iPrepNS
iPrepNS is our latest project. It is a website with information to help pre-enlistees and their parents better prepare for Singapore National Service. It was officially launched by the Minister of Defense (Singapore) yesterday. It was a challenging project as we had present the formalities National Service in Singapore -- from the process to the procedures to what really happens during camp training -- and make it more transparent and accessible to the target audience.
The target audience are male teenagers (Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents) who are coming face to face with National Service for the first time and who are about to spend the next 2 years of their lives in the system. Much of National Service is about training, but there are many changes that take place during this period, both physical and psychological. We had to present all of this and more in a style that would relate to the target audience.
We undertook an extensive research phase that took us from document and media analysis to interviews with pre-enlistees and their parents to observing the system at work from the ground level. We spent much of our time in the camps, looking at training events, observing the physical and psychological strains on the recruits and talking with the people who are in charge on the ground.
There is much more to the design from content analysis to copywriting to branding, which we'll publish later as an in-depth case study.
From a technical point of view, we tried to be as compliant to Web Standards as possible, using sIFR, CSS and valid XHTML. Using Flash for critical elements, especially the masthead story, was the part that gave us the big problems.
Check out these pages:
Permalink | Thursday, May 29, 2008
Information design patterns
Christian Behrens has created a Flash based website to publish his Masters thesis on The Form of Facts & Figures -- a collection of information design patterns.
Permalink | Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Customer-Centered Innovation Map
Lance A. Bettencourt and Anthony W. Ulwick write on innovation opportunities by analyzing how customers "get the job done";
"Job mapping differs substantively from process mapping in that the goal is to identify what customers are trying to get done at every step, not what they are doing currently. For example, when an anesthesiologist checks a monitor during a surgical procedure, the action taken is just a means to an end. Detecting a change in patient vital signs is the job the anesthesiologist is trying to get done. By mapping out every step of the job and locating opportunities for innovative solutions, companies can discover new ways to differentiate their offerings."
Related concepts:
Permalink | Friday, May 02, 2008
IA Summit 08 podcasts are up
Boxes and Arrows is slowly putting up the IA Summit 08 podcasts. Yum!
Permalink | Thursday, May 01, 2008
User Interface Implementations of Faceted Browsing
Faceted browsing is going to become quite the norm for navigating large data sets -- health information, consumer products, etc. This article takes a good look at some of the interface implementations of faceted browsing.
Permalink | Thursday, May 01, 2008
Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability
From Jakob Nielsen Alertbox:
"Users scan lists by moving their eyes rapidly down the left edge. Menu items that are right-aligned make scanning more difficult."
Note that Jakob Nielsen is not talking about left-hand or right-hand menus. He is just talking about the alignment of menu items.
Permalink | Wednesday, April 30, 2008
What is Design? (Yes, all 10 definitions!)
Frank Spillers takes on the task of defining 'design' from the usability consultant's point of view. He breaks the definitions down to those for the Mind, those for the Heart and those for the Body. Nice.
Permalink | Sunday, April 27, 2008
1968—The Year That Rocked Our World
AARP magazine has a multimedia section on one of America's most turbulent years -- 1968. Check out the interactive timeline.
Permalink | Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Building a collaborative workplace
A white paper from Anecdote on "why organisations and individuals should build their collaboration capability".
"Today we all need to be collaboration superstars. The trouble is, collaboration is a skill and set of practices we are rarely taught. It’s something we learn on the job in a hit-or-miss fashion. Some people are naturals at it, but most of us are clueless."
Permalink | Monday, April 21, 2008
Cover-flow on the web
Like to see the cover-flow interface on the web? Check out: http://creativspace.at/. The images are pulled from Google Image search.
Permalink | Monday, April 21, 2008
Extreme User Research
Daniel Lafreniere writes about talking to surrogate users about information needs and desires. Don't forget to read the comments section. They put the article in perspective.
"Doing user research doesn’t have to be tedious and cost lots of money. In many cases, you should be able to do it in a few days, even a few hours, depending of the scope your project. The main idea behind extreme user research is that instead of going for the real users, we go for surrogate users. Those are the ones within a company who talk directly to the customers. We want to talk to the people who talk to the people."
Permalink | Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Fine Art of Wireframes
Scott Stromberg writes on sketching and wireframing. Cool stuff.
"I find that there is something gratifying about taking a pen in hand and working an idea out on paper. The use of pen and paper often forces me to slow down and really contemplate the elements of my design. It was the ongoing pursuit of thoughtful design that originally attracted me to the world of Information Architecture. I have always been somewhat hesitant about rushing to the computer without taking enough time to truly contemplate a proposed design direction."
Permalink | Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Using cultural probes
Patrick Kennedy from StepTwo Designs talks with Gerry Gaffney on how to go about planning and using cultural probes in a project.
"A relatively recent research technique that can be very useful in this situation is known as a 'cultural probe'. In essence, the technique involves getting users to give you information without you actually being there. Often this means giving them a diary to write things down in, but the technique can make use of all manner of objects."
