Information design

What is Design?

"Since the word 'design' means many things to many people, let's define design as seen from a usability consultant's perspective." (Frank Spiller - Demystifying Usability)

Posted on April 28, 2008 | Permalink

Information Design = Complexity + Interdisciplinarity + Experiment

"Information design is the transfer of complex data to, for the most part, two-dimensional visual representations that aim at communicating, documenting and preserving knowledge. It deals with making entire sets of facts and their interrelations comprehensible, with the objective of creating transparency and eliminating uncertainty." (Gerlinde Schuller - AIGA)

Posted on April 22, 2008 | Permalink

The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe

"In this companion to last year's EMC-sponsored white paper, IDC again calibrates the size (bigger than first thought) and the growth (faster than expected) of the digital universe through 2011. IDC also explores new dimensions of the digital universe (e.g., the impact of specific industries on the digital universe; your digital shadow) and discusses the implications for individuals, organizations, and society. The tools are in place - from Web 2.0 technologies and terabyte drives to unstructured data search software and the Semantic Web - to tame the digital universe and turn information growth into economic growth." (EMC)

Posted on April 16, 2008 | Permalink

The Super Bowl and Information Design?

"The truth is, really effective design should leave people wondering what the big deal is. Here’s the irony, clients expect things that cost lots of money and take lots of time to seem like they did. To look complex or shiny. But the really great designs, the ones that break through and solve the real problems, will often be the most underwhelming. If there are lots of fancy bells and whistles and animations, be very concerned. That’s probably novelty. Not good design. Look at the iPod, basic box, right? However, the simplest designs are often the most difficult to design. How many sites get the basic things wrong?" (Stephen P. Anderson - poetpainter)

Posted on April 16, 2008 | Permalink

The Web Beyond the Desktop

"In the desktop space we've had decades of evolving user interface best practices that work reasonably well across platforms and browsers. In the device space, many of those bets are off due to their drastically different nature." (David Shea - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted on April 07, 2008 | Permalink

Finding is the new advertising

"Don't they get it? Don't they understand that a great and growing number of us hate traditional advertising? That we find it at best annoying and irrelevant, and at worst insulting and manipulative? By 2010, traditional TV advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990 (...)" (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on March 31, 2008 | Permalink

We Tried To Warn You: The Organizational Architecture of Failure

"There are many kinds of failure in large, complex organizations – breakdowns occur at every level of interaction, from interpersonal communication to enterprise finance. Some of these failures are everyday and even helpful, allowing us to safely and iteratively learn and improve communications and practices. Other failures – what I call large-scale – result from accumulated bad decisions, organizational defensiveness, and embedded organizational values that prevent people from confronting these issues in real time as they occur." (Peter Jones - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 20, 2008 | Permalink

What Is Your Mental Model?

"To coincide with the release of her new book, Indi Young talks about the power of the mental model and how it came about. She also shows how it can grow over time and help your organization avoid strategic blindspots." (Chris Baum - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on February 14, 2008 | Permalink

Why Design?

"Legendary designer Philippe Starck -- with no pretty slides behind him -- spends 17 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question "Why design?" Along the way he drops brilliant insights into the human condition; listen carefully for one perfectly crystallized motto for all of us, genius or not. Yet all this deep thought, he cheerfully admits, is to aid in the design of a better toothbrush." (TED.com)

Posted on December 05, 2007 | Permalink

The Web That Wasn't

"For most of us who work on the Internet, the Web is all we have ever really known. It's almost impossible to imagine a world without browsers, URLs and HTTP. But in the years leading up to Tim Berners-Lee's world-changing invention, a few visionary information scientists were exploring alternative systems that often bore little resemblance to the Web as we know it today. In this presentation, author and information architect Alex Wright will explore the heritage of these almost-forgotten systems in search of promising ideas left by the historical wayside." (YouTube)

Posted on November 30, 2007 | Permalink

idX: Information Design eXchange 

"What information designers know and can do (...) Development of International Core Competencies and Student and Faculty Exchange in Information Design within the EU/US Cooperation Programme in Higher Education and Vocational Education and Training." (IIID)

Posted on November 28, 2007 | Permalink

The Language of Graphics

"This study presents a framework for the analysis of the visual language of graphic representations. Diagrams, maps, charts and symbols, from ancient inscriptions to computer visualizations, are examined with respect to visual grammar and principles of interpretation. The issues explored include the different roles that a graphic constituent may play within a representation, the nesting of graphic structures and the nature of meaningful space." (Yuri Engelhardt)

Posted on November 26, 2007 | Permalink

A review of Edward Tufte's 'Beautiful Evidence'

"I have always been, and still am, a great fan of Edward Tufte's work, and I feel almost a bit embarrassed about some of the sections of Beautiful Evidence from which I have quoted above. Abducting Tufte's own words to express this feeling of embarrassment, few things are more appalling than listening to inept and specious arguments made by one’s allies." (Yuri Engelhardt)

Posted on November 26, 2007 | Permalink

Understanding Web Design

"We get better design when we understand our medium. Yet even at this late cultural hour, many people don’t understand web design. Among them can be found some of our most distinguished business and cultural leaders, including a few who possess a profound grasp of design—except as it relates to the web. (....) Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity." (Jeffrey Zeldman - A List Apart)

