10 Classics from Cognitive Science
“The editorial board of Cognitive Science has identified several classic articles that appeared in our journal over the last couple of decades.” (Cognitive Science Society) – courtesy of peter van dijck
How much human support does your website need?
“A website should be measured based on the value it creates. What results do you want to get from your website? A 100 percent self-service website may simply not deliver the results you need. The right mix of self service and human support may in fact deliver the best value.” (Gerry McGovern)
Storytelling: Scientist’s Perspective: John Seely Brown
“The implications when technology is brought into the storytelling process.” (John Seely Brown: Chief of Confusion)
Metadata based search and browse functionality on the NSW Office of Fair Trading intranet: A Case Study
“The NSW Office of Fair Trading launched its first intranet in June 2003. At the very beginning of the intranet project we recognised that unless users could find information easily the intranet would not succeed. We also understood that different people prefer to find information in different ways. To maximise the chances of searchers finding relevant information, and to provide flexibility in search options, we developed and implemented metadata driven search and browse functions. This case study describes the standards, tools and technology we used and how metadata was manipulated to retrieve information in a number of different ways.” (NSW Office of Information and Communications Technology) – courtesy of column two
Russell Reflects: How the Web is Changing
“But I think a sea-change is on the horizon – readers are becoming more powerful, and more importantly, integrated into websites, and screen scraping is becoming more advanced.” (Usability News)
The Impact of Design on Stock Market Performance 
“Design is a critical component of business performance. We’ve heard designers, commentators and companies say it. But, to date, the evidence for the link between shareholder return and investment in design has been scarce and anecdotal.” (Design Counsil) – courtesy of jason kottke
How To Quantify The User Experience
“Many look to the user experience as an overall indicator of Website success. Analyzing how effectively a Website provides for a net positive user experience can often turn into a subjective affair, rife with opinion and short on objectivity.” (Robert Rubinoff – sitepoint) – courtesy of column two
Usability Guidelines
“These guidelines include most factors to consider during a usability evaluation of a web site. Not all factors apply to every site.” (MIT Information Services and Technology) – courtesy of lucdesk
Information Architecture Library
“The IA Library is a selection of resources related to the field of information architecture. The collection includes articles, books, blogs, and more.” (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture) – courtesy of peter morville
Search Engine Optimisation and Accessibility
“The following chapters describe how search engines algorithms, and attempts to address them through search engine optimisation as marketing technique creates new opportunities for making web content accessible – and equally, how improving the accessibility of a site can help maximise both it’s search engine promotion potential and increase user conversions and ROI.” (Big Mouth Media)
Making 1040s a bit less taxing
“Another big difference is how the instructions are written. When modifying language on the existing 1040, Karen Schriver took care to make statements before qualifying them.” (Avrum D. Lank – JSOnline) – courtesy of beth mazur
Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
“Design is disorienting. Especially when you are designing something in a collaborative environment, with multiple stakeholders, pressured deadlines, business objectives and budgetary constraints. We all go into design with the firm belief that the user is our pole star, but so often we lose that focus because of tossing waves, buffeting winds, and the crew screaming in our ears—never mind the dense cloud cover that always seems to obscure that trusty star just when a committee forms to gather requirements.” (Andrew Hinton – Boxes and Arrows)
Remote Contextual Inquiry: A Technique to Improve Enterprise Software
“Remote Contextual Inquiry gives us an opportunity to view our end users’ desktops to observe how they are using their current products in a cost and time-efficient manner. It is a marriage between the remote usability lab test and contextual inquiry, allowing us to transcend geographical boundaries without actually having to travel to distant locations. We gain contextual insights such as personalized settings, hidden fields, and added functionality that are typically not obtained during a usability test. It is truly a flexible method that provides a wealth of knowledge about the use of customized enterprise software” (Jeff English and Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo – Boxes and Arrows)
The secret of managing a successful website
“The Web is about self-service. To achieve success in self-service you need to really understand how your visitors think and behave. If they are to serve themselves they must feel comfortable and confident. That requires getting to know their needs in a comprehensive manner. It requires an ongoing conversation with them.” (Gerry McGovern)
Progressive Disclosure: The best interaction design technique?
“Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that sequences information and actions across several screens in order to reduce feelings of overwhelm for the user.” (Frank Spiller – Demystifying Usability) – courtesy of design by fire
What is Experience Design?
“Eventually, thinking about experience design will lead us into the realm of narrative – those stories that inform our lives and create our private and public identity.” (Experience Designer Network) – courtesy of brian alger
The Matrix of W3C Specifications
“The specifications in the Matrix are at least at Last Call stage, except if they are working on a Test Suite at Working Draft stage. An empty cell means that the data is either not available or not known by the maintainers of the Matrix. The Matrix contains 70 Recommendations, 18 Candidate Recommendations, 0 Proposed Recommendations and 15 Last Call Working Drafts.” (W3C)
SIGWEB interview with Douglas Engelbart
“Firstly, can I ask if you’re a regular visitor to the Hypertext Conference? – No, sorry to say. Possibly been over a decade; I think in Texas, and Tim B-L described the plans that turned into the WWW. (…) In terms of the concepts and innovations I’ve been trying to communicate to the world, I seriously feel that I have been a persistent failure.” (Simon Harper – SIGWEB)
The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’
“Examines critically the origins and basis of ‘knowledge management’, its components and its development as a field of consultancy practice. Problems in the distinction between ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’ are explored, as well as Polanyi’s concept of ‘tacit knowing’. The concept is examined in the journal literature, the Web sites of consultancy companies, and in the presentation of business schools. The conclusion is reached that ‘knowledge management’ is an umbrella term for a variety of organizational activities, none of which are concerned with the management of knowledge. Those activities that are not concerned with the management of information are concerned with the management of work practices, in the expectation that changes in such areas as communication practice will enable information sharing.” (T.D. Wilson – Information Research 8.1)
KM Reinventing IA Reinventing KM
“Maybe my error is in assuming that KM is a field like IA, when perhaps it’s really more an industry, dominated by vendors, where practice is almost a dirty word. Kind of like content management (although the CM professionals are getting uppity and organized). Perhaps there is more synergy between fields (e.g. IA and usability) than between a field of practice and an industry.” (Louis Rosenfeld et al.)