InfoDesign: Hand-picked since 1997

All posts from

August 2006

The Big Picture of Microformats

Added on 31 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“In this article, we’ll review what people are doing with microformats right now, and finish up by looking at a couple of cool projects that might whet your appetite for microformats’ future prospects.” (John Allsopp – Digital Web Magazine)

Technology

User Experience 2.0

Added on 29 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“The remixability of content and applications, paired with the rapid speed of development, form the foundation of a collaborative architecture that promises to result in richer user experiences. However, a richer user experience isn’t necessarily a usable experience. In order for Web 2.0 to deliver on its promise, it must provide richer, usable experiences.” (TechSmith)

User experience

Refining Data Tables

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Many articles have been written on what is probably the single most ubiquitous interface element within Web applications today: the form. Forms justifiably get a lot of attention because their design is critical to successfully gathering input from users. Registration forms are the gatekeepers to community membership. Checkout forms are how eCommerce vendors close deals. But what goes in must eventually come out, and the information users provide to Web applications often makes its way back to users in the form of tabular data” (Luke Wroblewski – UXmatters)

Visual design

Double Consciousness: Back to the Future with John Chris Jones

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Looking across the 35+ years in which Design Methods has been in use in multiple languages, what from your perspective is the biggest misconception about Design Methods?” (GK VanPatter – NextD)

Interviews

Experiencing CHI 2006: From a Practitioner’s Viewpoint: Part IV/V

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“This course was packed full of useful content.” (Pabini Gabriel-Petit – UXmatters)

Events

Use Old Words When Writing for Findability

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

On Arranging Books by Color

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“(…) organizing his books by color allows him to discover new and unexpected relationships between books he knows well already. When two unrelated books are forced to occupy the same shelf simply because of their spine color, the shelver is asked to think about whether they have ideas to share between them. Perhaps, the designers of these chromatically-related books saw something in the books’ content that even their authors did not. Maybe their ideals share a common hue?” (Rob Giampietro – Design Observer)

Metadata

The end of deference and the rise of customer power

Added on 28 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. This shift in power is only beginning to be felt.” (Gerry McGovern)

Information design

Why Doing User Observations First is Wrong

Added on 26 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Usability testing is like Beta testing of software. It should never be used to determine ‘what users need’. It is for catching bugs, and so this kind of usability testing still fits the new, iterative programming models, just as Beta testing for software bugs fits the models. I have long maintained that any company proud of its usability testing is a company in trouble, just as a company proud of its Beta testing is in trouble. UI and Beta testing are meant simply to find bugs, not to redesign.” (Donald Norman – uiGarden.net)

Keynote at Hypertext conference

Added on 26 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Wikis were created in 1994 by Ward Cunningham, so he is considered the pioneer of wikis, and is the author of design patterns. Here are the notes from his talk.” (Notes by Alvin Chin – GadgetMan’s Blog)

Hypertext

Is it broken?

Added on 26 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Good design is possible with PowerPoint, so long as one knows a little something about design and how to best display information appropriate for their own unique situation.” (Garr Reynolds – Presentation Zen)

Information design

Scan This Book!

Added on 25 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“What will happen to books? Reader, take heart! Publisher, be very, very afraid. Internet search engines will set them free. A manifesto.” (Kevin Kelly)

Hypertext

Design Futures: Part 1

Added on 23 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“In July 2006, a group of designers with nearly 50 cumulative years of experience designing products for companies like Apple, eBay, Macromedia, Nike, Palm, and Yahoo got together to talk about the future of design. We weren’t looking to predict what’s next but instead to discuss the patterns and trends affecting the design industry as we move forward.” (Luke Wroblewski – Functioning Form)

Information design

developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee

Added on 23 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Originator of the Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium talks about how far we’ve come, and about the challenges and opportunities ahead.” (IBM developerWorks) – courtesy of readwriteweb

Interviews

Edward Tufte, Offering ‘Beautiful Evidence’

Added on 22 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“(…) good design is timeless, while bad design can be a matter of life and death.” (Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr – NPR)

Interviews

Adding design process attributes to patterns

Added on 21 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“The idea of adding design process attributes to patterns expands the focus of patterns to include the context of design.” (Peter Boersma)

Patterns

The Language of Interaction: Rich Interfaces, Networks and Design Patterns

Added on 20 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Inside any organization, you’ve already evolved your own set of patterns and should have some way of collecting this knowledge. Knowledge management and sharing should focus not only on patterns, but also on methods for knowing when to use a particular pattern and when not to. You don’t have to create a complex Web application. Wikis and blogs are easy to set-up and maintain, and they offer a simple way to manage information about patterns.” (Austin Govella – ASIS&T Bulletin: Special Issue on Information Architecture) – courtesy of petermorville

Patterns

Data Visualization of Web Stats: Logarithmic Charts and the Drooping Tail

Added on 20 August 2006 Peter Bogaards

“Using a linear diagram to plot data from website traffic logs can lead you to overlook important conclusions. Sometimes advanced visualizations are worth the effort.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

Usability