Permalink | Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Purchasing patterns on unpredictable incomes
Niti Bhan does a lot of work in the Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) market segment. She's got tremendous insights into these markets. Her blog Perspective, is a place to keep track of her thoughts and ideas. A recent post on Perspective is on how to position a product or a service in a segment where income levels are irregular or unpredictable or both. She cites 4 strategies:
- Paid for in advance (e.g. prepaid airtime)
- Bought in bulk (e.g. food supplies when money is available)
- Sachets or single portions (e.g. shampoos, razor blades, etc.)
- On demand or daily purchase (e.g. perishables such as bread and eggs)
Such insights can be invaluable for those trying to offer credit or position new products or services such as new mobile services and plans.
Permalink | Friday, April 04, 2008
E-services is the new “others”
I'm seeing many websites, especially government ones, put many important tasks under the "e-services" label. Important stuff like making payments, applying for new account or canceling a request are all parked under this label. Basically, anything that is a web transaction is parked under this label. From a users point of view, I really don't care if the service is online or not, but I do care about the time it's going to take for me to get the task done or the different ways in which I can get it done. In such a case, putting the keyword "online" does make a difference, but parking all such tasks under a generic label defeats the purpose as I may not find the task in the first place. For example, consider this Canadian Immigration page, at first glance I know the tasks that I can do. But if I found an "e-services" label somewhere there, I would never click it. It's time we moved away from the e-services label and focus on the tasks that users can accomplish -- "I want to..." is a good start.
Permalink | Thursday, April 03, 2008
Search patterns
Peter Morville has put up a sandbox page to collect all kinds of search patterns. From site search to mobile search, he's got a place for each kind of search.
Permalink | Saturday, March 29, 2008
Bridging the Designer–User Gap
Jakob Nielsen has a good article on using usability to close the different levels of user-designer differences. He identifies 3 such levels of difference:
- Level 1: The Designer Is the User
- Level 2: The Designer Understands the Product
- Level 3: Designing for a Foreign Domain
Permalink | Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A UH report shows that blended learning works
A research study from the University of Houston provides the numbers to what many of us already believe and practice: blended learning works.
"A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a "hybrid class" that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter-grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format."
Permalink | Tuesday, March 25, 2008
IA and interactive agencies
Interesting piece in Adage magazine that was pointed out in the IA mailing list. Phil Johnson writes about what it takes to be a truly good interactive agency vs. yet another ad agency. Here are his three points:
- The truly interactive shops had senior technology leadership that was shaping agency direction and client engagements. That's a big difference than having a wicked smart programmer who's dancing to the tune of the creative department.
- They worshipped information architecture. The interactive agencies had a deep respect for a discipline to which ad agencies, at best, play lip service.
- The agencies that got it didn't try to push interactive engagements through a process developed 100 years ago for advertising. If you're an ad agency, you will need to break some bones to reset them correctly. We should be walking again soon.
Permalink | Friday, March 21, 2008
E-learning then is still e-learning now
A nice find by Patrick Lambe: some photos from an old book that predicts the role of tech in the future. Looking at the photos, yes, it's easy to see that we've not travelled very far in the last few decades. That is why I think that open learning that we're experiencing today, thanks largely to the Web2.0 surge, is a big change in the right direction.
Permalink | Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Exploring the Intranet Hive
Cairo Walker from StepTwo Designs provides another perspective on managing intranets. He introduces the "hive" concept that explores the following in a two part article (part 1, part 2):
- Strategy - know where you are going
- Design - make it easier for staff
- Content - meet the business need
- Change and communications - inform and support everyone
- Technology - keep it all working
- Team - be effective
Permalink | Monday, March 17, 2008
Google is good but it’s not God
Gerry McGovern nails with this piece:
"Almost every search result in the first page of search results for practically every important search has worked really hard to get into that first page. The owners of these websites have worked hard to make their content search friendly. They have worked hard to make their metadata search friendly. They have worked hard to get as many links as possible, knowing that every link increases their search rankings.
Having good search does not mean you shouldn’t have a good classification and navigation. In fact, a good classification will make for even better search results. Search and navigation are interdependent in many ways. People often use search to jump a couple of levels down into a website. Then, they like to navigate."
Permalink | Monday, March 17, 2008
Health 2.0 - Apps & Trends to Watch
Health is the next big area to feel the impact of the Web 2.0 drive. The time is ripe for setting expectations and experimenting with health related data and applications. The ReadWriteWeb takes a look at some trends in this area.
Permalink | Sunday, March 16, 2008
Turn Usable Content into Winning Content
On writing well for the online environment:
"Findable. Scannable. Readable. Concise. Layered. We know much these days about how to make Web content usable—thanks to experts such as Robert Horn, Jakob Nielsen, Ginny Redish, and Gerry McGovern. What we don’t understand as well, however, is how to make content win users over to take the actions we want them to take or have the perceptions we want them to have. We don’t understand how to make Web content both usable and persuasive. I, by no means, intend to imply that we should sacrifice the usability of content to make it more persuasive. Truly winning content must be both."
Permalink | Sunday, March 02, 2008
A Visual Tutorial on the Creative Commons License
Simple, visual and with a story. Good tutorial on the creative commons license and why its important. [via Soulsoup]
Permalink | Friday, February 29, 2008