Posted on November 22, 2007 | Permalink

It Depends: ID – Principles and Guidelines  

"Information Design is a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional, and worldwide consideration. It is not possible to develop a number of firm message design rules telling the information designer exactly how to best design a message and develop information materials. However, based on research it is possible to formulate several ID-principles and then develop a number of guidelines for the design of effective and efficient messages and information materials." (Rune Pettersson - International Institute for Information Design)

Posted on November 09, 2007 | Permalink

Rethinking Collections

Libraries and librarians in an open age - "Open access, one of the most important of the potentials unleashed by the combination of the electronic medium and the World Wide Web, is already much more substantial in extent that most of us realize. More than 10 percent of the world’s scholarly peer–reviewed journals are fully open access; this does not take into account the many journals offering hybrid open choice, free back access, or allowing authors to self–archive their works. Scientific Commons includes more than 16 million publications, nearly twice as much content as Science Direct. Meanwhile, even as we continue to focus on the scholarly peer–reviewed journal article, other potentials of the new technology are beginning to appear, such as open data and scholarly blogging. This paper examines the library collection of the near and medium future, suggests that libraries and librarians are in a key position to lead in the transition to an open age, and provides specific suggestions to aid in the transition." (Heather Morrison - First Monday 12.10)

Posted on November 06, 2007 | Permalink

Think from the Center – Design for the Edge 

"How will applications like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word exist five to ten years from now? Will internet appliances like the iPhone truly change the way everyones accesses the web? Will browser-based web applications truly look and behave more like their desktop counterparts in the near future? Will an eTicket kiosk ever completely replace the human being behind the counter? Are rich internet applications built using Adobe AIR simply a fad? What more will the cell phone be capable of in the near future?" (Andrei Michael Herasimchuk - Design by Fire Conference 2007)

Posted on November 02, 2007 | Permalink

Business Needs Design, Now!

"While I've spoken publicly on information architecture, interaction design, and interface related topics, behind the scenes I spend much more of my time focusing on design as it relates to business. Corner me for more than five minutes and the conversation will inevitably trend toward this larger, more strategic view of Design (...)" (Stephen P. Anderson - Poetpainter)

Posted on October 25, 2007 | Permalink

Scalable Design

"You've spent the last six months toiling away at a product design. The last few weeks were especially rough—tying up loose edge cases, closing out bugs, polishing up interaction and visual design details. And now your product has launched, so its time for some well deserved rest, right? (...) Your seemingly elegant design begins to bloat with features, tear under the pressure of localization, and nearly keel over under the weight of new content that pushes it to its breaking point. Before long you give up. It's time to redesign—again." (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

Posted on October 09, 2007 | Permalink

MIT's 'clutter detector' could cut confusion

"The danger of clutter - especially on a visual screen - is that it causes confusion that affects how well we perform tasks. To that end, visual clutter is a challenge for fighter pilots picking out a target, for people seeking important information in a user interface, and for web site and map designers, among others." (MIT news) - courtesy of maria acosta

Posted on October 05, 2007 | Permalink

Information Design of the New Web

"People are changing the way that they consume online information, as well as their expectations about its delivery. The social nature of the Web brings with it an expectation of interaction with information and modern Web design is reflecting that. There are now alternate forms of navigation including the ability to browse by user, tag clouds, tabbed navigation etc. Advances in technology along with these shifts in user expectations are affecting the way that information is laid out on a webpage. Today's websites are aiming for intuitive and usable interfaces which are continuously evolving in response to user needs. Website designers are approaching information design differently and designing simple, interactive websites which incorporate advancements in Web interface design, current Web philosophies, and user needs. Information design for the New Web is simple, it is social, and it embraces alternate forms of navigation." (Ellyssa Kroski - InfoTangle)

Posted on September 25, 2007 | Permalink

Getting A Form's Structure Right: Designing Usable Online Applications (Part 1)

"Although I have focused solely on financial applications, this does not mean that you can't use these strategies to improve the usability of the forms outside of the banking domain. As usability practitioners, we need to first and foremost understand the user’s intentions and expectations, in order to provide an online experience that accommodates them.'” (Afshan Kirmani - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on August 30, 2007 | Permalink

All The Knowledge of the World

"A documentary about Paul Otlet, often considered the father of information management, narrated by W. Boyd Rayward, his biographer. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Otlet pioneered the field of what we today call information science, but what he called documentation. A hundred years before the development of the Internet, Otlet used terms like web of knowledge, link, and knowledge network to describe his vision for a central repository of all human knowledge. In English and French. Produced for Dutch television in 1998." - See also Françoise Levie's documentary film 'The Man Who Wanted To Classify The World' (€ 28 plus shipping and handling) - (Internet Archive)

Posted on August 23, 2007 | Permalink

Alex Wright, The Deep History of the Information Age

"Alex Wright showed an astonishing video of how Paul Otlet's distributed telephone-plus-screen sysem worked." (Stewart Brand - Long Now Foundation)

Posted on August 23, 2007 | Permalink

The Politics of Design by Paul Rand

"It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling." (Dexo Design) - courtesy of usernomics

Posted on August 16, 2007 | Permalink

Home Page Design

"It is time to review a company home page design. There are a number of stakeholders involved in home page design, and each of them wants a piece of the home page real estate. Are there questions you can ask before approaching home page design that can move it beyond the influence of specific stakeholders in the company toward a common vision? Are there tips to consider when designing a home page? This is article will help you better understand how to approach home page design." (Daniel Szuc - UXmatters)

