Usability - User experience | Permalink

The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan

"(...) all media - in and of themselves and regardless of the messages they communicate - exert a compelling influence on man and society. Prehistoric, or tribal, man existed in a harmonious balance of the senses, perceiving the world equally through hearing, smell, touch, sight and taste." (Next Nature)

Posted by PJB on January 27, 2011 | Classification: Classics - Interviews | Permalink

Passive magic, design of delightful experience

"It is noteworthy when the design of an experience is so compelling that you feel wonder and delight. When designed right it feels totally natural, some might even say it is truly 'intuitive'. No training is needed, no set-up, no break in flow, the tool fits seamlessly, improving without disrupting your experience; it's like a little bit of magic." (Stefan Klocek ~ Cooper Journal)

Posted by PJB on January 26, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design - User experience | Permalink

What next for content?

"We all need to be working out what users want, how they want it and where they want it. And that’s what content strategy is for." (Tamsin Hemingray ~ iCrossing)

Posted by PJB on January 26, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Events | Permalink

The Art of the Design Critique

"Critical discussion around design is as important as the design process itself. If you work in a design team, feedback from your colleagues can keep you challenged, and can push you to improve. Despite its value to the outcome of the design process, it's far too often avoided like a trip to the dentist because we subconsciously feel criticism of our work is not just a reflection on our design, but is a spotlight upon our personal shortcomings. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Proper design criticism focus on goals, outcomes, and the needs of the users." (Aarron Walter ~ Think Vitamin)

Posted by PJB on January 26, 2011 | Classification: Design research - Information design | Permalink

Nokia design head speaks about mobile UX trends

"Marko Ahtisaari speaks about existing and emerging design patterns for mobile devices. He says that the iOS design pattern is very well executed but very constrained (...); it's the almost perfect rendition of a superlinear, application-centric design model." (Gabriel White ~ Small Surfaces)

Posted by PJB on January 26, 2011 | Classification: Design research - Mobile design | Permalink

TEI 2011 Keynote: Bounce Back by Gilian Crampton Smith

"Overall the argument was that embodied interaction works because it draws on knowledge we have. An example is that two physical things cannot be in exactly the same place and another one is that things stay where they are if there is no force moving them. There are clear limitations to the interaction with physical objects that give indications how to use it; she referenced a paper on an exploration of physical manipulation." (Albrecht Schmidt - User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on January 25, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

About Content Strategy

"One of the things that stands out for me in any consideration of 'content strategy' is that it is centered upon the business goals of the organization. It sounds almost painfully obvious but grim reality shows us that it is not as obvious as it sounds. A content strategy should bring to the fore the idea that the content must be expressly designed and developed so as to address specific business objectives. This content must also, it follows, be designed to work with and leverage the tools that are being used, such as the search technology that a customer or prospect is most likely to call upon when looking for an answer. (...) the content strategist must take on board a raft of considerations and then chart an efficient and effective path of content investment." (Joe Gollner ~ The Fractal Enterprise)

Posted by PJB on January 24, 2011 | Classification: Content management - Content strategy - Information architecture | Permalink

The Metaphor of the System (Part 2)

"When considering the structure of a building, architects often define its central, organizing idea as part of their ideation and design process. This unifying idea is known as the parti. The overall expression and movement of people through the space, the actual flow that happens through daily use, emanates from and returns to this fundamental idea." (David Sherwin ~ ChangeOrder) Also, part 1

Posted by PJB on January 24, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture - Interaction design | Permalink

The A-B-C of Behaviour

"We all seem to be talking about changing behaviour through good design... but changing behaviour is actually really hard. Working as a psychologist in a detox unit at the start of my career has admittedly shaped my view of what it takes to change someone’s behaviour; and whilst I learnt it certainly isn't impossible, it often takes time." (@jodiemoule ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on January 24, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

Content Strategy: A Roadmap for Technical Communicators

"(...) content strategy is more than a buzzword and goes above and beyond traditional project management or information architecture. Content strategy is a coordinated plan between the disciplines, which shows where an organization intends to put its content development efforts." (Peg Mulligan)

Posted by PJB on January 24, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - TechCom | Permalink

