Acting on User Research
“User research offers a learning opportunity that can help you build an understanding of user behavior, but you must resolve discrepancies between research findings and your own beliefs.” (Jacob Nielsen – Alertbox)
Personas: Empathetic Focus
“Do Personas have to be accurate? Do they require a large body of research? No, I conclude. The Personas must indeed reflect the target group for the design team, but that is about all. A Persona allows designers to bring their own life-long experience to bear on the problem, and because each Persona is a realistic individual person, the designers can focus upon features, behaviors, and expectations appropriate for this individual, allowing the designer to screen off from consideration all those other wonderful ideas they may have.” (Donald Norman) – courtesy of elearningpost
Do you make this obvious web design mistake?
“The most common web design mistake is to design for the exception, and to ignore the obvious. That’s because designing for the obvious is boring, while designing for the exception is fun.” (Gerry McGovern)
T-model: Big IA is now UX
“(…) it is time we re-label the field of Big IA into User Experience.” (Peter Boersma)
Online Retail User Experience Benchmarks 2004
“This pioneering study on the user experience of retail sites is invaluable for any company processing sales online. It will demonstrate beyond doubt that improvements to Search, Promotion and Support will lead to increased sales and happier users.” (E-consultancy.com)
The Dance of Understanding
“We subscribe to the view (…) that a satisfying experience of understanding does not result from invoking objectivity, the truth, or a compelling argument, to achieve agreement by the force of reason, nor from a process of information exchange, but from some other qualities of the biological interaction itself.” (Lloyd Fell and David Russell – Radical Constructivism)
IDC: Information Design Connections
“(…) technology is for human beings and any technical solution that does not take human needs and desires into account is bound to fail.” (Colleen Taugher – Center to Bridge the Digital Divide)
The Best Sourcing of Information Architecture
“The greatest danger is waiting until we have the wrong skills for our particular market. If we actively seek out the future opportunity that exists, if we actively continue our educations, if we actively pursue research and development of new ideas, we can all thrive in the future world economy.” (Victor Lombardi – Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)
The Power of Metadata
“This essay is an excerpt from the book ‘Peer-to-Peer Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies’. It presents the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer systems, the problems they’ve faced, and the technical solutions they’ve found.” (Rael Dornfest and Dan Brickley – O’Reilly openP2P)
Collaborative Filtering
“Collaborative filtering is increasingly present as an integral part of commercial web sites. ‘Memory based’ algorithms are the most simple to implement, yet the most effective when recommending products and predicting preferences.” (Juan C. Dürsteler – Inf@Vis!)
Hardware and usability: Part 1
“Usability studies tend to focus entirely on software, ignoring the impact of hardware design and features on a system’s usability. In this first installment of a two-part miniseries, Peter takes a look at the interactions between hardware and usability.” (Peter Seebach – IBM Developers Work) – courtesy of lawrence lee
AREVA: TV commercial
“A nuclear power company named Areva has released a new TV commercial
done in that ‘info graphics’ style. Available online.” (AREVA) – courtesy of dirk brandts
Mapped Pictures: A draft chapter from Beautiful Evidence
“Here is a long chapter from Beautiful Evidence. Comments appreciated. The chapter will be up on the board for a few weeks. Thanks, E.T.” (Edward Tufte)
Make it simple
“The Next Big Thing is not a thing at all: it is simplicity. – In the 90s they [IT companies] operated under the principle, ‘build it and they will come’ – even if it was too complex and would never be implemented, they would build it! That has changed.” (Andreas Kluth – The Economist) – courtesy of ui designer
Semantic World: The Data Semantics Community
“Semantic World is a web community dedicated to the use of semantic information management methods in industry. Semantic World will include relevant news and analysis, a comprehensive resource center, and interactive forums for practitioners of semantic methodologies to share experiences, problems, and initiatives. Semantic World aims to support and influence developing standards for ontology modeling, semantic mapping, and the use of semantic information management methods in IT.” (About Semantic World) – courtesy of gunnar langemark
User Experience Diagram Rationalization
“In the spirit of convergence, the user experience diagram rationalization brings together the goals, processes, and disciplines that are responsible for great products. It also draws on the diagrammatic work of two information architects, one experience designer, and a cantankerous visionary.” (Luke Wroblewski – Functioning Form)
What is Usability?
“This article provides an overview of what usability is (and what it is not). It provides ideas on how to include more usability activities in projects and the types of activities that are needed in order to create more usable systems.” (Donna Maurer – KM Column)
Scary Messages and Content Creep: It’s All in a Daily Digest
“As a ‘big-IA’ advocate, I have always believed usability was part of IA anyhow. ‘Little IA’ is just too small to justify the use of the A-word in my world.” (Andrew Dillon – ASIS&T Bulletin 31.1)
Secrets of great web headings and summaries
“Your website success will increase the better you write headings and summaries. People are very impatient, so the heading and summary really needs to be compelling. Here are some key tips for writing better headings and summaries.” (Gerry McGovern)
Stupid Voters
“At the end of the article, he quotes a Florida elections supervisor, who makes a mean-spirited remark about ‘stupid people’ who vote — arguing that no matter how good the redesign, they (those stupid people) won’t mark it right. Cynical comments like these make me believe that every time one of us has the chance to articulate the needs of citizens, we should. There are too many of these public officials who pollute the air with their snide remarks and who blame the general public for not knowing what to do when confronted with their atrocious writing and design.” (Karen Schriver – InfoDesign-Cafe Oct. 2003)