Posted on August 15, 2007 | Permalink

User Assistance Walkthroughs: Helping Best Practices Emerge

"There is an astonishing amount of disbelief that the users of web pages have learned to scroll and that they do so regularly. Holding on to this disbelief – this myth that users won't scroll to see anything below the fold – is doing everyone a great disservice, most of all our users." (Mike Hughes - UXmatters)

Posted on July 24, 2007 | Permalink

Quiet Structure

"One of the basic, overriding elements featured in CNN's new website design and layout is something I like to call quiet structure. Quiet structure is achieved when you de-emphasize the structural elements; the containing boxes, structural lines, bullets, structural color elements, etc. and bring a rhythmical consistency to the layout. The result is that the content becomes more conspicuous and the overall clarity of presentation is greatly enhanced." (Andy Rutledge - Design View)

Posted on July 09, 2007 | Permalink

Yes, design can make you happy

VIDEO - "Analyzing a list of things that have made him happy, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister realized that almost half of the items were in some way related to design. In this intensely personal talk, he shares the details of some of those moments, and gives props to three artists whose work has had a positive impact on his world. Concluding with some examples of his own work, Sagmeister offers a real insight into his aesthetic and philosophy of work -- and life." (TED Talks) - courtesy of 43folders

Posted on July 05, 2007 | Permalink

Audio interview with David Sless

"Here in conversation with Conrad Taylor, he explains how for him information only has a meaning within a context; how information designers improve data collection and presentation by redesigning pathological forms and statements; the historical roots and ethical stance of the information design movement; how the automated production of text layouts from computer systems (bank statements, dynamic Web pages) calls for a closer relationship between professionals in IT and design; and how all designers of information systems have an obligation to use benchmarking and testing to prove that they are making things better. David also explains his philosophy of design with reference to an approach to linguistics that emphasises pragmatics rather than semantics and syntactics; the later thought of Wittgenstein; an understanding of language as a collaboratively designed artefact; and Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas about the relationship between reader and text." (Radio KIDMM)

Posted on June 26, 2007 | Permalink

The Minister of Information

"If this messy world is becoming easier to understand, thank Edward Tufte." (New York Magazine) - courtesy of kottke

Posted on June 14, 2007 | Permalink

Design is Not Art, Redux

"That's a big difference between design and art. We can measure the results of design because it's meant to solve a problem. We can see if the problem has been resolved or lessened in some way. With Art we can't do that… other than some subjective 'Do you like it?'." (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted on June 14, 2007 | Permalink

Form Development Best Practice Slides

"As a number of people have asked about form development best practices in the comments on this site. I thought it would be useful to include Aaron Gustafson's 'Learning to Love Forms' talk from WebVisions 2007. The big news is that Aaron has agreed to lend his expertise to my upcoming book and will be writing a 'perspective' on Web form development best practices." (LukeW - Rosenfeld Media)

Posted on June 11, 2007 | Permalink

The Anatomy of a Help File: An Iterative Approach

"This article presents an approach to Help file design that focuses on creating a task-centered user experience and accommodates an iterative development strategy." (Mike Hughes - UXmatters)

Posted on May 23, 2007 | Permalink

Dynamic Help in Web Forms

"Many Web application designers strive to reduce the amount of instructional text that appears in the user interfaces they create. A likely part of their motivation is the perception that, if explaining how to use something requires too much instruction, it probably isn’t that easy to use and, therefore, has room for improvement in its design. (...)" (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

Posted on May 23, 2007 | Permalink

PLATO People: A History Book Research Project

"Before Microsoft. Apple. The Web. AOL. The Internet. Before everything, there was PLATO: the first online community. The network that time forgot. The birthplace of instant messaging, chat rooms, MUDs (multi-user dungeons), personal publishing, screen savers, flat-panel plasma displays, one of the first spell-checking/answer-judging mechanisms, and countless other innovations. This site offers information regarding a book being researched and written about the PLATO system and the user culture that it spawned in the 1970s." (About PLATO People)

Posted on May 16, 2007 | Permalink

Interfaces That Flow: Transitions as Design Elements

"Actively influencing a person's emotional state throughout an experience—in particular, his or her sense of anticipation, involvement, and desire for a certain outcome—is still an evolving concept in the realm of user interface design." (Jonathan Follett - UXmatters)

Posted on April 26, 2007 | Permalink

Web Form Design Best Practices

"Forms broker the most crucial online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing). This book will provide everything you wanted to know and more about designing effective and engaging Web forms that optimize these key customer interactions." (LukeW - Rosenfeld Media)

Posted on April 25, 2007 | Permalink

Information Design Conference 2007

"Here is a very short summary of the contents of the conference. (...) It is likely that audio recordings and slides of several of these talks will soon be available from the IDA website." (Information Design Association)

Posted on April 03, 2007 | Permalink

Intelligent Designs

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

Posted on March 23, 2007 | 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 on March 14, 2007 | 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 on March 09, 2007 | Permalink

Doing Today's Job with Yesterday's Tools

"In the same way the user interfaces are much more consistent because applications all use the same toolkits, then having a common information management framework that other applications can build upon will go a long way towards a more consistent set of interactions. I'd like to outline what I think are the key requirements for such a framework to be successful." (Patrick Dubroy - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on February 26, 2007 | Permalink

