elearningpost » The SEO Guide to Information Architecture

The SEO Guide to Information Architecture

Adam Audette has written an extensive guide to blending SEO practices with IA.

"This article will explore the basic concepts of designing optimized site architectures for efficient spidering by search engines. Building an easily spidered site has ramifications in how pages, sections of a site, and entire domains are topically understood and categorized by bots, which influences indexing and rankings."

Permalink | Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Designing the online newsroom

I've just posted a new article over at PebbleRoad titled: Designing the online newsroom. I've been noticing that corporate and government websites do not focus much on this area and as a result miss out on a good opportunity to develop and grow an engaging communication channel. This article is a brief look at the problem from the design angle.

"The newsroom section in corporate and government websites is not just about press releases anymore and nor is it just for the press. The demand by a broad spectrum of customers to be updated on what’s happening at every front of the organization combined with the organization's need to promote and educate customers about new directions has expanded the role of the newsroom. In this article, we take a look at what goes into this enhanced newsroom and how to design for it."

Permalink | Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Kids reading more online - Good or bad?

This NY times article presents an interesting debate on whether the time kids are spending reading online is good or bad in the long term. I think that this whole debate is based on wrong categorization. Using old frameworks to evaluate new phenomenon is fundamentally wrong. Clayton Christensen's new book, Disrupting Class - How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, has a chapter on the current state of educational research. He points out that historically education research has been using outcomes of the research to point back to known situations or circumstances and not to new or changing circumstances that the kids find themselves in. Yes, kids are reading more, but they are also reading differently. Making meaning by "weaving" different definitions, perspectives and representations trigger different skills and aptitudes. These in turn warrant different ways of looking and measuring.

Permalink | Saturday, August 09, 2008

How buildings learn - 6 episodes on Google video

The BBC television series on Stewart Brand's iconic How Buildings Learn is now on Google video. If you like the book, you'll love these videos (iPod compatible):

[Thanks Venkat]

Permalink | Friday, August 08, 2008

Content migration—the most overlooked phase

Barb Mosher has collected in-depth articles discussing the issue of content migration -- the process that maps old content into a new CMS or structure. Here are his main points:

Plan, plan, plan
Look into automated and semi-automated, but don’t expect miracles
Inventory first
Never migrate content as is — always expect changes
Keep metadata top of mind
Consider outsourcing for the simple tasks like cutting and pasting

(via ColumnTwo)

Permalink | Tuesday, August 05, 2008

When Play Becomes Work

Shankar Vedantam explores the widely accepted belief that extrinsic rewards can get people to do things. Research studies, Vedantam shows, points the other way around -- external rewards kill the inner drive.

"External rewards and punishments are counterproductive when it comes to activities that are meaningful -- tasks that telegraph something about a person's intellectual abilities, generosity, courage or values. People will voluntarily perform intellectually arduous work, for example, because it gives them pleasure to solve a puzzle or win a game of wits."

Permalink | Sunday, August 03, 2008

Drawing the lines - effectively structuring government online teams

Craig Thomler write about the different ways to structure an online teams (web teams). From my experience, many government initiatives seldom look into the area of 'what next' after the website or intranet is launched. A key reason being the rigidity of the group structure and responsibilities. This is why it it difficult to get buy-in for lateral disciplines like usability or information architecture -- everybody wants parts of it but nobody wants to own the whole. This article may explain on why there is a need to have an "integrated" structure.

[Via ColumnTwo]

Permalink | Thursday, July 31, 2008

The ‘Only’ statement: focus on your project’s key goals

Austin Govella reuses Marty Neumeier's Only Statement for brand strategy for describing the project's key goals.

"An Only statement is a really good way to focus a team on the project’s constraints (the WHAT, WHO, WHERE, and WHY), as well as on its strengths (the HOW and WHEN). This kind of focus is especially important on teams where shared vision drives the quality of the work (like an agile team)."

Check out the follow up article on using the Only Statement for the I.A. Institute.

