Design as a Core Strategy

Added on 2 February 2005 Peter Bogaards
An interview with John Zapolski, national AIGA board member and expert in the design of human-centered products, systems, strategies, and decision-making structures. – “(…) a very senior person in the organization, often the CEO, implicitly ‘gets’ design, and uses those biases to orient the activities of the corporation. Steve Jobs is probably the most obviously example. While Jobs may not consider himself a designer, I don’t think he can talk about Apple for more than five minutes within mentioning design. His passion gets operationalized within the company in a number of ways: in who the company hires and promotes (‘great product people’ instead of ‘sales guys’), in which projects it chooses to invest in, in how the company talks about itself publicly. And its a self-reinforcing cycle.” (Institute of Design Strategy Conference)

Usability in E-Learning

Added on 2 February 2005 Peter Bogaards
“While a large number of organizations have adopted e-learning programs, far fewer have addressed the usability of their learning applications. More attention should be devoted to assuring the usability of e-learning applications if organizations are to fully benefit from their investments.” (Michael J. Miller – Learning Circuits) – courtesy of webword

Total Experience

Added on 1 February 2005 Peter Bogaards
“(…) a leading news and business intelligence service on technology and science that’s read by many of the sector’s top entrepreneurs, executives, funders, followers and thinkers. An information service that delivers targeted news coverage of multiple verticals via its website and email newsletters, Corante is also helping to pioneer the emergence of blogging as an influential and important form of reportage, analysis and commentary.” (Corante)

Concept Cars

Added on 31 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“But good design is a lot more than style. Good design includes substance: function, comfort, pleasure, safety, economy, environmental friendliness, and a lot more besides. A concept car should be an opportunity to explore all of these directions.” (Donald Norman) – courtesy of usability views

Art 491: Information Design Course

Added on 27 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“(..) designed to give you experience in participating on an interdisciplinary project research, design and development team to produce solutions that address real-world issues and clients. Information design focuses on the communication of complex ideas with clarity, precision, and efficiency (usable). Methodologies and technologies for efficient and effective information transfer are changing rapidly and will play a fundamental, and continual, role in your future. Products of information design range from computer (and other machines) interfaces, forms and documents (online or paper), wayfinding systems in 3D space (real or virtual), to maps, charts, diagrams, graphs and business presentations. Whatever your content area of specialty, you will be involved with the design and transfer of information the rest of your life.” (Information Design Group – University of Idaho)

Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications

Added on 27 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“As Rich Internet Applications become more advanced, the tasks, problems, and processes they address become increasingly complex, making it more important than ever to accurately model user workflows. Early Internet applications were often narrowly focused in scope, and the steps were relatively simple and sequential, for example, purchasing items through simple e-commerce, reserving hotel rooms, or renting cars. But as productivity applications move toward a web-based distribution model, the tasks become more complicated.” (David Hogue – Macromedia) – courtesy of jane wells

Patterns in Unstructured Data: Discovery, Aggregation, and Visualization

Added on 27 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
A Presentation to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation – “As of early 2002, there were just over two billion web pages listed in the Google search engine index, widely taken to be the most comprehensive. No one knows how many more web pages there are on the Internet, or the total number of documents available over the public network, but there is no question that the number is enormous and growing quickly. Every one of those web pages has come into existence within the past ten years. There are web sites covering every conceivable topic at every level of detail and expertise, and information ranging from numerical tables to personal diaries to public discussions. Never before have so many people had access to so much diverse information.” (Clara Yu et al. – US National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education) – courtesy of frank cronk

Formal Taxonomies for the U.S. Government

Added on 27 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“For federal agencies trying to learn how to implement taxonomies, most examples in portals and on public websites are informal taxonomies where neither the nodes nor the associations between them are formally defined. Examples of such taxonomies can be found on yahoo.com, froogle.com, and dmoz.org. Such informal taxonomies are only useful for browsing and not for automated techniques like query expansion, rule execution, taxonomy integration, faceted classification, and inference. This article will examine the requirements of formal taxonomies and provide examples of each construct.” (Michael Daconta – xml.com)

Taxonomies and classification schemas within the BBC

Added on 26 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
Martin Belam presentation at IP Lezing in Amsterdam – “The conference was very well attended, with around 350 delegates – and I enjoyed meeting some really nice people, both before and after the event. The presentation is available to download – PowerPoint presentation, 3.8M – but it is a very large file. As usual much of the worth is in the notes, not the pictures in the slides themselves.” (Martin Belam – currybetdotnet)

Investing in Usability: Testing versus Training

Added on 26 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“(…) usability professionals use their budgets to run usability studies. That is, when given money, they immediately start setting up usability programs to solve particular problems. This shouldn’t surprise anyone because many usability professionals think the value of usability is derived entirely from the results produced through usability tests. Most people think usability is synonymous with usability testing. It isn’t, and this misconception frustrates me.” (John S. Rhodes – Boxes and Arrows)

IA Summit Program

Added on 26 January 2005 Peter Bogaards
“Information architecture is more widely applied than ever. Decisionmakers now accept IA as critical to well-designed electronic information spaces. Practitioners use IA approaches and methodologies, and routinely include IAs on cross-disciplinary teams. There is a growing demand for IAs and greater pressure on managers and non-IA practitioners to understand IA principles. To support these needs, this year’s Summit focuses on key topics, cutting-edge issues, and core competencies.” – Pre-Conference Program, Main Conference Program and Poster Sessions (ASIS&T 2005 Information Architecture Summit)