Envisioning the Whole Digital Person

"Our lives are becoming increasingly digitized—from the ways we communicate, to our entertainment media, to our e-commerce transactions, to our online research. As storage becomes cheaper and data pipes become faster, we are doing more and more online—and in the process, saving a record of our digital lives, whether we like it or not. As a human society, we're quite possibly looking at the largest surge of recorded information that has ever taken place, and at this point, we have only the most rudimentary tools for managing all this information—in part because we cannot predict what standards will be in place in 10, 50, or 100 years." (Jonathan Follett - UXmatters)

Posted on February 21, 2007 | Permalink

Book Preview: Information Foraging Theory

"Most books on human-computer interaction (HCI) and usability give recommendations based on empirical research, guidelines fit to observed user behavior, and cognitive models after the fact. Peter Pirolli, the father of information foraging theory, has written a new book that models and predicts what users will do before they navigate a website. Using mathematical models of human behavior, Pirolli lays out the foundation of information foraging theory, a relatively new field based in part on optimal foraging theory in animals (Stephens & Krebs 1986). The result is a seminal work in Oxford University Press' series on Human-Computer Interaction. We were fortunate to review a proof of Pirolli's new book Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information, due out April 2007." (Website Optimization) - courtesy of petermorville

Posted on February 08, 2007 | Permalink

DevSource Videos

Interviews with Lou Rosenfeld, Jesse James Garrett, Danah Boyd, Steve Krug and Marti Hearst (DevSource)

Posted on February 05, 2007 | Permalink

So You Think You Want to be a Manager

"Every designer faces a choice at some point in their career — to manage or not to manage. Erin Malone helps you walk through the questions you need to make that choice." (Erin Malone - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on January 17, 2007 | Permalink

Early and often: How to avoid the design revision death spiral

"One lesson we've learned over the past several years here at Cooper is that on the vast majority of our projects, intimate client collaboration is a critical ingredient for success. This is a lesson that we have sometimes learned the hard way; collaboration can be messy, unpredictable and has often forced us to compromise what we thought was a supremely clear and elegant vision. Despite these growing pains, we have now come to embrace the unpredictability and compromise; through well-managed client collaboration, our designs are stronger and are more likely to serve our clients' needs and satisfy the goals of end users" (David Cronin - uiGarden.net)

Posted on January 13, 2007 | Permalink

Review of 'Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing'

"Adam's thesis is that technology and our experience of it will change significantly in the very near future: computer processing will insinuate its way in into our daily lives deeply and invisibly, in a way that PCs haven't. It will move from our desktops and server rooms into our walls, our furniture, our clothing, and perhaps even into our bodies; everyware will literally be everywhere." (Andrew Otwell - heyblog)

Posted on December 27, 2006 | Permalink

Seeing the World in Symbols: Icons and the Evolving Language of Digital Wayfinding

"Of all the objects that occupy our digital spaces, there are none that capture the imagination so much as icons. As symbols, icons can communicate powerfully, be delightful, add to the aesthetic value of software, engage people’s curiosity and playfulness, and encourage experimentation. These symbols are key components of a graphic user interface-mediators between our thoughts and actions, our intentions and accomplishments." (Jonathan Follett - UXmatters)

Posted on December 18, 2006 | Permalink

Slideshare and the 'slideumentation' of presentations

"Don't get me wrong, there are some cool features in Slideshare. SlideShare does indeed make it easy to upload PowerPoint slides and it is quite cool that you can embed clickable slides into your blog or view them in good quality on a large screen. But without the possibility to include audio (or video and animation) with slides I just do not see what all the excitement is about (yet)." (Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen)

Posted on December 14, 2006 | Permalink

Communicating Web 2.0 Through Design

"(...) how to educate your visitors about the features of contemporary sites and web apps through instructive design." (Robert Hoekman - Vitamin)

Posted on December 12, 2006 | Permalink

Information Design redux

"The importance of information design (ID) as a discipline with much to loan other design disciplines -- especially those that deal with human-human and human-system communication -- was brought home to me by two events." (Bob Jakobson - Total Experience)

Posted on December 06, 2006 | Permalink

INFODESIGN: brazilian journal of information design

"In this opening edition of InfoDesign, the articles – all with differing approaches and themes - deal with 'information design of inclusion', in which the information readers/users must steer their way through decisions taken during the design process in order to achieve successful communication." (SBDI)

Posted on December 06, 2006 | Permalink

An empirical examination of Wikipedia's credibility

"Wikipedia is an free, online encyclopaedia which anyone can add content to or edit the existing content of. The idea behind Wikipedia is that members of the general public can add their own personal knowledge, anonymously if they wish. Wikipedia then evolves over time into a comprehensive knowledge base on all things. Its popularity has never been questioned, although its authority has. By its own admission, Wikipedia contains errors. A number of people have tested Wikipedia’s accuracy using destructive methods, i.e. deliberately inserting errors." (First Monday 11.11)

Posted on November 25, 2006 | Permalink

Web Science

"Since its inception, the World Wide Web has changed the ways scientists communicate, collaborate, and educate. There is, however, a growing realization among many researchers that a clear research agenda aimed at understanding the current, evolving, and potential Web is needed. If we want to model the Web; if we want to understand the architectural principles that have provided for its growth; and if we want to be sure that it supports the basic social values of trustworthiness, privacy, and respect for social boundaries, then we must chart out a research agenda that targets the Web as a primary focus of attention." (Tim Berners-Lee et al.)