Lisa Strausfield: The Infomaniac

"She's a natural to work on transforming the infinite depths of data about our urban environment into patterns that reveal other patterns, says TED founder Richard Saul Wurman, who got to know Strausfeld during her days at the MIT Media Lab. She'd be on my chart of the top information architects. She'll be a formidable figure." (FastCompany)

Posted by PJB on January 24, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

UX, It's Time to Grow Up

"(...) one of the main issues that we see, but at times ignore, in this field is that most of us try to be jacks of all trades within UX." (Elisabeth Hubert)

Posted by PJB on January 20, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Information architecture - Interaction design - User experience - Visual design | Permalink

Mobile UX Essentials

"At the BAYCHI Interaction Design event tonight, Rachel Hinman (Nokia) talked about where and how to begin designing for mobile in her presentation. Here's my notes from her talk." (Luke Wroblewski)

Posted by PJB on January 20, 2011 | Classification: Mobile design - User experience | Permalink

Understanding the Kano Model: A Tool for Sophisticated Designers

"This model predicted the reaction of users as the key elements of Flickr's personalized homepage propagated to other web sites. It predicted why users were initially delighted and why the delight faded over time. We find the Kano Model to be an indispensable tool for designers. Let's take the model apart, so we can understand why it's so useful." (Jared Spool ~ User Interface Engineering)

Posted by PJB on January 19, 2011 | Classification: Design research - Information design | Permalink

UX, Design, and Food on the Table

"In this case study, Laura Klein takes us inside the design process in a real live startup. (...) Interactive prototypes and iterative testing let you improve the design quickly before you ever get to the coding stage. Targeting only the confusing parts of the interface for redesign reduces the number of things you need to rebuild and helps make both design and development faster. Lean design is about improving the user experience iteratively! Fixing the biggest user problems first means getting an improved experience to users quickly and optimizing later based on feedback and metrics." (Eric Ries ~ Startup Lessons Learned)

Posted by PJB on January 19, 2011 | Classification: UCD - Usability - User experience | Permalink

What is Intelligent Content?

"(...) is content which is not limited to one purpose, technology or output. It's content that is structurally rich and semantically aware, and is therefore discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable. It's content that helps you and your customers get the job done. It's content that works for you and it's limited only by your imagination." (Ann Rockley ~ The Content Wrangler)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: Content management - Content strategy - Writing | Permalink

Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability

"Three methods for increasing UX quality by exploring and testing diverse design ideas work even better when you use them together." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: UCD - Usability - User experience | Permalink

The Form of Facts and Figures

"The topic of my Master thesis project is the development of a design pattern taxonomy for data visualization and information design. In its core, the project consists of a collection of 55 design patterns that describe the functional aspects of graphic components for the display, behavior and user interaction of complex infographics. The thesis is available in the form of a 200-page book that additionally includes a profound historical record of information design as well as an introduction into the research field of design patterns." (Christian Behrens)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: InfoViz - Information design - Information graphics | Permalink

Asleep and Awake

"If this device is to replace, for many people, a book, it needs to manifest some of those qualities: safe, nonthreatening, no more distracting than a few hundred of pages of text intend to be. It needs a quiet confidence to make you trust it more." (Tom Armitage ~ BERG London)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: Mobile design | Permalink

Pragmatic Personas

"Knowing who will use your software is important to the software development process. Having the end user in mind helps you develop features that fit the user's needs. And, figuring out your end user, as Jeff Patton reveals, is indeed easy. In this column, Jeff details stereotypes to avoid, questions to ask, and how to implement this pragmatic persona in your development process." (Jeff Patton ~ StickyMinds)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

Device Classes & Responsive Design

"While the task of designing for multiple devices can be daunting, two techniques can help make the process more manageable: defining device classes and designing/building responsively for devices within each class." (Luke Wroblewski)

Posted by PJB on January 18, 2011 | Classification: Information design - Mobile design | Permalink

Developing Your Interviewing Skills, Part I: Preparing for an interview

"Bad interviews can result in missing data, incomplete detail, misleading results, partial insights, and lost opportunities. Your reports, presentations, and recommendations document what you've learned from your research and the decisions you’ve made based on it, so you need to ensure your research is the best it can be—that you get good interviews." (Mia Northrop ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 17, 2011 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Designing for the Mobile Web: Special Considerations

