http://www.informationdesign.org/ Dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information experience industries. en-us plato@xs4all.nl 2010-02-17T12:35:54+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 "Sitemaps are a safety net. They can be a last resort for users before they abandon ship and leave your site having not found what they needed and vowing never to come back." (Rob Mills - Think Vitamin) Information architecture 2010-02-17T12:35:54+01:00 "Search, search, search. Everyone is talking about search these days. Bing, semantic search, site search. That's all you hear. Don’t get me wrong: search is wildly important to our daily experiences on the web. I’ve written a bit on search on this blog. (...) But at the same time were seeing a lot of new products and interfaces that offer enhanced online browsing experiences. Browsing it totally underrated, I believe. What's more, looking broadly across human information behavior, we see that browsing is more than an accident, impulsive activity–it's not just aimless surfing." (James Kalbach - Experiencing Information) Search 2010-02-08T11:43:23+01:00 "As information architects, we have the opportunity to learn when our constituents are thwarted by information structure. If possible, we should observe actual performers doing actual work in actual work contexts. We should understand what performers need to know, what is better referenced and what is best supported. We should understand the pressures, activities, accountabilities, interruptions, relationships and consequences of good and flawed performance. And we should measure." (Thom Haller - ASIS&T Bulletin February/March 2010) Information architecture 2010-02-03T09:24:36+01:00 "Information is going everywhere, bleeding out of we thought was cyberspace and back into the real world: increasingly, many tasks we perform every day not only constantly require us to move between different media, but actually have us move from the digital to the physical environment and back. Computation is everywhere, and so are search and interaction. It's time to move beyond the computer screen to design information space in these new ubiquitous ecologies." (Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati) Information architecture 2010-01-19T09:45:24+01:00 "Information architecture can be a daunting subject for designers who've never tried it before. Creating successful infographics and visualizations takes skill and practice, along with some advance planning. But anyone with graphic design skills can learn to create infographics that are effective and get data across in a user-friendly manner. Below are a collection of resources to get you going down the information architecture path. Whether you just want to become more familiar with infographics and data visualizations for occasional use or are thinking of making it a career, the resources below will surely come in handy. There are also some beautiful examples and more roundups to see even more fantastic graphics." (Cameron Chapman - Noupe) Information design 2010-01-15T15:08:18+01:00 "If we have a call for papers and no one writes them, we aren’t documenting our work. One has to then question what historical significance these excellent summits will have. Wouldn’t it be extremely advantageous to be able to look back at the papers for all the summits, especially as time marches on and the field continues to (hopefully) develop? Wouldn’t it be a valuable teaching tool and reference for those institutions with IA programs? Wouldn’t it also be a valuable reference for companies and their IA teams? A collection of papers from past summits could also be a important tool for spreading the value and knowledge that IA has to offer." (Andrea Resmini) Information architecture 2010-01-14T12:04:52+01:00 "I'm organized but not overly so. I mean, I kept my books in alphabetical order as a kid, but I didn't think of it as an early indicator of the career path I'd take. But I do appreciate order, so when I import a CD into iTunes and iTunes assigns metadata to my lovely new tunes via its Gracenotes system (which compiles user-generated and submitted data), it's a relief to me, when the provided data has been entered with, you know, some semblance of order. Often, it isn't. In reviewing this data over time, I noticed users make certain mistakes consistently when tagging their music. These mistakes then, reveal principles, and though they happen to apply to music in my iPod, in practice, they also apply to tagging other digital files." (Robert Stribley - Scatter/Gather) Information architecture 2010-01-13T10:54:47+01:00 "In this contest, you are invited to explain information architecture. What is it? Why is it important? What does it mean to you? Some folks may offer a definition in 140 characters or less, while others will use this opportunity to tell a story (using text, pictures, audio, and/or video) about their relationship to IA." (Peter Morville) Information architecture 2010-01-12T15:27:03+01:00 "(...) five reasons why vertical navigation should not be used and why designers and architects should almost always construct their sites with horizontal navigation in mind." (Louis Lazaris - Smashing Magazine) Information architecture 2010-01-11T14:26:11+01:00 "(...) is an emerging agile design tool for prototyping rich user interfaces. The big idea behind this experiment is whether we as interaction designers, IA's, UX professionals and developers can create our own prototyping tool in an open way." Prototyping 2010-01-08T14:26:30+01:00 "The difference between usability and user experience (UX) design is often explained as the latter trying to paint a richer picture and pay attention to engaging users in the process of interaction1. This is preferably accomplished by providing an engaging experience. In particular informational applications are often supposed to be entertaining. In many circumstances this is beneficial and highly appropriate, particularly in the context of low-choice interaction scenarios such as news and entertainment-related content or applications. However, the important condition to remember is context. In fact, context is the crucial aspect to consider when creating an environment that allows playful and experimental emotions to emerge." (Journal of Information Architecture)- A very nice X-mas present Information architecture 2009-12-24T10:01:08+01:00 "For large sites, portals or company intranets Value BEGINS with the information architecture. There is nothing else that matters as much as Information Architecture in these instances. If people can’t find the information they are looking for, the application is useless. It does not matter how great the design is, how fast the page loads, how cute the menu drop-downs are – what matters is intuitively organized information that is easily accessible." (Lou Storiale Blog) - courtesy of wolfnoeding Information architecture 2009-12-22T13:19:13+01:00 "One of the clearest mistakes we make in web site development is not understanding the people who use them. Despite the help of personas, user testing, scenarios and marketing data in advance, even the big brand sites struggle to be user friendly. Why is this? One reason is the context in which pages and links are delivered. For findability to work properly, we need to know the words people use to communicate with their surroundings. This may be different online, especially in situations where we can ‘be anyone’ and change who we are." (Kim Krause Berg - Search Engine Land) Usability 2009-12-18T11:49:23+01:00 "When it comes to user interface documentation, wireframes have long been the tool of choice. However, using traditional diagramming tools like Visio, OmniGraffle, and InDesign, most wireframes today look the same as their ancestors did from a decade ago – assembled with rigid, computer-drawn boxes, lines and text. While these artifacts have served us well, they can also be slow to produce, burdened with unnecessary detail and give a false impression of 'completion'. To compensate for the drawbacks of traditional wireframes, many practitioners put aside the computer in favor of simple pencil sketches or whiteboard drawings. This speeds up the ideation process, but doesn’t always produce presentable or maintainable documentation." (Aaron Travis - Boxes and Arrows) Wireframes 2009-12-07T11:31:30+01:00 "A big part of information architecture is organisation – creating the structure of a site. For most sites – particularly large ones – this means creating a hierarchical 'tree' of topics. But to date, the IA community hasn't found an effective, simple technique (or tool) to test site structures. The most common method used—closed card sorting—is neither widespread nor particularly suited to this task. Some years ago, Donna Spencer pioneered a simple paper-based technique to test trees of topics. Recent refinements to that method, some made possible by online experimentation, have now made 'tree testing' more effective and agile." (Dave O'Brien - Boxes and Arrows) Information architecture 2009-12-07T11:28:44+01:00