Posted on November 03, 2006 | Permalink

We Got Sick of Hearing About Design & China, So we Got on a Plane and Went There

"There has certainly been a great deal of speculation lately regarding the real or perceived rise of Chinese industrial design. We say 'perceived rise' to emphasize that their impending world domination in this field is not a foregone conclusion, despite the frequent flurries of listserve chatter and design-conference panel discussions supporting such a notion." (Bruce M. Tharp and Stephanie Munson - uiGarden.net)

Posted on October 29, 2006 | Permalink

Interfaces for People, Not Products

"Without cooperation among designers of digital products, the proliferation of complex information systems can lead to unintended consequences - chiefly user fatigue, frustration, and the confusion that results from dealing with a host of variant user interfaces." (Jonathan Follett - UXmatters)

Posted on October 25, 2006 | Permalink

Why award-winning websites are so awful

"Practical and functional websites rarely win prizes for design but they do win sales and make profits." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on October 15, 2006 | Permalink

Characteristics of new media in the Internet age

"(...) this article explores new artistic media and forms of expression emerging in the twenty-first century, and the effects of digital networking on them. The article starts with a historical view of the arts and the social changes that accompany them, and features a list of seven characteristics for new media on the Internet." (Andy Oram)

Posted on October 09, 2006 | Permalink

A Discussion with Danah Boyd

"(...) Boyd is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information, explores how young people negotiate the presentation of self in online mediated contexts. Her research focuses on how this young audience engages with 'digital publics' - connected social spaces such as MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga and YouTube." (Ibiblio's Speaker Series) - courtesy of boingboing

Posted on September 28, 2006 | Permalink

Hospital care desperately needs design

"If I ran my business like this hospital conducted business, I would be out of business!" (Dirk Knemeyer)

Posted on September 24, 2006 | Permalink

Design And Innovation Are Sizzling: Companies Are Hiring Like Crazy

"After pushing on the door of the business community for years, the doors are being flung open and business is embracing design. Now design has to deliver." (Bruce Nussbaum - NussbaumOnDesign)

Posted on September 22, 2006 | Permalink

Multilingual website: A different approach

"Before you can launch a successful multilingual website, certain issues need to be addressed, including how the webserver chooses what language to present to the specific end user and how to handle pages that need be launched but have not yet been (fully) translated. In the year 1517 Martin Luther needed no less than ninety five statements to cause a reformation. I will do my best to address all of the issues mentioned before in the next eight statements." (Cornelis Kolbach - cornae.org)

Posted on September 19, 2006 | Permalink

From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting?

"Logical reasoning is a necessary condition. However, it's increasingly clear that logic alone is not a sufficient condition for success for individuals and for organizations." (Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen)

Posted on September 03, 2006 | Permalink

The Web and the culture of free

"The Web has encouraged a belief that things can be free, or at least very cheap. It seems everyone is looking for a deal on the Web." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on September 03, 2006 | 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 on August 28, 2006 | 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 on August 26, 2006 | 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 on August 23, 2006 | 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 on August 20, 2006 | 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 on August 09, 2006 | 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 on August 08, 2006 | 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 on August 06, 2006 | Permalink

Label Placement in Forms

"In using eyetracking to evaluate the usability of search forms for my previous article (...), we discovered much interesting data. I'll provide an in-depth analysis of that data here." (Matteo Penzo - UXmatters)

Posted on July 12, 2006 | Permalink

The Next Web: Kevin Kelly's Keynote

"(...) if you've been feeling jaded, skeptical, or even cynical about the hype surrounding Web 2.0, you should take advantage of any opportunity to hear Kelly's perspective. It's optimistic, refreshing, and downright uplifting; and he's a great speaker, with a good sense of humor, too." (The Yourdon Report)

Posted on July 10, 2006 | Permalink

Understanding Design 3.0

"This material was created by NextD Research in collaboration with UnderstandingLab and as part of the NextD Futures series. This was part of a larger presentation originally made by GK VanPatter at the AIGA national design conference in September 2005." (NextD)

Posted on July 10, 2006 | Permalink

The reinvention of information design

"And every generation has to reinvent things in their own idiom. But it would be nice if a little history and an awareness of past work was added to what we do now, rather than continually reinventing it as if it were NEW. So wasteful, and at times quite boring to old farts like me. (...) it is difficult to see anything genuinely new in the excitable and shallow research about web sites which was not already established know-how in document design long before digital technology." (David Sless - CRIA) - Comments are closed.

Posted on July 07, 2006 | Permalink

Knowledge Communities: Online Environments for Supporting Knowledge Management and its Social Context

"Knowledge management is often seen as an information problem: how to capture, organize, and retrieve information. Given this perspective, it isn't surprising that knowledge management evokes notions of data mining and text clustering and databases and documents. This is not wrong, but it is only part of the picture. We suggest that knowledge management is not just an information problem, but that it is, as well, a social problem." (Thomas Erickson and Wendy A Kellogg)

Posted on July 06, 2006 | Permalink

Complexity delivers short-term gain but long-term pain

"Complexity sells (sometimes). Customers are often impressed by all the extra features. The mood can change when they have to use the product." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on July 02, 2006 | Permalink

Senior managers: you can't keep ignoring the Web

"The Web deserves professional management because the Web is central to the future of the organization." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on June 26, 2006 | Permalink

