Information Architecture

Mind Hacking Visual Transitions

2006-07-16T01:15:00.000-07:00

We experience it everyday. While talking with a friend at a park someone throws a frisbee to another person in the background. Without trying you notice this change of motion even though you are not looking directly at it. You can thank the superior colliculus for this little attention interruption.As the authors describe it this region of the brain is not very sophisticated. But it does a good job of telling you to pay attention because something may be coming at you. You aren't sure what it is but you had better pay attention to it.

Looks Good Works Well: Mind Hacking Visual Transitions

Paying Attention (or Not) to the Flickr Daily Zeitgeist

2006-07-16T01:14:00.000-07:00

You don't read a screenful of text in a completely voluntary way. You're constantly tugged all over the page by various factors, including how your eyes jump around, what some submodule of your brain thinks is important to look at next instead of the words, and so on.Click here to find out more!If we know about these factors, we can make web pages easier to read by making other elements on the screen less distracting.In this article, we'll take a look at a fairly common online widget and talk about where it works and where it doesn't work, in terms of visual attention and its design objectives. We'll use the Flickr Daily Zeitgeist as our example.

O'Reilly Network -- Paying Attention (or Not) to the Flickr Daily Zeitgeist

technorati tags:information+architecture, flickr, attention, fading+effects

What is a "Technosocial Architect"

2006-07-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

People who understand the social interactions between people and the technologies they use to mediate the interactions need to understand the focus is on the social interactions between people and the relationship that technology plays. It is in a sense being a technosocial architect

Technosocial Architect :: Off the Top :: vanderwal.net

A long article explaining the various elements of being a "Technosocial Architect"

technorati tags:information+architecture, technosocial+architect

T-Model for Interaction Design

2006-07-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

Dan Saffer just published his model for the relationships between Interaction Design (IxD) and the fields around it

[BEEP]: Dan Saffer's T-Model for Interaction Design

technorati tags:interaction+design, information+architecture

Eyetracking Web Forms

2006-07-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

Design research is quickly becoming the theme of the month here on Functioning Form. Following my discussions with Steve Portigal about ethnography and an analysis of granular bucket testing, Matteo Penzo has published an informative article on UXmatters that analyzes my Web Application Form Design article with eyetracking software.

Functioning Form - Eyetracking Web Forms

technorati tags:ia, information+architecture, web+forms, eyetracking

Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them

2006-03-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them - Boxes and Arrows

I discovered the concepts in this article while preparing material for an introductory information architecture workshop. In the workshop, I thought it important to highlight that one aspect of designing for users was to understand the ways in which they may approach an information task. I was already familiar with the concepts of known-item and exploratory information seeking: they are common in the library and information science literature and are also discussed in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.

In my work on intranets and complex websites, I noticed a range of situations where people didn’t necessarily know what they needed to know. Additionally, when I opened my browser history to look for examples from recently-visited sites, I noticed that the majority of my own time was spent trying to find things that I had already discovered. These two modes didn’t fit into the concepts of known-item and exploratory information seeking. I call these “don’t know what you need to know” and re-finding.

Technorati Tags: searching, navigation, user experience

knemeyer.com: Mind: Essays :: Design Vision: Parts 5-8

2006-03-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

knemeyer.com: Mind: Essays :: Design Vision: Parts 5-8

Design Vision is an ongoing conversation between four industry veterans who want to explore the boundaries and definitions of design leadership today, particularly in digital product design. The first four parts of this conversation appeared on Luke Wroblewski's Functioning Form; parts 9-12 are hosted at Jim Leftwich's Orbitstar Interactica, while the last four parts will debut at Bob Baxley's Drowning in the Current.

Technorati Tags: design, information architecture, ia

Looks Good Works Well: Slides from eTech Talk

2006-03-16T00:58:00.000-08:00

Looks Good Works Well: Slides from eTech Talk

I gave my eTech talk today at 12:15pm. I followed an incredible sweeping history of computing by George Dyson.

I kept thinking, wow! how to follow someone like Mr. Dyson.

But the talk seemed to be well received. Most importantly several folks really got excited about the vision that I was putting forth. In a nutshell, a pattern library becames a vocabulary for a tribe. It becomes a nesting place for exposing solutions to help create a passionate design development community.

Technorati Tags: UX, patterns, IA

Digital Web Magazine - Usability for Rich Internet Applications

2006-03-16T00:52:00.000-08:00

Digital Web Magazine - Usability for Rich Internet Applications

After struggling for years to design Internet applications around the limitations of HTML, I have been very excited by the recent release of a range of Internet applications with increased richness and interactivity.