Permalink | Thursday, July 31, 2008

Weekly User Testing: TiVo Did It, You Can, Too

This article from Jakob Nielsen is a good case study on doing regular user testing. I think this is an capability web and intranet teams need to develop.

"TiVo ran 12 user tests in 12 weeks while designing its new website. As TiVo's experience shows, frequent and regular testing keeps the design usability focused."

Permalink | Monday, July 28, 2008

The what, when and why of wireframes

A presentation from User Pathways:

"They are working documents that are not finished designs but are likely to change as the design process progresses and functional requirements are clarified."

Permalink | Saturday, July 26, 2008

The cult of the dabbawala

The Economist has a nice summary on the dabbawala -- people who deliver lunch to Bombay's working class.

"The system the dabbawalas have developed over the years revolves around strong teamwork and strict time-management. At 9am every morning, home-made meals are picked up in special boxes, which are loaded onto trolleys and pushed to a railway station. They then make their way by train to an unloading station. The boxes are rearranged so that those going to similar destinations, indicated by a system of coloured lettering, end up on the same trolley. The meals are then delivered—99.9999% of the time, to the right address."

Via elearnspace

Permalink | Wednesday, July 23, 2008

An Ethnography & Interviewing Primer

A video tutorial on interviewing and ethnography:

The IIT Institute of Design is a graduate school of design dedicated to advancing the methods and practice of human-centered innovation. We believe that real innovation starts with users' needs and employs a set of reliable methods, theories, and tools to create solutions to their problems. Ethnography and interviewing are how we, as designers, see the world through other people's eyes and get them to tell us their stories. In the spring of 2008, we talked to professors, experts, and students about this philosophical orientation and how to actually get people to talk. To ground things a bit, we took a look at a truly universal article of clothing – denim jeans – and set out to understand: "Who's buying premium denim and why?"

Via Todd Warfel

Permalink | Thursday, July 17, 2008

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth

From NY Times:

"A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less."

Permalink | Wednesday, July 16, 2008

On iTunes U: Guide to writing research papers

Just received this from Apple news:

"Need to write a research paper for a summer course? Then you’ll want to pay a visit to the Florida Community College at Jacksonville and sign up for English Composition II. The 24-unit video course provides a comprehensive resource for writing academic essays. And you can also learn about technical writing, writing for business, and literary analysis, as well."

A resource for writing research papers (direct launch on iTunes).

Permalink | Saturday, July 12, 2008

Design anthropology: What can it add to your design practice?

Dori Tunstall, Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at University of Illinois at Chicago, has written an enlightening article on using anthropological approaches to cater to and understand the 'humanness' in our designs.

"Design anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand the role of design artifacts and processes in defining what it means to be human (e.g., human nature). It is more than lists of user requirements in a design brief, which makes it different from contextual inquiry, some forms of design research, and qualitative focus groups. Design anthropology offers challenges to existing ideas about human experiences and values."

Permalink | Friday, July 11, 2008

Table of Contents: Creative and Beautiful Examples

Smashing Magazine has yet another wonderful collection out. This time around it is on the design of Table of Contents.

"Table of contents is often considered to be one of the most unspectacular design elements ever invented. Because of its simple, usual form, table of contents is often not given the attention it may deserve — after all, it is just a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear. But why not use exactly that and surprise the reader of a booklet, brochure, annual report or a book with some beautiful and original table of contents? In fact, many creative approaches are possible. And this post attempts to prove exactly that."

Permalink | Thursday, July 10, 2008

iTunes U now home to K-12 educational curricula

"The initiative, which launched July 1, brings the creation of a K-12 destination to iTunes U, with a broad range of content from a number of state and district agencies--including Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah--as well as museums and other education-oriented institutions. As of the launch today, there are 11 sub-portals within the iTunes U K-12 destination."

From 'The Journal'

Permalink | Wednesday, July 02, 2008

NY Times redesign

"In this seminar, we will discuss the process we followed during the recent redesign of The New York Times, including research we conducted, forward-looking concepts we developed, and prototypes we created and refined."

