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quit defining, start refining (and stop that whining)IA: The State of the Profession Andrew Dillon's got another great column on IA in the latest ASIS Bulletin, and I finally found it online... among other things he points out that the market downturn may result in job seekers having to *actually know something about IA* to get a job as an IA (woo hoo!). He also points out a bunch of universities are hopping on the IA bandwagon by putting out courses that are basically repackaged old courses "selling old wine in new bottles." He doesn't name names, but buyer beware... But the part that gets me excited is the promise of the new summit: "Furthermore, plans for holding an IA Summit in 2002 are underway, and I shall take this opportunity to let you know that I shall serve as chair of the program committee. If you have ideas for contributions and themes, feel free to contact me." My request? Quit defining, start refining. I'd like to see an in-depth look at some of the points Lou raised in Bloug, as well as *heaps* of case studies on how IA's are solving problems and saving/making their companies gobs of dough. find this book
Noel gets all soft and tufte
Notes from the Tufte roadshow... discussed in the Carbon IQ Log Contains Noel's excellent and extensive notes from the last Tufte seminar. talk to users, save money.Apply Usability Methodologies in Intranet Information Architecture in a Real World Context Part II "A user needs analysis is crucial to the user-centred design process. Identifying issues in the requirements phase can save companies up to 100 times over what it would cost the company to fix the same problems after the system has been delivered. Once completed, a UNA report will be the blue print from which the production team can work, ensuring that the stakeholders' intranet's goals are married to the needs of the end users." thanks iaslash
IA HaikusOutline and index thanks bill! state of the professionIt's time to look at Lou's post, and if we are going to talk about future directions of IA, we need to finalize what IA is. After doing my big survey on definitions, I started to formulate this model of information architecture that consist
For information architecture for the web, this makes the greatest amount of sense. One can then organize information, design systems for retrieval and use, and create ways to access and comprehend. Almost all websites are combination of these elements, so I feel that with these three concentrations of skills, IA's are well equipped. I'm going to assume many IA's will be stronger in one concentration than another, much like a graphic designer might be a better illustrator, or a specialist in type. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a few IA's specialize in only one of the three, and come in at key junctions of a project to lend their skilled hand to crafting a small but vital part of the site. But I think all websites will need an IA that has some skills in all three. Or some human who plays that role. Some of you may be asking where the user is in this model? Well I would say that user-centered is an approach, not a unique skill, and one can do user-centered IA, user-centered design, user-centered anything... one is a layer that fits over the other. Whether this requires two people (a usability specialist and an ia) or one (a user-centered ia) is up to the organization of the company. I personally prefer the first, for a number of reasons I've articulated in the past. And since this is an approach, that means there can be other approaches So, to turn my attention to the Lou post, August 23, 2001: Future Directions for IA-- There is this French phrase my hubby uses all the time "et alors?". It means "and then?" When I read Lou's post, I thought "and then?" -- these were all things I thought IA's were doing already. Then I realized if we are, we aren't talking in public about it. We need to spend more time articulating problems we have solved and the methodology we used in hopes of growing our knowledge as a profession. Lou's post revealed to me that we spend too much time dealing with either the "big" questions of IA (what does it all mean? What is IA) or the "tiny" questions (what software do you use to make a sitemap) and we rarely talk about the meat and potatoes of our work. I think Lou's post illuminates some key areas that --if you are innovating-- are worth writing up some white papers, or speaking about at the next summit.
And now we are back to what some folks call big IA.... I don't always agree with this idea that we need a CIA, but I do believe we need a CUXO-- we need one person who holds the vision and assures a consistent user experience across the company's properties in order to protect the brand. A CIA (Chief Information Architect) might be necessary in a company that was highly information based, or catered to content seekers. Though personally I doubt it. However, a Chief User Experience Officer would be a welcome addition. The user experience is heavily influenced by information architecture, but it is made up of many elements including
A CUXO would be responsible for standardizing and assuring consistency of the brand throughout all these elements. Of course not all aspects of the brand can be controlled, but the bulk can be and those aspects that cannot be controlled can be influenced. A CUXO's team includes marketing, customer An IA only belongs to those companies whose products can be helped by the their unique skillsets: content architecture, interaction design and information design. The short list this would include would be
A long time ago Don Norman posted a long email to the CHI-WEB list explaining three different types of models. They make a good template for how an IA works in the organization as well. Mental Model: How a user perceives how a system works. Here is where a usability expert can be of great use, determining the user's model of a given domain before anything is designed, then verifying they are able to deal with the item after it is created. Design Model: "mental model held by the designer of the artifact" in other words, that held by the system architect who knows how the dang thing really works. Conceptual model: "the conceptual model refers to a description of the workings of a device." This is the realm of the IA, who hides the messy complexity of the design model from the user, and makes it simple to comprehend and use the product. The IA perches between the technologist and the user, helping makes the creations of one palatable to the other. time to run to work. more later, most likely...
