Need a quick image to place in a persona doc? Try going to images.google.com and typing in “[persona name] headshot.” For example, here’s Tony and Maria.
Category: Unfiled
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Feeding My Brother-in-Law to Google
T & K Contractors are an excellent interior design and construction contracting firm serving Central and South New Jersey.
btw, when I was going on a while ago about integrating storytelling into web design, this is what I meant. When a client approaches my brother-in-law, what story do they want to hear from him? He says he describes Who They Are, What They Do, What Makes Them Special, and What Others Have to Say. So that’s what visitors see, page by page, when they click ‘Learn the Whole Story >>‘ Very simple. I’ll be curious to look at the logs and see what route users take through the site.
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Oral Fixation
A couple months ago on a plane to Florida I noticed an attractive teenage girl sucking a pacifier. She also had a funky skin condition, so I attributed the sucking to a medical condition. Since then I’ve seen more teenagers with pacifiers, baby clothes, and now sucking thumbs. I can’t find any news reports, but the Internet tells me it either began in the East or with ravers.
Is it a need for comfort in uncertain times? A reaction to the New York City smoking-ban-in-public-places? Or just the latest trend? Next I expect drinking from baby bottles, carrying blankets, and wearing diapers.
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Elements of Hypermedia Design
Referenced in Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think (still a staggeringly good book) is Gloor’s Elements of Hypermedia Design, the new URL for which I just tracked down. It’s like a set of ancient scrolls in a clay vessel that a recent storm has revealed from the sand of the desert. You know there is truth here, but also superstition and strange technology, da Vincian inventions pieced together into something unfinished.
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Sumptuous Nav
Wow, go to eye magazine right now and try the ‘concept index’ nav at the top. It’s sumptuous, all those P-words, the fading roll-off colors, the parallel columns inviting your mouse to figure eights. That is doesn’t lead you anywhere is incidental.
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Tog on Web
Re-reading Tog’s First Principles I just noticed the online version has newer notes specifically adapting them to the web… ‘Present the illusion that users are always in the same place, with the work brought to them. This not only eliminates the need for maps and other navigational aids, it offers users a greater sense of mastery and autonomy. As with the inherent statelessness of the web (see Track State, above), our job is not to accept blindly what the architects have given us, but to add the layers of capability and protection that users want and need. That the web’s navigation is inherently invisible is a challenge, not an inevitability.‘
Dovetailing nicely in this vein of application-meets-Internet is Usability Heuristics for Rich Internet Applications a new B&A article by Jess McMullin and Grant Skinner.
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Lightweight
When asked for examples of designs that would facilitate the desired user experience he replied, ‘Somewhere between Google and Yahoo.’
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O’Reilly’s Headfirst
O’Reilly’s new imprint, Headfirst, integrates information design in the layout. Interesting.
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Bull Run
The man, identified as Victor Lombardi from Seattle, Washington state by the government, was caught by a bull’s horn as it ran down to the bullring on the narrow streets of the northern Spanish town. Wasn’t me. Sounds like fun though.
Here’s another happy camper.
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Refactoring
Refactoring is the act of altering code without changing the functionality of the application. The primary use of refactoring is to make the code simpler and easier to understand.
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Ordination
To the list of illustrious jobs I’m honored to have been offered I can now add ordination to be a minister. I have a friend who’s a civil celebrant and needs help with a wedding he can’t perform for scheduling reasons. Too bad I’ll be out of town that weekend :)
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Wikified
Just installed my own little wiki. Not sure why I hadn’t done that earlier, it’s so simple and easy. I’ll use it to keep notes at work, where capturing and linking them quickly is more important that pretty presentation or sophisticated organization. It’s always a struggle not to resort to paper which traps ideas in places I never refer back to. And with Mac OS X, I can have a server on a laptop with me wherever I go.
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IA in a Netshell
If you had to create an introduction to IA in a booklet small enough fit in your wallet, what would you say? Maybe:
- user-centered, looks beyond the party purchasing the design to the end user
- includes research and usability testing (which is not an attempt to trump these disciplines, just explaining IA to the completely unitiatiated)
- complements Business Analysts & similar roles
- emphasizes the user because no other roles do this; acts as user advocate
- how they interact with other roles
- uses interaction design heuristics (not just esthetic or other judgements only)
- research done before reaching “comps”
- complements Graphic Design
- Emerged and borrows from LIS, CS, UCD, HCI, etc.
- …and brings something new, such as navigation of large info environments
- In a world of commodities, great design offers a unique proposition
- Not just web, but (imho) across many digital disciplines
- A descriptioon of the activities and thumbnails of documentation
- Where to go for more info
- user-centered, looks beyond the party purchasing the design to the end user