The value of openness in an attention economy

FM10 'Openness: Code, Science, and Content': Selected Papers from the First Monday Conference, 15–17 May 2006 - "A theory of how we pay attention to other humans suggests why receiving it is both desirable and difficult. Humans can absorb as much attention as can be obtained, which differentiates it from other sorts of scarce goods. The theory also suggests a typology of openness, permitting an analysis of the different forms addressed in this Conference, along with others, both existing and potential. In this context, it seems reasonable to speculate on how attention–economic activity manifested through openness may help lead to further dominance of this type of economy. Groupings based on and espousing openness eventually may come increasingly to replace profit–making firms and even non–profit institutions such as universities, while making the pursuit of money largely irrelevant." (Michael Goldhaber - First Monday 11.6)

Posted on June 14, 2006 | Permalink

Mosh Pit as Innovation Model

"Our success is not about what we think up, but rather who we think about." (Kathy Sierra - Creating Passionate Users)

Posted on June 12, 2006 | Permalink

Beautiful Evidence: Book production

"Stop it!" (Ask Edward Tufte)

Posted on June 09, 2006 | Permalink

Innovation Through Design Thinking

"(...) a 'design thinker' must not only be intensely collaborative, but 'empathic, as well as have a craft to making things real in the world.' Since design flavors virtually all of our experiences, from products to services to spaces, a design thinker must explore a 'landscape of innovation' that has to do with people, their needs, technology and business. Timothy Brown (CEO of IDEO) dips into three central 'buckets' in the process of creating a new design: inspiration, ideation and implementation. " (MIT World) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on June 03, 2006 | Permalink

Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

"The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it? The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous." (Jaron Lanier - Edge)

Posted on May 30, 2006 | Permalink

The Overlap Blog

"Overlap is an un-conference for anyone who wants to learn more about merging business practices with design-centric problem solving and customer understanding. (...) Overlap aims for an experience that is multidisciplinary, collaborative, pragmatic and ultimately human." (overlap.org)

Posted on May 30, 2006 | Permalink

Exposing the Local InfoCloud

"The Local InfoCloud started as an idea of information that was physically close. What is stored or accessed by physical location (information that is physically close) as in an Intranet or location-based information accessed on your mobile device. The more I thought about it and chatted with others it became clear it was more than physical location, it is information resources that are familiar and easier to access than the whole of the web (Global InfoCloud) as a framing concept." (Thomas Vander Wall - Personal InfoCloud)

Posted on May 28, 2006 | Permalink

The Web is still a thrilling place

"When you get frustrated by the pressures of managing a website, look back five years. You've achieved a lot." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on May 28, 2006 | Permalink

Tufte Story: AnswerBook

"(...) we lured him into our usability lab to look at the user interface for Answerbook, of which were were very proud. (...) He played with our AnswerBook for about 90 seconds, turned around, and pronounced his review: 'Dr Spock's Baby Care is a best-selling owner's manual for the most complicated 'product' imaginable -- and it only has two levels of headings. You people have 8 levels of hierarchy and I haven't even stopped counting yet. No wonder you think it's complicated.'" (Sun.com Design, Usability & Other Stuff) - courtesy of jasonkottke

Posted on May 11, 2006 | Permalink

The Webby Awards Winners 2006

"Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 10th Annual Webby Awards expands the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in over 65 consumer, business and culture categories." (Webby Awards)

Posted on May 09, 2006 | Permalink

Moving up the wisdom hierarchy

"And fortunately, even those focused on information architecture and information design often consider knowledge and understanding as well as information." (Kathy Sierra - Creating Passionate Users)

Posted on April 24, 2006 | Permalink

Transliterature: A Humanist Format for Re-Usable Documents and Media

"This work derives from a simple question we asked long ago: 'How can computer documents - shown interactively on screens, stored on disk, transmitted electronically - improve on paper?' Our answer was: 'Keep every quotation connected to its original source.' We are still fighting for this idea, and the great powers it will give authors and readers. (Others would later ask a very different question: 'How can computers SIMULATE paper?' - the wrong question, we believe, whose mistaken pursuit has brought us to the present grim document world.)" (Theodor Holm Nelson)

Posted on April 23, 2006 | Permalink

Information and Knowledge Management: What Technical Communication Can Learn From Library Science

"Technical communication and librarianship share a common foundation in mediating information. Technical communicators traditionally have been concerned with the production of information while librarians have focused on the organization and management of information. However, as information and communications technologies have broadened the definition of technical communication and librarianship, they have expanded opportunities and career choices for practitioners in both fields. Technical communicators may now be employed in such fields as information architecture, web site design and development, information design, instructional design, and many more. Increasingly, information and knowledge management have become concepts required for effective technical communication, requiring an understanding of effective organization, storage, and management of information." (Barbara J. D’Angelo - STC Information Design and Architecture SIG)

Posted on April 12, 2006 | Permalink

No boundaries: The challenge of ubiquitous design

"Sometimes a change in technology has implications that are so epochal that everyone must wrestle with them, accommodate them, or prepare for them. The revolution in information technologies known as 'ubiquitous computing' (or ubicomp) is the most recent such change, and it is beginning to impact the practice—and the business—of digital design." (Adam Greenfield - Adobe Design Center) - courtesy of annegalloway

Posted on April 12, 2006 | Permalink

The Concept of Information

"The concept of information as we use it in everyday English in the sense knowledge communicated plays a central role in today's society. The concept became particularly predominant since end of World War II with the widespread use of computer networks. The rise of information science in the middle fifties is a testimony of this. For a science like information science (IS) it is of course important how its fundamental terms are defined, and in IS as in other fields the problem of how to define information is often raised. This review is an attempt to overview the present status of the information concept in IS with a view also to interdisciplinary trends." (Rafael Capurro and Birger Hjørland)

