Noise Between Stations

Web Navigation

  • Transitional Volatility

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    5 min read

    Notes on Transitional Volatility (PDF) by David Danielson (2003), also the topic of his master’s thesis. It’s a rare, rigorous look at the common guideline to ‘make navigation consistent’ in a world that has big websites where the navigation must change from time to time. His finding showed that complete consistency is not always the…

  • Usable Browse Hierarchies

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    1 min read

    Notes on Toward Usable Browse Hierarchies for the Web (.doc) by Kirsten Risden of Microsoft Research (1999). Looking at Yahoo-style category and sampling of sub-category navigation, she seems to suggest that using polyhierarchies are a way of compensating for ambiguous categories and labels. Well yes, one might say, but if it helped people find what…

  • The Sheer Mass

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    1 min read

    Kathryn says, ‘I carry the weight of old boyfriends, self-possessed jerks and sweet immature nerds. The weight of making the relationship work, I can feel it in my chest and my throat. And if I open my mouth I inhale the sheer mass hanging in the air between us. My fear and ignorance are cinder…

  • Shape of information, a summary

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    3 min read

    Andrew Dillon’s work on digital genres, the web, and the shape of information is some of the most exciting research I’ve come across in the field of navigation. He has investigated how we can use our familiarity with genres to navigate, how navigation of information is different than navigation in physical space, and that creating…

  • Effective View Navigation

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    3 min read

    If I were to edit a historical collection of essays on information architecture, it would have to include George Furnas‘ Effective View Navigation (PDF). Published in 1997 and borrowing from earlier work that harks back to ’95, it is not to be read for new methods of navigation. It does however provide serious analysis of…

  • My Website Doesn’t Smell Good

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    2 min read

    “Hey Kathryn. Hello? What’s wrong?”“My website doesn’t smell good.”Brad had stopped by for his morning cup to go (large, French roast, black). I thinks he likes me, but he never asks me out. “Oh, come now. I’m sure your website smells fine.”“That’s not what Mr. Nahzah says. He looked at the home page and couldn’t…

  • Crazed, Shameless Internet Love

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    1 min read

    Catherine says, I love the Internet. Love it. I love the little search box where I can type anything I like and it will immediately return something, anything. I love clicking buttons and making things happen. I love following links to see where they lead. I love crazed, shameless teenagers blogging for all to read…

  • Visualization of Navigation Patterns on a Web Site using Model Based Clustering

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    1 min read

    Last night I had some NYC IAs over and we talked about what kind of persona- or scenario-like information could be culled from server logs (Tanya raised the idea in her Info Foraging paper) along with tangents into linguistics and semantic networks. Tanya brought along Visualization of Navigation Patterns on a Web Site using Model…

  • Information Foraging

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    1 min read

    Just collecting a bunch of links on the topic… Surf like a caveman, a historical summary from New Scientist, 2000 Cognitive Models for Web Design; Information Foraging Theory Applied…Tanya Rabourn’s short ‘n sweet summary Designing for Information Foragers: A Behavioral Model for Information Seeking on the World Wide Web, James Kalbach’s essay with related LIS…

  • Mr. Nahzah

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    3 min read

    Mr. Nahzah comes in once a week for a pound, French Roast, Melitta grind. Occassionally he and his wife drop in for an espresso after dinner. He’s an electrician nearing retirement, she runs the stationary store on 3rd. They immigrated from Berlin together in 1950. He is always well-dressed, a charming man. He approaches me…

  • Craft and Engineering

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    1 min read

    Peterme et al on Craft and Engineering in user experience design. Engineering must refer to usability engineering, with accompanying research. While I’ve been a proponent of the craft approach, I don’t see why there couldn’t be systematic methods inserted where appropriate. I think it’s premature to debunk, or even debate, design engineering as we don’t…

  • Competitive Criteria

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    1 min read

    How much business might I have lost so far? How much do I stand to lose in the next year? How much could I gain by doing what Java Jim is doing? What could I lose by not doing it (my whole business??) How much can I invest in my website? What would happen if…

  • Catalyst of Consumer Lust

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    2 min read

    The phone rings, she shakes her head free of coffee lust and jogs to the phone, rubbing her slightly oily fingers on her apron. "Hello, Sweet as Love. This is Catherine""Hi, Catherine, it’s Tim, from Angelina’s." Angelina’s had been a huge boost to her business a year ago when Tim, a manager there, suggested Sweet…

  • She Loves The Stuff

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    1 min read

    Her favorite time is just before the store opens. The brewing aroma the strongest, the morning light magical through the windows, the peaceful quiet outside. Today she [informally] inspects the shop, walking down a row of coffee barrels full of beans on both sides of her. Each is lovingly labeled. She stops at one, Columbian…

  • William Gibson, Writing, and Blogging

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    1 min read

    Karlin Lillington reports that William Gibson will stop blogging. ‘I do know from doing it that it’s not something I can do when I’m actually working.‘ Does blogging and writing/working need to be two separate things? Does anyone who blogs regularly and then stops ever fail to pick it up again?