A Definition of Interaction Design
“Interaction design is the art of facilitating or instigating interactions between humans (or their agents), mediated by products.” (Dan Saffer) – courtesy of elearningpost
Ambient Findability
“Intelligence is moving to the edges, flowing through networked computers, wireless devices, empowered users and distributed teams. Ideas spread like wildfire. Innovations emerge from uncharted borderlands. Information is in the air, literally. We’re exploring a new world called cyberspace, and we’re navigating without a map.” (Peter Morville – Digital Web Magazine)
Well-designed products
“Interaction designers are famous for complaining about products that are poorly designed, and wishing they had the opportunity to redesign them. In this article, Dave Cronin reminds us that there are many well-designed products out there, too. He offers a selection of products you can use today that do a good job of meeting Dave’s criteria for ‘good’ design.” (Dave Cronin – Cooper)
Nigel Holmes… Simplifying the Complex
“What I try to do is to explain things to people, and for people, and sometimes to companies about themselves. Taking some complex procedure, or event, or set of numbers, and making it understandable for people that haven’t got a clue about it in the first place.” (Mike Buchheit – Creative Refuge)
ROI Is Not a Silver Bullet: Five Actionable Steps for Valuing User Experience Design
“For years now, the ‘ROI of User Experience’ has been sought as a means to justify larger corporate investments in web design. Although ROI methodology can be a useful tool for prioritizing possible web development projects, by itself ROI is not the answer to building a stronger user experience design competency.” (Scott Hirsch – Adaptive Path)
Crafting a Revolution
First Things First: IA and CSS
“With apologies for the delay, here are links to the presentation Christina Wodtke and I delivered at the webvisions 2004 conference this past Friday in Portland, Oregon.” (Nate Koechley – natek)
A Cosmology for a Different Computer Universe: Data Model, Mechanisms, Virtual Machine and Visualization Infrastructure
“The computing world is based on one principal system of conventions — the simulation of hierarchy and the simulation of paper. The article introduces an entirely different system of conventions for data and computing. zzstructure is a generalized representation for all data and a new set of mechanisms for all computing. The article provides a reference description of zzstructure and what we hope to build on it. (…) Simplicity is not cheap, and simple design is very difficult.” (Theodor Holm Nelson – Journal of Digital Information: 5.1)
Future Visions of Common-Use Hypertext: Introduction to a special issue
“This special issue arises out of a panel held during the ACM Hypertext ’03 conference at the University of Nottingham. Panellists were invited to sell their vision as ‘the next big thing’ in hypertext, either to supplement, augment or supplant ‘modern day’ systems, which, let’s face it, is the Web.” (Helen Ashman and Adam Moore – Journal of Digital Information 5.1)
GNOME 2.6 Usability Study and Review
“A usability overview of one of the larger open source software projects: the 2.6 version of the GNOME desktop and developer platform. We look at how well GNOME lives up to its challenge of being the desktop for the masses, including a lengthy survey of a group of new users and their reactions to the system.” (User Instinct)
Peter Merholz: The InfoDesign profile
“Share that talent with others. Nothing has been as fulfilling for me as sharing what I’ve learned with others. Publish a blog, join mailing lists, speak at conferences. Never hoard what you know.”
(Peter J. Bogaards – InfoDesign: Understanding by Design)
Brand Experience and the World Wide Web 
“Brand experience is the strategic, holistic business approach to the application of various design and media. It represents the upward growth and convergence for designers of all types.” – Presentation WebVisions 2004 (Dirk Knemeyer – Involution Studios)
Information Design Methods and Productivity
“In many ways this is a model project: it provides empirical evidence of successful problem-solving methods in information design with clear evidence from before and after the introduction of the new designs. It stands on its own as a case study of successful information design, and much of this paper is concerned with the detailed methods that were used and the resulting performance of the designs.” (Phil Fisher and David Sless – CRIA)
Gummy World: Thoughts on the Graphical User Interface
“The world can be divided into two basic categories: people who like chocolate, and people who like gummies. Chocolate is serious, sexy, and secretive. Gummies are fruity, cheerful, and transparent. Whereas chocolates are often shaped as simple cubes, bars, and domes, gummies masquerade as worms, sharks, strawberries, coke bottles, teddy bears, cartoon characters, and more. Gummies promise a bright world of postmodern illusion, while chocolates imply a dark modernist sublime. It looks like the gummy people were behind the visual design of Apple’s OS X.” (Ellen Lupton – Voice: AIGA Journal of Design)
Software That Lasts 200 Years
“The structure and culture of a typical prepackaged software company is not attuned to the long-term needs of society for software that is part of its infrastructure. This essay discusses the ecosystem needed for development that better meets those needs.” (Dan Bricklin)
nundroo: rich and shameless
“Follow your passion with dedication and talent and money will follow.” (Didier Hilhorst) – congrats!
AIfIA: Annual Report 2003-2004
“As the second year of the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture comes to a close, we can look back to see an organization that has grown beyond our early expectations. Building on the accomplishments of our first year, our membership has grown 37% in the past year, to over 560 people from over 40 countries. We also continued to build more services and events to promote information architecture (IA) and educate practitioners.” (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)
The mentality of Homo interneticus: Some Ongian postulates
“Because typical experiences will differ, the mentality of the typical Internet user, or Homo interneticus, is likely to be significantly different from that of the typical reader of printed works or of writing or of the typical member of purely oral cultures. These differences include deep assumptions about time and space, authority, property, gender, causality and community.” (Michael H. Goldhaber – First Monday 9.6)
Card Sorting: How Many Users to Test
“Testing ever-more users in card sorting has diminishing returns, but you should still use three times more participants than you would in traditional usability tests.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)
A Framework for Representing Knowledge
“Here is the essence of the theory: When one encounters a new situation (or makes a substantial change in one’s view of the present problem) one selects from memory a structure called a Frame. This is a remembered framework to be adapted to fit reality by changing details as necessary. A frame is a data-structure for representing a stereotyped situation, like being in a certain kind of living room, or going to a child’s birthday party. Attached to each frame are several kinds of information. Some of this information is about how to use the frame. Some is about what one can expect to happen next. Some is about what to do if these expectations are not confirmed.” (Marvin Minksy – MIT CSAI Lab)