“If you want to create passionate users, you need to understand passion. We do it in the geekiest of ways on this blog by reverse-engineering. But we can’t just study it; we have to feel it.” (Kathy Sierra – Creating Passionate Users)

“As the number of designers interested in owning a seat at the corporate decision-making ‘table’ grows, the number of business strategies advocating design solutions expands as well. Designers keep asking: ‘How can we convince business owners that investments in design processes are money well spent?’
Simultaneously, a number of business publications (most notably Fast Company) are telling corporate decision makers that ‘design matters’. It’s useful for both sides to view the discussion from each other’s perspective.” (Luke Wroblewski – Functioning Form)

“Many intranets are only now beginning to show their true potential. However, many staff, having had unsatisfactory previous experiences of the intranet, may need quite some convincing that the intranet is now genuinely useful.” (Gerry McGovern)

“The Web is broken. Sites are clumsy and not optimized for each customer. Interface devices are woefully inadequate. Despite the power of the Web and the potential of ever-evolving technology, our execution is collectively dreadful. For all of the good things we’ve done and the gains we’ve made, the Web in general remains a very poor experience.” (Dirk Knemeyer – Digital Web Magazine)

“The Web is task-focused. The best websites get to the point. They ruthlessly eliminate waffle and happy talk. They focus on helping people complete key tasks as quickly as possible.” (Gerry McGovern)

“Your job as a web manager must be about a relentless focus on quality. Always put quality first and you will create a website that delivers real and sustainable value.” (Gerry McGovern)

“The role of personal information collections is a well known feature of personal information management. The World Wide Web has introduced to such collections ideas such as filing Web pages or noting their existence in ‘Bookmarks’ and ‘Favourites’. It is suggested that personal information collections are created in anticipation of some future need for that information-personal, anticipated information need, which also underlies the design of formal information systems.” (Harry Bruce – Information Research 10.3)

“Context plays a more fundamental role for Asians than for westerners. Asians have a more difficult time thinking of an object as completely separate from its background. Americans, on the other hand, focus on objects… things and categories more than relationships. Asians think in verbs where we think in nouns. And these differences can have profound implications.” (Kathy Sierra – Creating Passionate Users)

“The better the web manager the more time they will spend out of the office; the more time they will spend in front of the reader.” (Gerry McGovern)

“I started this essay in January 2004 – over a year ago – but it lay hidden in my file of ‘in progress’ writings. I didn’t finish the essay because I gave an interview with Cliff Atkinson on the topic, but the paper goes into the issues in much more depth than the interview. So, here it is: it may be late, but the lessons are just as relevant as ever.” (Donald Norman)

“Having a deep understanding of the gut instinct of your customer is the number one skill of managing a website. That involves getting face to face with them.” (Gerry McGovern)

“Something is happening right now, and the developer community has an electric gleam in its eye. Curious, inventive people are making cool stuff again. There’s been a notable shift, and it’s incredibly exciting. (…) Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. Things are about to change in a very big way.” (Janice Fraser – Adaptive Path)

“The way people think about the World-Wide Web (WWW) has implications for the way that they navigate it. In this paper, we discuss the nature of people’s metaphorical conception of the WWW, as gathered from interviews with beginning and experienced web users. Based on linguistic data, we argue that people naturally think of the web as a kind of physical space in which they move, although information on the web is not physical, and web users do not actually move. Nevertheless, such metaphorical thought is motivated by the same basic image schemata that people rely on to mentally structure everyday life.” (Paul P. Maglio and Teenie Matlock 1998) – courtesy of iai digilib

“The elements of this framework can be traced back in the theory of genre, as it has developed during the 20th century. The overview of this development below covers the dominant ideas and theories, that have given rise to the genre concept as summarized by Berkenkotter and Huckin. The first part is an outline of modern genre theory. It summarizes the historical background, necessary to understand the application of the genre concept to digital communication. The second part is a review of literature on digital genres (or cybergenres). This section is more detailed than the first part. The broader context is ‘genre as framework for electronic publishing’. This point of view is inspired by the idea, that genre creates shared expectations about the form and content of communication. In this way, genre characteristics are relevant to the design of electronic documents and websites, and genre analysis can be incorporated in the broad field of content engineering (or information engineering, as it is named elsewhere). Leading questions are, in which way such an approach might help to increase the effectiveness of electronic documents, and how the engineering process itself could benefit from a detailed analysis of generic elements.” (Leen Breure – University of Utrecht) – courtesy of peterme

“In this essay, I focus upon changes to curriculum and instruction that would change the emphasis in school systems from that of competition to cooperation, from arbitrary grading on the curve to mastery assessment of a student’s accomplishments. But these changes are only part of the restructuring required of our educational systems. Many more changes are needed.” (Donald A. Norman – ACM Ubiquity)

“Go for quality. Go out and get links, and try to control the words in the links you get. Remember, an easy-to-get link is probably of little value.” (Gerry McGovern)

“This is a brand spanking new blog about the major influence of design as a motor for innovation, and like wise the other way around. We are neither 100% design-focused nor are we 100% business-focused. Our team consists designers, MBAs, dot-com entrepreneurs and all the other folks you would never expect to be on this kind of blog.” (About CPH127) – courtesy of kelake

“Making data meaningful – this phrase could describe what dozens of professions strive for: Wall Street systems designers, fine artists, advertising creatives, computer interface researchers, and many others. Occasionally something important happens in these practices: a data representation is created that reveals the subject’s nature with such clarity and grace that it both informs and moves the viewer. We both understand and care. This is the focus of Information Esthetics.” (Chelsea Art Museum) – courtesy of victor lombardi

“(…) I think that the iPod represents the tip of the iceberg. The iPod heralds the emergence of a new 21st century industry that I will call, for lack of a better set of words, consumer infotronics. The reason why we need a new term to describe this industry (versus calling it a new category) is that it is about going beyond what the consumer electronics industry currently represents.” (John Maeda – Simplicity)

“We believe great innovators and leaders need to be great design thinkers. We have a dream about building a place for design at Stanford. We want to build a place where design thinking is the glue that binds people together, a place we call the d.school. We want the d.school to be a place for Stanford students and faculty in engineering, medicine, business, the humanities, and education to learn design thinking and work together to solve big problems in a human centered way. We want it to be a place where people from big companies, start-ups, schools, nonprofits, government, and anyone else who realizes the power of design thinking, can join our multidisciplinary teaching, prototyping, and research.” (Stanford University)