Posted on April 09, 2006 | Permalink

Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing

Chapter samples (and more to come soon) - "The age of ubiquitous computing is here: a computing without computers, where information processing has diffused into everyday life, and virtually disappeared from view. What does this mean to those of us who will be encountering it? How will it transform our lives? And how will we learn to make wise decisions about something so hard to see?" (Adam Greenfield - Studies and Observations) - courtesy of petermorville

Posted on April 03, 2006 | Permalink

5 Ways To Make Sure That Users Abandon Your Form

"This isn't just about form usability. You can have a very usable form and still violate me in any number of ways." (Eric Myers - ICE) - courtesy of henrikolsen

Posted on April 03, 2006 | Permalink

G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide

"I want to talk about what it means to connect the global and local together in technology and how this affects the design process. I want to talk about why social software must address glocalization in order to succeed. This means thinking about all sorts of squishy stuff like language, economics, policy, culture, social relations, and values. These are not just issues for marketing or business; they directly affect how people use your technologies and, thus, how you must design them." (Danah Boyd) - courtesy of gunnarlangemark

Posted on March 21, 2006 | Permalink

Design Vision Complete

"In the later half of January 2006, a group of designers with nearly 50 cumulative years of experience designing products for companies like Adobe, Apple, eBay, Macromedia, Nike, Palm, and Yahoo got together to talk about design vision. It was a concept for which we all had a personal definition -forged by our unique experiences and insights. Yet we all recognized the important role design vision played in our lives as designers so we took the first step toward a public discussion about what it can do for you, your organization, and your products." (LukeW - Functioning Form)

Posted on March 20, 2006 | Permalink

The trouble with personalization

"Personalization has rarely been implemented well. Its failure is usually because of a lack of understanding of customer behavior." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on March 19, 2006 | Permalink

Six degrees of reputation: The use and abuse of online review and recommendation systems

"This paper reports initial findings from a study that used quantitative and qualitative research methods and custom–built software to investigate online economies of reputation and user practices in online product reviews at several leading e–commerce sites (primarily Amazon.com). We explore several cases in which book and CD reviews were copied whole or in part from one item to another and show that hundreds of product reviews on Amazon.com might be copies of one another. We further explain the strategies involved in these suspect product reviews, and the ways in which the collapse of the barriers between authors and readers affect the ways in which these information goods are being produced and exchanged. We report on techniques that are employed by authors, artists, editors, and readers to ensure they promote their agendas while they build their identities as experts. We suggest a framework for discussing the changes of the categories of authorship, creativity, expertise, and reputation that are being re–negotiated in this multi–tier reputation economy." (Shay David and Trevor Pinch - First Monday 11.3)

Posted on March 17, 2006 | Permalink

Websites reflect true face of an organization

"A website shows the true face of the organization as never before. A website is increasingly the place where customers get that vital first impression." (Gerry McGovern)

Posted on March 12, 2006 | Permalink

Viridian Note 00459: Emerging Technology 2006

"A tech world that talked about ordinators, instead of Artificial Intelligence, probably would have produced Google in about 1980." (Bruce Sterling - Viridian) - courtesy of petermorville

Posted on March 12, 2006 | Permalink

Breaking the Web Wide Open!

"Even the web giants like AOL, Google, MSN, and Yahoo need to observe these open standards, or they'll risk becoming the 'walled gardens' of the new web and be coolio no more." (Marc Canter - AlwaysOn) - courtesy of ruurdpriester

Posted on March 06, 2006 | Permalink

Wayshowing: A Guide to Environmental Signage Principles & Practices 

By Dr. Per Mollerup (Director of Mollerup Designlab) - "Thus wayshowing relates to wayfinding as writing relates to reading and as speaking relates to hearing. The purpose of wayshowing is to facilitate wayfinding. Wayshowing is the means. Wayfinding is the end. The introduction of the term wayshowing is an important contribution to information design." (Reviewed by Rune Pettersson)

Posted on March 02, 2006 | Permalink

Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace

"I want to talk with you today about how teenagers are using a website called MySpace.com. I will briefly describe the site and then discuss how youth use it for identity production and socialization in contemporary American society." (Danah Boyd - American Association for the Advancement of Science) - courtesy of karstenschmidt

Posted on February 28, 2006 | Permalink

Beautiful Evidence

"Edward Tufte's new book, Beautiful Evidence, is now at the printer and should be available in May 2006. The book is 214 pages, full color, hard cover, and at the usual elegant standards of Graphics Press. Beautiful Evidence may be ordered now; the book will be sent immediately from the bindery when completed. The introduction and table of contents are shown (...)." (Edward Tufte)

Posted on February 27, 2006 | Permalink

How architects lost the wayfinding mojo...

"Wayfinding as a discipline: In your experience do you see wayfinding as a discipline becoming more integrated with design in architecture, urban, planning, landscape and retail? If so, in what areas has theories and practices towards wayfinding taken root? What barrier have you seen among designers in integrating wayfinding, egd and identity principals and practices in projects? What success stories have you seen, and what should designers do to communicate design process?" (The Wayfinding Place)

Posted on February 27, 2006 | Permalink

Can Large Companies Succeed with Social Media?