contextual inquiryDriving Innovation and Creativity through Customer Data is more than a tease than a full article on the technique of contextual inquiry (much like many articles on UIE) but it does make a persuasive argument for user-centered design, something we can never have too many of. "One technique we like to use to create innovative designs is Contextual Inquiry. Contextual Inquiry immerses product designers in actual customer data by having designers observe the work of users in their natural environment. Design teams can quickly identify specific problems and needs of their customers, One advantage of this technique is that it provides a framework for designers to synthesize the customer data they collect and use it to produce creative products." BTW, I hated Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide but I don't know if it's just me, or... I found it trite, facile, and I wanted data to back up their assertions, which often seemed incomplete or incorrect. Anyone out there love it?
things I find in siglines
Nick Finck sure can design. my evil twinin another life I am a fireplace design in the time of ennuiNew at V-2, beauty now for the people has Adam despairing the state of design on the web, finding it flaccid and dull. He believes the latest "market softening" (setback/downturn/recession/etc) is to blame: "Seen in this light, the sense of ennui that has suffused the web design community since the dot.com bubble burst has a certain self-fulfilling inevitability. When all around you, shops are closing or laying off staff; when every site you see seems like a barely-iterated rehash of somebody's year-old innovation; when designers left and right are slated by their erstwhile peers as "trendwhore" or "rock star" - well, this is not a prescription for the widespread emergence of novelty, is it?" but he is ever an optimist, and points out a few innovators to get our juices flowing once again... check it out! What do I want to be when I grow up?Lou Rosenfeld requests less adolescent pondering the meaning of our existance, and more planning (plotting?) for the future) "Here are some areas that I think information architects can and should take on. Some are orphans that may have gone unnoticed and therefore unowned. Some are simply not well understood by most people working on web sites today, including most IAs. Each of these areas presents us with difficult and interesting challenges that will increasingly demand our attention over time. And they fit squarely within the scope of information architecture: " he goes on to list and describe
which range from the granular to the super.... and what do you think (I'm still mulling) old argumentThe arguments about liquid design, scalable fonts and line length comes up again and again. You may wish to track down one of these publication for the next time it springs up. "Line length was found to be a significant factor in influencing reading rate, whilst comprehension remained relatively constant. Long line lengths (about 100 characters per line) were read faster than shorter lines. However, this line length is judged as least easy to read, and people are generally in agreement that 55 characters per line is the easiest to read. " later that same day A couple more items still later
no pain, no gainI don't know how I missed Whipping Users into Shape , but it's a hoot... "Ease of use is out. Design your sites to be hard to use. Hard to navigate. Hard to access. Here's a little gem of advice: Use dark colors on dark backgrounds. Winnow out the deadbeat Web surfer chaff." And although there are so many things wrong with this gem I ran out of fingers and toes counting them, he challenges some assumptions that desperately need to be challenged, such as the model of the user as channel surfer. On my list for santa
USB Q Drives from Agate sometimes the very best idea is the simple and obvious one.
usability and scrying"What people are contemplating on their word-processor screens is the operation of their own brains. It is not entrails that we try to interpret these days, nor even hearts or facial expressions; it is, quite simply, the brain." -Jean Baudrillard, America (1986) via philosophyquotes.com
it's not just the law, it's a good idea....
Ivan Hoffman's Articles for Web Site Designers and Site Owners is an invaluable resource for anyone publishign or designing online. thanks steve! Happy birthday
orginal post Though we all like to scream about his pronouncements or catch him when he makes an error in his own rules, it's time everyone who has a job relating to human factors to acknowledge that Jakob Nielsen's tireless promoting of usability is very likely the reason our bosses or our clients are willing to consider allowing usability testing. Jakob paved a road for us to drive down made of his controversial titled alertboxes ("flash is 99% bad" anyone?), his scholarly and his accessible books, and his innumerable keynotes and commentary in the press. He shoved usability into the web culture consciousness, fought against the painfully gratuitous bells and whistles that accompany a new technology, helping cure those glaring flaws with reasoned advice. He undoubtedly helped the web mature into the admittedly adolescent but pervasive and oh-so useful medium it is today by reminding us all that someone was going to want to use the damn thing. So I want to say, Happy Birthday Jakob. What about adding a few more items to your Amazon.com Wish List so we can say thank you properly?
oh.
