Access to a Unified Web from Any Device in Any Context by Anyone

Added on 24 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“A few years ago, virtually the only way to access the Web was through a personal computer or workstation. True, there were variations between the facilities offered by various browsers, some being capable of use on text-based terminals. However, almost invariably, Web access, for individuals without specific accessability needs, involved using a machine with a reasonably large, color display with full graphic capabilities. While this is still primarily true, since the middle of 2000, the number of different kinds of device that can access the Web has grown from a small number with essentially the same core capabilities to many hundreds with a wide variety of different capabilities. At the time of writing, mobile phones, smart phones, personal digital assistants, interactive television systems, voice response systems, kiosks and even certain domestic appliances can all access the Web.” (W3C)

Influence of Training and Exposure on the Usage of Breadcrumb Navigation

Added on 20 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Recent studies have shown that while the use of breadcrumb trails to navigate a website can be helpful, few users choose to utilize this method of navigation. This study investigates the effects of ‘mere exposure’ and training on breadcrumb usage. Findings indicate that brief training on the benefits of breadcrumb usage resulted in more efficient search behavior.” (Spring S. Hull – SURL 6.1) – courtesy of lucdesk

Interactivity and MultiMedia Interfaces

Added on 19 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design the interactivity in a system.” (David Kirsh)

Assessing Mobile Devices more Effectively

Added on 19 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Most user studies in the past have focused on the use of static devices. What are the new challenges to us, as designers and evaluators, on how to approach the design and evaluation of multimodal mobile devices and applications? In other words, function, value and meaning are relational and not absolute, as the applications and services reside on the network and not on the device. From the point of view of design and evaluation this presents new challenges. But why should we be interested?”

Ease of Use

Added on 18 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“As information technology devices and applications grow in number and importance, the significance of ease of use in their design grows apace. In this issue, twelve papers focus on aspects of design for ease of use as applied to the entire design process, from understanding user requirements to conceptual design, prototyping, field testing, and redesigning. The history and future of User-Centered Design (UCD) and User Engineering (UE) are discussed, and case studies illustrating the role of UCD and UE in many fields are presented. Topics include the design of wireless devices, on-screen documentation, and database management and data visualization systems.” (IBM Systems Journal)

The knowledge management puzzle: Human and social factors in knowledge management

Added on 18 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Knowledge management is often seen as a problem of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information, evoking notions of data mining, text clustering, databases, and documents. We believe that this view is too simple. Knowledge is inextricably bound up with human cognition, and the management of knowledge occurs within an intricately structured social context. We argue that it is essential for those designing knowledge management systems to consider the human and social factors at play in the production and use of knowledge.” (J. C. Thomas, W. A. Kellogg, and T. Erickson – IBM Research)

Tracking user navigation methods by logging where users click on web pages

Added on 18 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“What this gives me is some justification, I think, for getting content owners to focus on labelling in order to give links in the body of the page excellent scent, and it allows me to feel more comfortable exploring ways to modify the local navigation and even remove it in some cases. It definitely helps to have this kind of data when exploring UI modifications with your team. I expect to track this data in the coming months to see how changes in the navigation scheme impact use.” (Michael Angeles)

Six Steps to Better Interviews and Simplified Task Analysis

Added on 17 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“I spend a lot of time helping clients conduct task analysis to form mental-model diagrams. When teams first start analyzing the interview transcripts they’ve collected, they often run into a confidence issue. ‘How will we know if we get the task groups right?’ This question usually arises because the team doesn’t have the kind of details it needs to identify clear tasks. The problem isn’t in sorting; it’s in the data-gathering stage. If interviews don’t provide details, task sorting becomes much more complex. Fortunately, there are six simple things you can do to improve the quality of your interviews, and clarify task analysis.” (Indi Young – Adaptive Path)

Computer Lib/Dream Machines Retrospective

Added on 17 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“This astonishingly prescient book originally written and published by by Theodor H. Nelson in 1974 in a glorious oversized format is one of the ‘tap roots’ of the soon to be born microcomputer and “cyber” cultures. The following pages provide a retrospecitve of this work and Ted’s current projects and vision. We will present excerpts from the 1975 (second?) edition, kindly provided to us by Dan Croghan.” (DigiBarn Computer Museum) – courtesy of anne galloway

Genre and Multimodality: A computer model of genre in document layout

Added on 17 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Layout and graphics are not random: they are used creatively to express meaning, just as language is. The GeM project analyses expert knowledge of page design and layout to see how visual resources are used in the creation of documents, both printed and electronic. The genre of a page (…) plays a central role in determining what graphical devices are chosen and how they are employed.” (GeM Project Team)

Content Delivery in the ‘Blogosphere’

Added on 16 February 2004 Peter Bogaards
“Blogs can be incorporated into any type of class for all reading- and writing-aged students. They can be used as a knowledge-management tool where teachers and students communicate with each other through the course of the semester, or as a tool to bring reflections or outside material into the class for everyone’s benefit. Following are a number of practical suggestions that provide a good environment for successful blog integration.” (R.E. Ferdig et al. – T.H.E. Journal Online) – courtesy of dave winer