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A Day in the Sun
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1 min read
Homeless man sits and reads newspaper behind Metropolitan Museum of Art Descriptions of beautiful day in New York. Museum patrons don’t seem to notice. How rear of museum borders Central Park. A giant grid of modernist glass forms backdrop. Just inside, figures and busts from Romans and Greeks.
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A Blog Reader
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2 min read
A user experience idea, part of the LazyWeb PositioningBlogReader is a useful, everyday tool for many people. While other content tracking, reading, or ranking applications came and went, BlogReader has consistently provided the content readers wanted in an easy and flexible way, and in doing so has become an ingrained part of many people’s everyday…
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A Famous Information Architect
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2 min read
Frank Lloyd Wright spent three months ‘doing nothing’ (I would imagine he was thinking) before sketching for three hours to produce the drawings for Falling Water. He could imagine the entire structure, and subsequently furnish the details. With each work he was allowed to experiment and push the boundaries. And clients came to him for…
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Looking into Storytelling
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3 min read
I’m designing a site for my sister’s fiance’s business, he does interior design and construction contracting. While my idea for the IA and navigation is simple and workable, it just ain’t compelling. About Us, Services, Portfolio [yawn]… I asked the designer to spruce it up and she was like, um, ok… What do customers get…
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No More Conferences
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1 min read
“There is an assumption about meetings and gatherings that’s so old it’s almost genetic. Conferences ask people to come as passive information gatherers. We’re drawn by big name speakers and then sit and wait for information to flow downwards. Yet when you ask people where they learned and contributed the most, they’ll inevitably say it…
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Designers Without Borders
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1 min read
Alternate career idea #51: Form a small team of crack Internet peeps to provide quick and simple services in the developing world. For example, imagine a SWAT team dropping into Afghanistan to set up a simple website to disseminate information within the new government, complete with no-nonsense hardware and training. Then we’re off to somewhere…
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Mindset List
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1 min read
You’ve probably seen the Mindset List, published each year by Beloit College. It goes like this… Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984. A Southerner has always been President of the United States Cars have always had eye-level rear stop lights, CD players, and air bags. George Foreman has always been a…
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Cisco.com 2002
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1 min read
Cisco just posted a demo of the new Cisco.com site that will launch soon. It’s a good little overview of what customers will notice in the redesign. I was lucky enough to spend time with some of the design team a few months ago. The site will be a fascinating study for several reasons, including…
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Introduction to Metadata
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4 min read
Our understanding of the world is facilitated by our ability to associate things, to compare and contrast, to categorize, and to form abstract relationships. To shape information in ways that allow others to better understand, we deliberately describe the information around us to shape it, creating new forms of knowledge. When communicating with computers, we…
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Contract vs. Status writing
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1 min read
An attack on postmodern literature by Jonathan Franzen, which equates difficulty with high art. I see an analogy to design. The original article is offline in the New Yorker, an interview is online. ‘…I think it’s kind of a natural idea. As a student, you’re handed Milton or Shakespeare, you’re told that it’s great literature,…
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Networking
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1 min read
Notes from a talk by Bob Lord: Ultimately, you are helping people. Hopefully, this results in something for you too. Research the situation ahead of time. Look for opportunities to “reconnect” – to get back to them with something that will help them. Respond with ATM – Answer Transition Message. Answer positively, transition away from…
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Logical Fallacies
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1 min read
A nice list… http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
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Mr. Tree
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1 min read
HerIM: …the second thing is your IA findings focus on the intranet, which is a good suggestion…but what do you think about the Internet? MeIM: oh, that MeIM: that Internet thing MeIM: i’ll do more there HerIM: that would be cool. you can use 2 pages if you need to MeIM: but that would hurt…
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Pixel Charmer
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1 min read
As much as we write, filter, embellish, design, decorate, and publish, we rarely capture our rich human personalities on the web. The best writers I know come close, but it’s a life’s work pushing their craft to that level. And yet I’ve found simple correspondence can often push it to the next level, revealing so…
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A Question
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2 min read
How will we create and access information in 10 years? In 20 years? How do you wish we would? Progress is so constant we rarely pause to acknowledge it. We have split the atom, put astronauts on the moon, and replaced unhealthy hearts in the living with healthy hearts from the dead. Computer technology leaves…