Can I just say how much I like the name Plan B for the morning after pill? ‘Morning after‘ carries weird associations, and I respect the company for choosing a name that 1) reinforces that this is not a Plan A method of contraception, and 2) is not some abstract, invented, psuedo-Latin word. Nice work by the Women’s Capital Corporation.
Author: Victor
IDEO’s Method Cards
I received my IDEO Method Cards, and they’re big, twice as big as your usual playing cards. The writing is good; short and sweet with funky photos on the reverse. The content isn’t earth shattering – each features a user research technique – but the format is quite handy and sure to stir up some new ideas at work.
A coup for IDEO is how – as in this Fast Company article – they position what could be considered an advertisement as a confident revelation of their methodology. Clever.
Assembly Line Information
One of those whoa things I find in search results and must go back and read later: Information on the Assembly Line: A Review of Information Design and Its Implications for Technical Communicators a master’s thesis by Jason Nichols. See, for example, chapter 8 where he compares info design schools of thought (Wurman vs. Redish).
Incidentally, I’m so happy to see others publishing their master’s theses as websites.
Bush Refridgerator Poetry
Make Your Own Bush Speech is a hilarious and well-executed piece of Flash.
Open House New York
Open House New York is a city-wide celebration of New York City’s greatest architecture and design. New York City’s most intriguing buildings and sites will be open at scheduled times throughout our October 11-12 weekend event. Each site will offer different experiences, including self-guided and guided tours, informal talks and conversations with the designers…
Paris, New York
The Parisian waitress at Le Gamin says, ‘I love Paris, and I love New York. If I had to choose, I think I would want Paris, but in America.‘
Not likely. But isn’t that sweet?
Extra-Company Resource Management
Walking down 87th St this morning I passed some construction workers hanging out on the sidewalk, as if they’re waiting for someone to pick them up for a job. This makes me think about new media workers…is there a reason we haven’t moved to a project-based model of employment like the movie industry uses, employing those who are just right for a particular product (does it suck?)? Would it be helpful to put a more flexible employment system in place?
Imagine combining P2P or local RDF with resource management apps. Workers indicate their availability simply with a tag on their site or on a central site and then this info is aggregated and syndicated to anyone who wants to see it. Perhaps companies combine it with their internal systems to think more flexibly about how to staff a project.
Lazy web, I summon thee!
Ulrike Lechert
Ongepatsht
…is our Yiddish word of the day. Pronounced UUN-ge-poch, it means ‘a little too much,‘ as in ‘all the shmuz around my blog was ongepatsht, so I deleted a few things.‘
AIfIA Tools
Back in the day we dreamed about exchanging deliverables so we could stop reinventing the wheel and start standing on each other’s shoulders. It’s odd something so basic as a repository hadn’t been established (I don’t think competitive advantage explains it in our open community). There is a collection of links on the IAwiki, and now AIfIA has launched a set of deliverable tools. It kicks off with a handful of top-notch documents from Erin Malone at AOL, sanitized and ready for reuse, which I think makes them a bit more useful than your average deliverable. I hope others will step up and put their stones in the soup.
The UL Mark
One of my favorites.
Design Deal
IDEO’s Method Cards look quite cool. I’m planning a research-and-testing class for newbies at work, and these could be more effective and engaging than slides or a handout.
Equifax Opt-Out Language
Privacy Policy and Opt Out: By clicking below you may exercise your right to instruct us not to provide your non-public personal information to non-affiliated third parties, except as permitted by law.
[checkbox checked by default] I choose to opt out.
Huh? They must not have had my 7th grade teacher who warned us against using multiple negatives. Yup, I’m sure that’s the reason.
Here’s my attempt to interpret: ‘non-public personal information’ is simply ‘private personal information.’ ‘Non-affiliated’ should be redundant when modifying ‘third parties’ if we’re referring to an institution with special privileges to collect my credit history. When it comes to the default check status it comes down to their philosophy of business and how they regard their customers, but I know which way I, as their customer, would have it. So re-written it’s simply:
[checkbox checked by default] Do not provide your private personal information to third parties, except as permitted by law.
But I probably don’t provide them as much income as the endless list of businesses who query my history, so I don’t expect them to modify that option anytime soon.
Web Practices and Decentralized Companies
Developing Best Practices for Distributed Networks of Sites: Heuristics, Design, and Politics (PDF) by Jeffrey Veen of Adaptive Path and Carolyn Gibson Smith of PBS sets a great example of improving web design and encouraging certain practices across a large, decentralized organization. One particular aspect I like is that by distributing templates and building examples they offer the affiliates carrots rather than attempt a futile effort of waving sticks, which often fall under the auspices of governance or compliance in contemporary corporate environments. Even when there is top-down authority to enforce these standards, it’s rarely done happily.
The process used heuristic analysis, stakeholder interviews, and UCD to…
- Examine the issues affiliates faced
- Find internal best practices
- Build prototype using best practices
- Test prototype
They delivered
- Printed best practices report
- Working prototype
- Templates and code
- Guide for conducting usability tests
- Case studies
- System-wide report card
‘We’ve heard from Web teams that they are using the recommendations not only to build their sites, but as justification for funding. The report is being used as ammunition for designers and developers as they seek to convince their internal stakeholders of the value of a strong Web presence.‘