IA Strategy: Addressing the Signatures of Information Overload

Added on 6 February 2012 Peter Bogaards
Info overload gets to be a IA/UX issue as well.

“The one thing we know about information overload on the Web is that we don’t know enough. The rapid rate at which people and organizations create and propagate information complicates our getting a grip on information overload in the domain of information technology. Our information includes things like our Honey-Do lists, gigabytes of digital documents, and the deluge of email messages that pile up in our email inboxes. The amount of information we consume and manage is growing in both its volume and volatility. Probably worse than the self-inflicted burden of information glut that we’ve invented for ourselves is the fact that the less we know about information overload, the less we can know about the relevance of our collective stockpiles of information.”

(Nathaniel Davis a.k.a. @iatheory ~ UXmatters)

The QofC Interview: Luke Wroblewski, Author of Mobile First

Added on 5 February 2012 Peter Bogaards
LukeW and Forbes: quite a combination.

“To me it seems more like inside-out versus outside-in. Inside-out thinking is, This is our process, this is our org chart, this is how we do things, and everything is sort of we, we, we. And they try to project that out to the world. Versus outside-in is like here’s some poor guy who’s going to wind up on our website, let’s look at it from his perspective. He doesn’t care that we have these fifteen departments. He doesn’t care about these fifteen processes that we have for making decisions, he wants to do blank. And just kind of flipping your mindset like that can go a very long way.”

(Anthony Kosner ~ Forbes)

Information Overload Is Not Unique To Digital Age

Added on 5 February 2012 Peter Bogaards
I’m always thrilled when new historical connections are found.

“It is a constant complaint: We’re choking on information. The flood of data on the Web has reached mind boggling proportions, and it shows no signs of stopping. But wait, says Harvard professor Ann Blair – this is not a new condition. It’s been part of the human experience for centuries.”

(Ann Blair ~ NPR)

The User Experience Integration Matrix: Integrating UX into the Product Backlog

Added on 3 February 2012 Peter Bogaards
As long as we see UX projects as software engineering projects and not the other way around, the plus and minus sides of the magnet will not connect.

“Teams moving to agile often struggle to integrate agile with best practices in user-centered design and user experience in general. Fortunately, using a UX Integration Matrix helps integrate UX and agile by including UX information and requirements right in the product backlog. While both agile and UX methods share some best practices-like iteration and defining requirements based on stories about users-agile and UX methods evolved for different purposes, supporting different values. Agile methods were developed without consideration for UX best practices. Early agile pioneers were working on in-house IT projects (custom software) or enterprise software.”

(Jon Innes ~ Boxes and Arrows) courtesy of janjursa

Why External Links Should Open in New Tabs

Added on 2 February 2012 Peter Bogaards
Unfortunately, many users don’t even notice a tab has been initiated. Back, back, back…

“When most designers design websites, they don’t pay much attention to links. As long as the link works and takes users to the right page, everything is fine. However, a great user experience goes further than that. There are certain links that should open in new browser tabs, and ones that should open in the same browser tab. It’s important for designers to know the difference.”

(UX Movement) courtesy of rolandnagtegaal

Mental Modeling For Content Work: Information Gathering

Added on 31 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Mental modeling, the black swan of webdesign.

“If you don’t have much of a background in philosophy, the social or psychological sciences, you may not be familiar with the concept of intersubjectivity. Most would agree that it refers to a cognitive state somewhere between subjectivity (judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts) and objectivity (judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices), which refers to a shared understanding of meaning or concept by more than one person.”

(Daniel Eizans a.k.a. @danieleizans)

How the Knowledge Navigator video came about

Added on 31 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Great read about the making of the iconic vision video by AAPL.

“Sparked by the introduction of Siri, as well as products such as iPad and Skype, there have been many recent posts and articles tracing the technologies back to a 1987 Apple video called Knowledge Navigator. The video simulated an intelligent personal agent, video chat, linked databases and shared simulations, a digital network of university libraries, networked collaboration, and integrated multimedia and hypertext, in most case decades before they were commercially available. Having been involved in making Knowledge Navigator with some enormously talented Apple colleagues, I thought I would correct the record once and for all about what really happened.”

(Bud Colligan a.k.a. @collbud ~ Dubberly Design Office)

The System of Information Architecture

Added on 30 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Systems lead to models, and modelling is what we do.