New York Times Redesign - case study

Permalink | Monday, June 30, 2008

KM Method Cards

It’s 7 am on a wonderful Sunday morning in NYC. I’m getting prepared for meeting tomorrow. I’ve brought along the KM Method cards that Straits Knowledge’s Patrick Lambe presented me 2 weeks ago. These cards describe 80 approaches, methods and tools that can be used in a KM context.

I’ve used these cards once before to help me look for solutions to a problem I was facing. The problem was this. In my company, PebbleRoad, we spend a lot of time discussing and brainstorming on an ad-hoc basis. This is done mostly to think-through problems and discuss ideas. All of this is good, but when there’s just three of us in the company, there’s added pressure on managing our time. And then there’s this nagging feeling: I’ve just spent 30 minutes discussing this, did I provide any value?

This is when I opened up the KM cards deck and started browsing through. I picked up the Peer Assist card. Although I know about Peer Assists from a subject matter basis, this time around I was looking for a solution to my problem. So even when the Peer Assist Card mentioned that Peer Assists are done by inviting others from outside the group to provide value, I thought that we could use the same approach for seeking ideas from within the group. Within the next 10 minutes we set up a simple protocol for 'Calling and Hosting Peer Assists at PebbleRoad' that listed what was to be done by the host and what was expected of the peers. We put this up in our internal blog. A few days later we followed the protocol when we had a wireframe discussion, and this time around it felt much better and quicker.

This is where the value of the cards lie: it provides an easy way to quickly navigate through ideas and to try something out. It is also a good learning tool for those who aren’t familiar with KM approaches and techniques.

Back to my meeting tomorrow. This time around I am using the cards to craft a research plan, specifically around gathering insights from subject matter experts. I do believe I won’t be using any single approach, but then, that’s the fun I'm looking for.

The KM Method Cards product page.
The KM Method Cards quick reference (PDF file, print this out, you’ll need it).

Permalink | Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wells Fargo ATM design case study

An in-depth article that describes how Pentagram redesigned the interface of Wells Fargo's ATMs.

"The design team learned that the single-most used feature of an ATM is the cash withdrawal. The objective for the new UI was to continue to offer quick and easy cash withdrawals, while making the other services more visible and accessible. Some of these services, such as purchasing stamps and printing account statements, can be convenient for customers and they save a trip to the post office or branch office. For Wells Fargo, it is an additional source of revenue."

Permalink | Friday, June 20, 2008

Writing an Interface Style Guide

Jina Bolton writes about keeping the interface relevant and useful even after the launch. Her key -- interface style guides.

"Interface design standards enable brand stewardship. Commonly documented in a design “style guide,” these standards inform clients and content editors of branding guidelines for typography, whitespace, color, etc. The design style guide provides a reference in which developers can describe the way the interface is intended to look, and helps designers to be consistent as the interface is updated so that, in turn, the interface continues to feel consistent."

Permalink | Saturday, June 14, 2008

Jakob Nielsen on e-learning

Jakob Nielsen flags out e-learning in his recent article on Writing style for print vs. web.

"I continue to believe in the linear, author-driven narrative for educational purposes. I just don't believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience."

Permalink | Saturday, June 14, 2008

Yahoo design stencil kit

Yahoo!'s design pattern library is home to the Design Stencil Kit -- a collection of stencils for OmniGraffle, Visio, Illustrator and Photoshop that covers most of the patterns in their library. Nice work guys!

Permalink | Thursday, June 12, 2008

Jonas Lowgren: Two perspectives of Interaction Design

Jonas Lowgren, Professor of interaction design at Malmö University, Sweden has written an article that describes 2 historical perspectives of interaction design. One views interaction design as a "design discipline, distinguished by its focus on the digital design materials: software, electronics and telecommunications". The other views interaction design as an extension of HCI -- "usability and usefulness of digital products and services."