"USABILITY IS THE PRIME consideration in the creation of a site's information architecture. Information architecture concerns itself not only with the structure of text but with text-related tools that contribute to a site's usability-- navigation, searching, and browsing systems, labeling and indexing systems, and the words writers use in their copy. "
Mark Eastman Photography: Visible Signs
a lovely thing, pointed at by antenna
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in the Information Age
"We discuss our ethnographic research on personal social networks in the workplace, arguing that traditional institutional resources are being replaced by resources that workers mine from their own networks. Social networks are key sources of labor and information in a rapidly transforming economy characterized by less institutional stability and fewer reliable corporate resources. The personal social network is fast becoming the only sensible alternative to the traditional "org chart" for many everyday transactions in today's economy."
Usage Modes that Work Together (Web Techniques, Dec 2001) is an article that helps slice up the view of the homogenous web user.
John Zapolski pointed out Why Marketing Gets No Respect. We would think marketing would have no problem selling their ideas, but it turns out they are plagued with much the same sort of troubles we have.
Amazon.com: buying info: Jeffy's Lookin at Me!
"Voyeurs are not hard to please, July 3, 2001
Reviewer: Joshua Lobo (see more about me) from New Haven, Ct
"Jeffy's Lookin at Me!" is a beautiful book filled with top-notch images that that deliver an intensely sexualized look at the world. Often the images derive their power from the rawness of clandestine cartooning, but to characterize Keane as entirely raw or clandestine would be inaccurate. The book explores a range of perspectives. Sometimes the pictures are nothing more than a gentle glance at a stranger in a compromised position, while other images seem to be made by someone enjoying the wildest night of his life. Some of the pictures are dark and shadowy while still others are sharp and precise. "Jeffy's Lookin at Me!" is a book that can take you from an innocent glimpse of panties to a run-down backroom and leave you enthralled at any point in-between. If you expect something Playboy-esque, for under the bed or on the toilet, you'll probably be disappointed. If you find yourself undressing strangers with your eyes, then this is the book you've been waiting for. "
See also:
thanks to the members of the CBP list, esp John Levine and Barry Press. Too funny.
Understanding the Web as Media is an elegant draft of an essay that is still more important and insightful than most of the sleakly polished writing about the nature of the web that's out there.
"We were trying so furiously to make the medium do what we wanted it to do, few of us stopped to ask, "What is the web good for? What can the web do that other media can't do? What can the web NOT do that other media CAN do?" In other words, what are the unique media characteristics of the web? What are its inherent strengths and weaknesses? How does the web "fit in" with existing media?"
The web is an immature medium, but lately we've seen uses of it that reflect its unique nature-- napster, wikis, blogs...
A list I'm on recently rehashed the old argument what is IA with its attendent arguments about what medium it's suited to. I said
"My ultimate loyalty is to the web. This new medium should no longer be a shanty town. It's time for architects to step up and help build a mature information city, doing what we do best."
and I mean it.
As architects, we must first understand our building materials. The ground we build on. The nature of the lot. The qualities of the neighboring structures. The use of the structure by the peoples who will inhabit it. And finally we must puzzle out how to delight, how to innovate, how to make our new structure soar in people's imaginations and inspire a new series of spaces that are more useful, more precious to their inhabitants than anything that has gone before. It's not "beautiful or usable," it's what if we did it right....