"While many companies will want to enhance their business with social media, not all will succeed. A social media platform doesn’t simply mean adding an online forum or blog. It requires a shift in organizational mindset, a mindset of constant and immediate customer interaction, customer-driven innovation, and exponential network effects. Only companies willing to make this shift will have the discipline to ask the right questions." (Victor Lombardi - Management innovation Group)

Posted on February 23, 2006 | Permalink

The Evolution of Information Grazing

"The frustration with feed grazing is that we soon have too many feeds, and many of the feeds overlap content. Ironically, however, we still want to add more feeds if they are relevant to us, and so we prune our feed list over time." (Joshua Porter)

Posted on February 16, 2006 | Permalink

Design Vision

"A conversation about the role of design-driven leadership in the product development process with Bob Baxley, Dirk Knemeyer, Jeff Leftwich, and Luke Wroblewski." (Functioning Form)

Posted on February 10, 2006 | Permalink

Introduction to Web 2.0

"Web 2.0 is an term referring to the ongoing transition to a full participatory Web, with participation including both humans and machines." (Squidoo - Joshua Porter)

Posted on February 10, 2006 | Permalink

Alain de Vulpian on the Process of Civilization

"I have reached the conviction that we are in the epicentre of a developmental process of civilisation that is carrying us elsewhere, transforming western culture in depth and possibly preparing the way for a worldwide civilisation." (Michael J. - Notio)

Posted on February 07, 2006 | Permalink

The Role and Evolution of Design in Software Products

"Design professionals often decry the lack of importance and investment their companies place on design. After all, most software projects revolve around a product’s engineering, to the ongoing detriment of its design—not to mention the chagrin of so many designers, who wriggle uncomfortably toward the bottom of the food chain. But there is a good reason for this: products can be very profitable without investing a single penny in interface design—at least, beyond the user interfaces the engineers build. Indeed, at least in the early stages of a market or company, resources dedicated to intentional interface design are often a bonus rather than being viewed as a necessity. Sound crazy? Consider the natural and normal evolution of a software product." (Dirk Knemeyer - UXmatters)

Posted on February 06, 2006 | Permalink

Web 3.0

"Web 2.0 is a fresh-faced starlet on the intertwingled longtail to the disruptive experience of tomorrow. Web 3.0 thinks you are so 2005. (...) my discomfort with the hype surrounding an emerging genre of web development turned into a full-blown hate-on." (Jeffrey Zeldman - A List Apart)

Posted on January 17, 2006 | Permalink

A Summary of My Ideas about National Culture Differences

"(...) there has been much discussion about cultural differences in the web design, especially in reference to animation and flashy elements. It looks right to offer Professor Hofstede's ideas to readers here. These ideas were first based on a large research project into national culture differences across subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (IBM) in 64 countries." (Geert Hofstede - uiGarden.net)

Posted on January 16, 2006 | Permalink

Clear: IIID|AIGA Journal of Information Design

"Information design makes complex information easier to understand and to use, and Clear is dedicated to informing, inspiring, and defining the rapidly growing discipline and its participants. The journal is dedicated to stimulating thinking about information design through timely and thoughtful essays and articles from leaders in the field." (AIGA)

Posted on January 13, 2006 | Permalink

Co-creating unique value with customers

"The traditional system of company-centric value creation (that has served us so well over the past 100 years) is becoming obsolete. Leaders now need a new frame of reference for value creation. In the emergent economy, competition will center on personalized co-creation experiences, resulting in value that is truly unique to each individual. The authors see a new frontier in value creation emerging, replete with fresh opportunities. In this new frontier, the role of the consumer has changed from isolated to connected, from unaware to informed, from passive to active. As a result, companies can no longer act autonomously, designing products, developing production processes, crafting marketing messages, and controlling sales channels with little or no interference from consumers. Armed with new tools and dissatisfied with available choices, consumers want to interact with firms and thereby co-create value. The use of interaction as a basis for co-creation is at the crux of our emerging reality. The co-creation experience of the consumer becomes the very basis of value. The authors offer a DART model for managing co-creation of value processes." (C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy)

Posted on January 08, 2006 | Permalink

Evaluating the ROI of design

"The top two reasons executives usually cite when they decide to short-change the design process are a Shortage of Time and a Lack of Money. However, companies have much more time and money to lose by not investing in design. Several myths lead to the misperception that it's easier and cheaper to do without design." (Steve Calde - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on January 04, 2006 | Permalink

Learning increases resolution

"Learning music changes music. Learning about wine changes wine. Learning about Buddhism changes Buddhism. And learning Excel changes Excel. If we want passionate users, we might not have to change our products--we have to change how our users experience them. And that change does not necessarily come from product design, development, and especially marketing. It comes from helping users learn." (Kathy Sierra - Creating Passionate Users)

Posted on January 02, 2006 | Permalink

Intranet Trends to Watch for in 2006

"The intranet ecosystem still does matter (...). However, the focus has moved away from the analyst firms, the consulting companies and the gurus and back to the business customers." (Shiv Singh - CIO)

Posted on December 20, 2005 | Permalink

Living La Vida Virtual: Interfaces of the Near Future

"Personal computing is in an awkward adolescence right now. On one hand, we are rapidly moving into ubiquitous computing environments that let people constantly interact with the omnipresent network; on the other, the devices and interfaces we are using to enter these new frontiers provide woefully inadequate user experiences. Let's take a look at one of the key technologies that will take mobile user experiences to the next level: holography." (Dirk Knemeyer - UXmatters)

Posted on December 20,