“Information architects are inveterate systems thinkers. In the Web’s early days, we were the folks who focused less on pages than on the relationships between pages. Today, we continue to design organization, navigation, and search systems as integral parts of the whole. Of course, the context of our practice has shifted. Increasingly, we must design for experiences across channels. Mobile and social are just the beginning. Our future-friendly, cross-channel information architectures need to address the full spectrum of platforms, devices, and media.”

(Peter Morville ~ Journal of Information Architecture Volume 3 Issue 2)

A Brief History of Information Architecture

Added on 30 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Great write-up of the founding mothers and fathers of our beloved field.

“Information architecture is a professional practice and field of studies focused on solving the basic problems of accessing, and using, the vast amounts of information available today. You commonly hear of information architecture in connection with the design of web sites both large and small, and when wireframes, labels, and taxonomies are discussed. As it is today, it is mainly a production activity, a craft, and it relies on an inductive process and a set, or many sets, of guidelines, best practices, and personal and professional expertise. In other words, information architecture is arguably not a science but, very much like say industrial design, an applied art.”

(Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati ~ Journal of Information Architecture Volume 3 Issue 2)

Are Design Patterns an Anti-pattern?

Added on 27 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Or, how anti-patterns become dark patterns.

“Design patterns are generally considered a good thing, but do they actually help run a user experience group? As a user experience group manager and an observer (and sponsor) of design pattern exercises, I’ve come to have serious questions about their actual utility. It’s not that design pattern libraries are bad, but that in a world of limited resources, it is it is not clear that the investment is worth it. Fortunately, there is a better approach: reaching outside the design group to solve the whole problem.”

(Stephen Turbek a.k.a. @Stephenturbek ~ Boxes and Arrows)

UI: Getting the Details Right

Added on 27 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Why 5 and not 7, 9 or 3?

“User interface details matter to the overall user experience. Many users may not consciously notice these details on your site yet they do have an impact on the overall user experience. When everything feels just right the perception of your site and brand is improved. In this article, we’ll look at 5 different types of UI details you should pay attention to.”

(Jamie Appleseed a.k.a. @jamieappleseed ~ Baymard Institute)

State of Interaction Design: Diverging

Added on 24 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Like any other practice, through time professionals gravitate towards different epicentres of expertise.

“Interaction Design is reaching a critical point in its history. We have spent the better part of the last half century converging. We have built our entire identity by bringing in other disciplines and practices into our fold. We are often decried as ‘land grabbers’, but I say it is more about shoring up our knowledge base and practice so that we can be ready for the ever-increasing complexity of the tasks set before us through our acknowledged focus on human behavior as it relates broadly to the interaction of systems.”

(David Malouf a.k.a. @daveixd ~ Core77)

Defining an Interaction Model: The Cornerstone of Application Design

Added on 23 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Or, on the value of working with models. Of any kind.

“An interaction model is a design model that binds an application together in a way that supports the conceptual models of its target users. It is the glue that holds an application together. It defines how all of the objects and actions that are part of an application interrelate, in ways that mirror and support real-life user interactions. It ensures that users always stay oriented and understand how to move from place to place to find information or perform tasks. It provides a common vision for an application. It enables designers, developers, and stakeholders to understand and explain how users move from objects to actions within a system. It is like a cypher or secret decoder ring: Once you understand the interaction model, once you see the pattern, everything makes sense. Defining the right interaction model is a foundational requirement for any digital system and contributes to a cohesive, overall UX architecture.”

(Jim Nieters ~ UXmatters)

Global UX: A Journey

Added on 23 January 2012 Peter Bogaards
Old borders evaporate, new ones emerge.

“In our increasingly connected world of 2012, we have more ways of continually learning to better understand, communicate, live, and work with each other, both locally and globally. The old boundaries, borders, and divisions are slowly disappearing, and established systems are starting to break down, making it challenging to learn what this new world means to all of us. When it is easy to become a friend of someone who does not live in our neighborhood or even our country, our assumptions about other people start to change. Similarly, the UX research and design professions are seeing a shift that edges us beyond the boundaries within which we live and work, forcing us to look outside our window when designing and improving the products and services we work on.”

(Whitney Quesenbery and Daniel Szuc ~ UXmatters)