"(...) I'll cover design for complex contexts of use in my discussion of constraints on mobile Web sites. In practice, being aware of these constraints lets us approach these problems with caution and come up with better design solutions for mobile devices. Based on my analysis of more than 20 mobile Web sites, I'll point out some ways of working within these constraints." (Shanshan Ma ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 17, 2011 | Classification: Mobile design | Permalink

Barriers to Holistic Design Solutions

"Face it, most UX design work consists of incremental improvements over the previous version of a product, and we rarely get to design holistic solutions that elegantly meet the needs of our target audience across systems, services, and devices—or wherever such needs crop up. Further, time-to-market pressures and narrow, predefined solution spaces usually constrain the occasional opportunities we may get to design a first-release product. This leaves so many UX professionals dissatisfied, because they know they could have done a better job or, worse, they may even have envisioned exactly how their design could have been better, only to find insurmountable barriers to their vision’s ever seeing the light of day." (Christian Rohrer ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 17, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Content Strategy Design Patterns

"A content strategy plans the full lifecycle of content: how it will be created, delivered, maintained and archived or destroyed. This project focuses on web content: all forms of digital language and media found on websites. As an integral part of User Experience, web content strategy must take account of search engine optimization, user interface design, user needs, business needs, and other aspects of online strategy. (...) To paraphrase IAWiki, "Design Patterns are solutions to common problems. As problems arise in a community and are resolved, common solutions often spontaneously emerge. Eventually the best of these self-identify and become refined until they reach the status of a Design Pattern." (Contentini)

Posted by PJB on January 17, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Patterns | Permalink

Ten tips for UX Freelancing

"I offer no guarantees about any of these tips, all I can say is that they have worked for me and that they form the basis of my ongoing approach to UX Freelancing. Some of these I've known since the beginning, some I've learned, most often the hard way." (Leisa Reichelt)

Posted by PJB on January 14, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Debunking User Experience

"It dawned on me recently that, despite working in the industry since 1994, I don't really know what User Experience is." (Dean Schuster) courtesy of uxtweets

Posted by PJB on January 14, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Findability and The Information Paradox

"(...) a summary of why findability becomes an issue for technical writers, and what the information paradox is that we encounter. Then, in an usual ethical twist, I’ll explain why findability might not actually be an issue." (Tom Johnson)

Posted by PJB on January 13, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture - Search - TechCom | Permalink

All about UX: Information for user experience professionals

"This is an independent site to share and, one day, also collect information about user experience. There has been an active group of researchers collecting user experience evaluation methods, frameworks, and definitions for several years now. We promised to bring the results back to the people who have helped us in this work. Finally, we are able to share the results! We are aware of the immaturity of this site on the day of its birth, but the site is supposed to grow as more information reaches the maturity level high enough for publishing. It is great to get the existing information online now." (About AllAboutUX)

Posted by PJB on January 13, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

SEO and the Dirty White Lie About Content Strategy

"Listen. We don't need to live in separate clubhouses with our own secret handshakes, here. I think everyone agrees that doing better business online is our shared goal, no matter who you are or how you’re contributing." (Kristina Halvorson ~ Braintraffic)

Posted by PJB on January 12, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

User Testing with Kids: Lessons from the Field

"At a project's start, the possibilities are endless. That clean slate is both lovely and terrifying. As designers, we begin by filling space with temporary messes and uncertain experiments. We make a thousand tiny decisions quickly, trying to shape a message that will resonate with our audience. Then in the middle of a flow, we must stop and share our unfinished work with colleagues or clients. This typical halt in the creative process begs the question: What does the critique do for the design and the rest of the project? Do critiques really help and are they necessary? If so, how do we use this feedback to improve our creative output?" (Gabriel Adauto and Jacob Klein ~ d.news)

Posted by PJB on January 12, 2011 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Design Criticism and the Creative Process

"At a project's start, the possibilities are endless. That clean slate is both lovely and terrifying. As designers, we begin by filling space with temporary messes and uncertain experiments. We make a thousand tiny decisions quickly, trying to shape a message that will resonate with our audience. Then in the middle of a flow, we must stop and share our unfinished work with colleagues or clients. This typical halt in the creative process begs the question: What does the critique do for the design and the rest of the project? Do critiques really help and are they necessary? If so, how do we use this feedback to improve our creative output?" (Cassie McDaniel ~ A List Apart)

