All posts from
June 2003

Why Usability Matters to Your Business

Added on 5 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Most, if not all, Internet users are familiar with the hallmarks of poor usability. How often have you invested time at a site only to be frustrated because you were unable to complete a purchase or registration process, or couldnít find the information you sought? More importantly for commercial websites, how was your perception of the brand behind the website affected by your experience?” (Marc Sparrow – The Usability Company) – courtesy of webword

How Did You Get Here? Designing for visitors who don’t enter through the home page

Added on 5 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“One of the most overlooked aspects of designing a Web site is how users get to it. Separate factions are often devoted to promoting, designing, and maintaining a Web site, and the lack of communication and involvement can lead to apathy or confusion. Too frequently is it assumed that visitors are knowledgeable about the company and Web site, and that they enter through the home page. False assumptions about visitor entry can plague even a well-planned, well-designed site.” (Jeff Lash – Digital Web Magazine)

Architecture of the World Wide Web

Added on 5 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“The World Wide Web is a networked information system. Web Architecture consists of the requirements, constraints, principles, and design choices that influence the design of the system and the behavior of agents within the system. When followed, the large-scale effect is that of a shared information space. This document organizes the technical discussion of the system in three parts: identification, representation, and interaction. This document also addresses some non-technical (social) issues that contribute to the shared information space.” (W3C) – courtesy of tim bray

Designs & Destinations

Added on 3 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Why good information is at the heart of integrated transport. Can better communication and well-designed information have an impact on customer satisfaction and the bottom line?” – A two-day international conference – (July 3-4, 2003 – London UK)

Also Known as Communication Design or Graphic Communication

Added on 3 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Information design is concerned with making complex information easier to understand and to use. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on typography, graphic design, applied linguistics, applied psychology, applied ergonomics, computing, and other fields. It emerged as a response to people’s need to understand and use such things as forms, legal documents, computer interfaces and technical information. Information designers responding to these needs have achieved major economic and social improvements in information use.” (Design Council

Information Design: Transcend – updated

Added on 3 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“It was an excellent collection of presentations, perhaps not pulling together to make a tightly wound unified whole, but covering a number of interesting elements pertaining to knowledge presentation. In total, both conferences and all four days, an excellent experience!” (Dirk Knemeyer)

Better Graphic Design

Added on 2 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Graphic designers are asked to perform the difficult task of being creative every single day. Often, our main priority is to feed our client’s fascination for originality. We experiment with colors, composition, typography, and photography in order to deliver an original visual solution.” – (Maria Acosta – Thread Inc.)

The ACM Symposium on Document Engineering

Added on 1 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Document engineering is an emerging discipline within computer science that investigates systems for documents in any form and in all media. As with the relationship between software engineering and software, document engineering is concerned with principles, tools and processes that improve our ability to create, manage, and maintain documents.” – (ACM)

5 Ways to Get the Most from In-House Designers

Added on 1 June 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Over the last two years, we’ve heard from increasing numbers of executives who want to bring interaction design in-house because they’ve realized how critical it is to product success. There are plenty of challenges involved in doing this, including hiring and training the right people. One of the challenges companies may not expect, though, is in deciding how to use those resources once they’ve been found.” – (Kim Goodwin – Cooper Newsletter)