Rich Internet applications (RIAs) can provide opportunities to design much better user experiences. They can be faster, more engaging and much more usable. However, this improvement is not without its downside—RIAs are much more difficult to design than the previous generation of page-based applications. The richer interaction requires a better understanding of users and of human-computer interaction (HCI). Although there is a lot of HCI material and research available, it can be difficult to determine how it applies to this new environment.

Technorati Tags: ria, rich internet applications, ia, information architecture

Bloug: Design resources from the Design Council

2006-03-16T00:49:00.000-08:00

Bloug: Design resources from the Design Council

About Design looks like a promising resource; the UK's Design Council has pulled together useful information on a variety of design disciplines, ranging from information design to automotive design. Each section includes a variety of useful components, including definitions, examples, quotes, trends, events information, FAQs, tips, and further readings.

Technorati Tags: design, ux, user experience, resources

The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps - Boxes and Arrows

2006-02-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps - Boxes and Arrows: "Sitemaps are common deliverables, desired by clients who want a visual representation of a site. Since they are rarely used to make decisions, information architects may not consider them the valuable tools they are. The effort required to make and maintain them requires time that might be better used elsewhere. In fact, I would suggest that making sure the little boxes line up is a waste of an IA’s mental abilities.

So what is an IA to do? Turn to Excel, of course. Storing sitemap data in a structured data format such as Microsoft Excel makes the data easy to edit, easy to share with the team, and easy to elaborate on (e.g., adding example notes and URLs that may not be appropriate for the map itself). Unfortunately, this approach requires maintaining a spreadsheet in addition to maintaining the visual sitemap."

A List Apart: Articles: Home Page Goals

2006-02-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

A List Apart: Articles: Home Page Goals: "When I set out to design a website, I do it backwards. I start with the design of the smallest, deepest element: the story page or search results. Then I work backwards to design their containers: section pages, indexes. Then, lastly, I work on the home page.

I do this because each container needs to adequately set expectations for what it contains. If the home page says one thing, but the internal pages say another, that’s going to lead to a user-experience failure."

DonnaM: Taking a content inventory

2006-02-08T23:17:00.000-08:00

DonnaM: Taking a content inventory: "You take a content inventory because, before redesigning a website or intranet, you need to know what you have. This is especially important if you will be migrating your content to a new structure or new CMS - at some point you need to know every single content element.

Even if you aren't doing a big migration, an important step in a redesign project is gaining a deep understanding of the content - not only what you have, but what types of content you have and the relationships and patterns within the content.

Taking an inventory tells you what you have, and if you do it well, will also put you on the path where you have a good understanding of the content."

GUUUI - Visio - the interaction designer's nail gun (2nd edition)

2006-01-16T02:11:00.000-08:00

GUUUI - Visio - the interaction designer's nail gun (2nd edition): "This second edition of the article includes a brush-up of the text and illustrations and a new and improved prototyping tool for Visio 2003. Unfortunately, the new tool isn't compatible with older versions of Visio. If you have a version of Visio prior to 2003, please refer to the first edition of this article, where you can download the old version of the prototyping tool."

Tags:
visio || information architecture

Battarbee, Katja - Co-Experience

2006-01-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

Battarbee, Katja: "This dissertation introduces an approach to understanding user experience that departs from the more traditional user or product centric approaches. This approach, co-experience, builds on an understanding of experience as social interaction. It focuses on how in and through social interaction experiences and their products come to find their place in people’s lives."

CoFactors » Blog Archive » Net Rage: A Study of Blogs and Usability

2006-01-12T03:40:00.000-08:00

CoFactors » Blog Archive » Net Rage: A Study of Blogs and Usability: "Catalyst’s proprietary test of the usability of blogs, conducted in late June and early July of 2005, can be downloaded immediately here. Our analysis sheds light on a variety of heretofore neglected, user-experience related design challenges associated with blogs’ potential to become a mainstream medium for Internet users."

Looks Good Works Well: Visio Wireframe Toolkit for Download

2006-01-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

Looks Good Works Well: Visio Wireframe Toolkit for Download: "In an earlier post I mentioned a wireframe toolkit I wrote for Visio to make wireframe creation go much faster. Specifically I discussed one aspect of the kit-- animating wireframes with Visio. I wrote a fuller article that is just getting around to being published on boxesandarrows.com. It should show up this weekend.

In the article, I provide a reference to the fuller wireframe toolkit and they (at boxesandarrows) have agreed to host the installation files. Since I have not really explained the wireframe toolkit nor provided a way to download it before, I felt it would be important to provide a blog article about the kit and how to get it for your own use." [...]