Posted by PJB on January 11, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Tagging Human Knowledge

"A fundamental premise of tagging systems is that regular users can organize large collections for browsing and other tasks using uncontrolled vocabularies. Until now, that premise has remained relatively unexamined. Using library data, we test the tagging approach to organizing a collection. We find that tagging systems have three major large scale organizational features: consistency, quality, and completeness. In addition to testing these features, we present results suggesting that users produce tags similar to the topics designed by experts, that paid tagging can effectively supplement tags in a tagging system, and that information integration may be possible across tagging systems." (Paul Heymann ~ Videolectures.net WSDM 2010)

Posted by PJB on January 11, 2011 | Classification: Metadata - Social Web | Permalink

The Dark Side of Usability

"By crafting simple and user-friendly interfaces we relieve our users of the need to think - or more accurately, to think about the more trivial and mechanical parts of the task, things which can be outsourced to the machine. But by doing so we are at risk of indadvertedly surrendering more than we planned for, as we are lured into thinking that interface will do our work for us—and so we spend less time thinking about the problem, less time planning." (Dmitry Fadeyev ~ Usability Post)

Posted by PJB on January 10, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Storyboarding iPad Transitions

"If your clients are not yet asking you to design transitions, they will likely do that on your next project. Transitions are hot, and not just because they entertain the eye. In confined mobile computing interfaces, on tablet devices or in complex virtual environments, transitions are an authentic, minimalist way of enabling way-finding, displaying system state and exposing crucial functionality - in short, they are key in creating a superior user experience." (Greg Nudelman ~ Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on January 07, 2011 | Classification: Mobile design | Permalink

The Future of User Interaction

"In this column, we'll describe several new technologies that have the potential to change how we interact with technology and the world. Some of these technologies may be many years away from maturity, but they are definitely going to have massive impact in years to come." (Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 05, 2011 | Classification: HCI | Permalink

Power or Collaboration: What's Most Valuable to a UX Leader?

"In this column, we'll explore these very questions: Do UX leaders need to acquire and wield power to ensure their organizations can produce game-changing design? If they don't already have executive support, can they can collaborate their way to success?" (Jim Nieters ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 05, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

The Essence of Interaction Design (Part I): Designing Virtual Contexts for Interaction

"With this column, I'm introducing a multipart series on what I consider to be the essence of interaction design for application user experiences. First, I'll lay the groundwork for this series by describing the role of interaction design, then I'll embark on my exploration of the essence of interaction design by discussing the design of virtual contexts for interaction." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on January 05, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

Why you need a user experience vision (and how to create and publicise it)

"Many design teams launch into development without a shared vision of the user experience. Without this shared vision, the team lacks direction, challenge and focus. This article describes how to use the 'Design the Box' activity to develop a user experience vision, and then describes three ways of publicising the vision: telling a short story; drawing a cartoon showing the experience; and creating a video to illustrate the future." (David Travis ~ UserFocus)

Posted by PJB on January 05, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

The Relevance of User Experience: Using Every Opportunity to Impress Users

"Is it possible to calculate the ROI of great design? What about the cost-per-acquisition of a customer sold on User Experience? There are no second chances for first impressions, and even the smallest opportunity is a chance to 'Wow' users. What you do with that opportunity can spark a chain of events that can make or break your business." (Nicolas Thomas ~ UX Booth)

Posted by PJB on January 05, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

New media and literacies: Amateurs vs. professionals

"New media are not supportive of critical thinking and conscious selection of information. Literacies of our age stress critical thinking and take many forms. Despite differences and similarities among information literacy, media literacy and digital literacy, all of them have to differentiate between amateur and professional contents produced in new media. Similarly to the traditional division of labor among libraries, the needs behind amateurism and professionalism have to be satisfied differently." (Tibor Koltay ~ First Monday 16.1)

Posted by PJB on January 04, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

10 Best Intranets of 2011: A summary

"Knowledge management progressed from cliché to reality, based on simpler and thus more-used features. Mobile intranets doubled." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on January 04, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Emergent Computing Paradigms

"Curious if these three emergent paradigms make sense to you: organic material, infrastructure, and social currency." (Rachel Hinman ~ Rosenfeld Media)

Posted by PJB on January 03, 2011 | Classification: HCI - Mobile design - User experience | Permalink