Industry Standard to suspend publication i liked that magazine. silver liningsWell, my mama used to say that every cloud has a silver lining, and one silver lining of this market downturn/softening/recession/whathaveyou is a lot of IA's have worked to explain just what they did and how they did it online as part of their resumes. An outstanding example is Cindy Alverez's work. Recruiters take note! Remember when we couldn't find a deliverable example online? giving up gurusIs a high priced usability "Guru" a good investment? is an interesting and brutaly honest look at what you get when you buy guru-usability. He makes several good points including the fact that gurus don't know *your* audience: "even the best usability Guru is unlikely to have a suitable understanding of your customer profile and their critical cognitive structures, such as prior learning, experience with other software, and motivation" worth a read... two new books for you
Hungry for beauty, for visually articulated ideas, need a great new picture book? I'll be adding them to the reading list shortly. It's friday, and I'm tired of being relevent
I know folks are pointing to david's flash movie (and thanks to biggerhand.com for the translation), which is a goofy bit of work done much in the style of the "whee" squirrel flick, but I think his blog, Lagrange 3 is where the best surreal humor lies. Lack of sunlight does something to these people, doesn't it?
more innovative navigation
freshfroot motion web mind food offers an innovative way to flip through a series of heart-shaking photographs. Very impressive collection selected by very impressive heather. wowHistoryWired: A few of our favorite things just became one of my favorite things. It's not about creating an interface that allows users to efficiently complete information-retrieval tasks. It's about exploring, and contemplating and discovery.... thanks dan
let's reinvent the wheel... how about square?Good post by kevin on Fury.com on the endless urge to redesign. "Last night I went to the monthly UI/IA cocktail hour, a gathering of information architects and people in associated positions or bents. We did a lot of talking about the iterative cycle and how in reality it's not "iterate, iterate, iterate" but "iterate, obliterate, iterate." " he typed, she typedSaw an interesting snippet of a study in The Standard. Reminds me that every thing that we do reveals who we are, even how we punctuate...
war gear
the face of evilBill sent me a link that took me to an advertising site that blew my mind away: Eyeblaster - A Framework for out-of-banner advertising Some samples of their ads that must be seen to be believed: be sure to wait a few seconds for everything to load and you'll understand. the pause that depresses fighting the good fightSean Smith wrote and asked me for ammunition against pop-up ads. The article "Pop-up Internet Ads: More Eyeballs - and More Frowns" and a a good thread on CHI-WEB was all I could track down. I'd like to ask EH readers to submit anything they know as well (for all you know he's working on *your* favorite site) My own experience in recent testing was that all users closed pop-ups as quickly as possible as soon as they showed up. Yes, all. It was amazing; they could often close them before the contents even loaded. However, the staistics from that same site showed that popups had the highest click through rate of any ad. One HCI friend suggested that it might be people simply missing the x-close button and accidently clicking through.... I did find this interesting article on popup killing software, but no data on how often its used.
closer, closerThis diagram of an iterative process caught my eye. The presence of "focus groups" definitely scared me, but the basis is strong... It's from a talk on rapid application development, and I'm pleasently surprised how similar this is to our processes. Another paper on "Active user involvement is imperative. DSDM sees itself as a user-centred approach. Active involvement by the user community throughout the development project is therefore seen as crucial." Excellent! Did this "methodology of the week" survive? Is it in practice somewhere? if it is, how is it working out for you?
testing tipsMy flash-usability research has led me to Girlzilla's Usability Testing Tips. Even if you couldn't do usability testing, if you did the first four tasks you'd probably improve your product.
If you create a list of tasks (#4) based on the user and business goals, then go through them yourself with #3, your target user, in mind you will probably quickly spot many usability problems....
interesting paper
While this whitepaper on taxonomies is mostly a marketing tool, it does show why taxonomies are important (thanks noel!) bad practice
While getting prepped for an upcoming conference, I did a quickie google search on flash+usability, looking for a wonderful article on fitts law on flash I'd found before. Look at the first result it's that time again....
If you are in the bay area, and you dig all that IA jazz, you probably want to check out the August Cocktail Hour
badpractices.com
looks like I've found a partner in crime to work on badpractices.com. Right now we're trying to think up general catagories for it such as evil banners, rude customer services, confusing navigation, flash abuse... what can you think of that would make good galleries of bad practices? It takes so little...
My husband and I were looking at attws.com, trying to find a plan for his new leash-- er, cellphone. Clicking on nationwide covereage you get this dialog box I don't suppose they could have made that URL a link? Go that extra mile, guys... anyone want to help me set up badpractices.com? |
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