Tags:
visio || information architecture

Looks Good Works Well: Nine Tips for Designing Rich Internet Applications

2006-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

Looks Good Works Well: Nine Tips for Designing Rich Internet Applications: "Recently I was asked to provide input into a presentation. The question was asked, if you were going to provide some quick basic guidelines for designing rich applications what would they be.

Here were the nine thoughts as they originally came to my head."[...]

Tags:
rich internet applications || information architecture

Evolutionary information seeking

2006-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Evolutionary information seeking: "This article explores one question: what does Internet searching have to do with personal development? Personal development means that individuals improve their own abilities, skills, knowledge or other qualities by working on them. The paper reports on a qualitative case study, in which a single participant was interviewed and her Web searches observed. Information search strategies seemed to form a spectrum of developmental sophistication. Four major types of relationship were found:
a) the Internet in the context of development;
b) development in the context of the Internet;
c) development affecting Internet use; and,
d) Internet use affecting development.

There were some informational phenomena which exhibited regression, the converse of development."

Designing User Experiences for Applications Versus Information Resources on the Web

2006-01-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

"The relatively recent adoption of user-focused design practices by the Web design and development community—including personas, participatory design, paper prototyping, and the like—highlights important distinctions between the user experiences of desktop applications and those of information spaces. With the growing desire for usable Web applications, these distinctions become more topical and important to understand. Though the process of designing and creating application and information space user experiences for the Web is virtually the same—even if the deliverable design documents may differ—their user experiences are fundamentally and profoundly different. For designers, business analysts, marketing consultants, and others who are sincerely interested in delivering the best user experiences online, understanding these distinctions can reduce the cost of design and improve the likelihood of user acceptance." [...] (Leo Frishberg)

Tags:
user experience || information architecture

Search Folders, Smart Lists, & Tags

2006-01-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

"[...]“information about information” is guaranteed to play an increasingly important role in how we manage our home lives and jobs. For evidence, we need only to look at the proliferation of metadata-based organizational constructs within Desktop and Web-based applications. Search Folders, Smart Playlists, Virtual Folders, and Tags all group objects based on shared metadata and dynamically update their contents for efficient information retrieval through common attributes. In other words, files attributes in these instances “replace” typical hierarchical organization systems.[...]" (Functioning Form)

Tags:
information design || navigation systems||findability ||

Introduction to Information Architecture

2006-01-04T07:20:00.000-08:00

Information architecture brings together how people think with how systems work. It's a strategy and a discipline.With information architecture covering so much territory, I've collected a
few introductory articles, books, and links to help you get started. [...] (Introduction to Information Architecture by Austin Govella)

Tags:
information architecture

Role of Information Architecture in Development

2006-01-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

"As a consultant, I have had a few challeges with mind reading being a non-clairvoyant. Clients and consultants are seemingly diametrically opposed beasts who have evolved two very different evolutionary tracks. Scientists would term it "divergent evolution." How did we all get so far off track? Setting an expectation and staying the course are core project management initiatives that should be set in stone. However, it seems that in good faith projects, expectations, and goals get skewed. The question then becomes how can we mitigate this.[...]" (The Personal Blog of Michael T. Haynie)

Tags:
information architecture

Blog Interface Design 2.1

2006-01-03T04:56:00.000-08:00

"Following the publication of our Blog Interface Design 2.0 article, a number of folks have chimed in with some additional suggestions for making the most of your blog’s content.

In the article, we highlighted Boxes Arrows’ practice of bringing valuable comments (as rated by readers) to the front of a list of comments. In response, Tom Chi suggested an interesting alternative. Rather than changing the order of the list based on quality –change the opacity. With this approach comments rated poorly are reduced in opacity so that really poor comments become almost unreadable. If readers find something of interest in a comment with low opacity, they have a strong incentive for rating it well –it becomes more visible." (Functioning Form)

Additional Resources:

Tags:
usability || interaction design || blogging

Semantic Typography: Bridging the XHTML gap

2006-01-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

"In the Web Standards community we hear the words 'Semantic Markup' thrown around a lot as a conceptthe right thing to do but I know a lot of designers who are trying to learn this stuff are being confused by the whole 'semantic thing'. It's a difficult task for a designer, who primarily thinks very visually, to relate to a concept like semantics in a document when all they want to do is create something. After doing a ton of research over the past couple of weeks I've begun to notice links and patterns between typographic theory and Web Standards." (Mark Boulton)