Extra! Extra!

We’re back… now, with less context!

• Better life through design
• Michal Migurski reviews Amazon’s EC2
• 6 Ways to fix a confused information architecture (useit.com)
• Push my button (beyond generic Submit buttons)
• Coding interviews with OneNote (I admit I’ve never cracked open OneNote)
• A discussion with danah boyd get caught up on what the wonder woman is thinking
• tyranny of the timestamp (unique angle on the Facebook flap)
• Applied Empathy or “A Design Framework for Meeting Human Needs and Desires”
• LukeW on PeterMe’s “Stop Designing Products” talk (…and start designing integrated systems, that is)
• SocialText 2.0 launches, congratulation Ross, Adina, et al.
• Second generation tag clouds (note to self: Invite Joe Lamantia onto tag 3.0 panel for sxsw if it gets picked)
• IA for [Web Developers | The ‘Come to Me’ Web] (two talks by Thomas Vander Wal)

…and, we’re outtie.

In response to a thread on the IxDA mailing list about how job ads seeking “Leonardo da Vinci” (that is, someone who can design, do illustrations, and write code) may be trying to pack too many requirements into a single req, Dave Rogers posted a link to an article her wrote nearly a year ago for gotomedia,
The User Advocate: One Size Fits None?, in which he writes:

I also recognize that the “one size fits all” designer is how the Web was won. Because the visual nature of the early Web was transformative, it was natural for visual designers to take the lead. Already savvy users of computer design tools, they added some straightforward HTML skills to their palettes and hung out their shingles. Pioneers are always generalists.

But those days are long past. The settlers have moved in, cities are rising. As business leapt into the Web with its show-no-mercy requirements, the gaps in the early Web designers’ skills-notably in interaction design (IxD), usability engineering and information architecture-became increasingly evident.

Specialists began to emerge. Requirements analysts. Usability specialists. Interaction designers. And information architects.

We’re hiring like mad right now and I’m wrestling with some of these same issues. I gave up trying to find an IA who was also good at functional requirements, specs, and use cases (although “back in my day” we did all those things while walking uphill in the snow against the wind both ways) and now I’m looking for separate individuals: an IA/user experience expert and a tech writer / spec writer.

Chris Fahey is in the middle of publishing a series of blog posts on the topic of class and web design. (In part two, he asks What class are you?.)

Interesting topic (and somewhat taboo, here in the States, at least).

I’m looking for an experienced information architect and an accomplished spec writer for some fascinating projects that are kicking off shortly. If you’re interested, please read the job descriptions linked from our Employment page and follow the instructions therein for applying. (Yes, this is your first test.)

Last year, Jared Spool wrote an essay about a disruptive intranet redesign in which he used the analogy of finding your well lived-in home entirely changed on waking up one morning (Designing Embraceable Change). In it, he discusses how to make it easier for people to embrace changes in their information spaces:

To design for embraceable change, the design team has to be well aware of the existing Current and Target Knowledge points, as well as the new points. Field studies are the ideal technique for learning the existing points, whereas usability testing will give a detailed understanding as to whether the new design has an acceptable knowledge gap. These two techniques are essential for any team who needs to tackle this difficult problem.

Over the last few months I’ve posted notices here whenever Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (the legendary authors of the first two editions of O’Reilly’s Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, aka the Polar Bear book) have announced another survey for their third edition.

Now the IA Institute has published all of the survey results.

File under useful: CSS 2.1 Reference : Cultured Code

In Boxes and Arrows, Stephen Turbek suggests making wireframes look as realistic as possible, and argues that the old idea of clearly distinguishing wireframes from design is actually counterproductive (Real Wireframes Get Real Results):

How many times have you been asked, “So, is the new website going to be black and white too?” after presenting your wireframes to a client or a usability test subject?

This question is almost a traditional part of being an information architect. Wireframes do not clearly define what they mean to convey, leading to confusion. This is most apparent in wireframe usability tests with users who don’t know anything about the project or process. Fortunately, there are a few simple steps that will make wireframes be understood by anyone. They don’t even have to be much more work. It’s simply a matter of choosing to “get real” from the start.

Now, here at Extractable we prefer to do usability tests with prototypes, so we don’t have that specific problem, but I have tended lately toward dropping in the client’s actual logo, using their brand colors and generally making the wireframes look more realistic and my anecdotal experience so far is that clients do prefer that to utterly abstracted grayscale featureless wireframes full of lorem ipsum and x-boxes indicating where the images should go.

I was reading an article on MobileCrunch last night and it spawned some deep linking into technology and usability for the mobile web. Here’s the collection of links I visited.

• Windows Live Mobile Review
• Preview Windows Live Mobile on your PC (the local lets you dig deep, others take you away from mobile)
• Rich Java mobile apps
• Opera SDK for AJAX on a mobile device
• A mobile AJAX app

The first round of panels proposed for SXSW Interactive 2007 were those proposed by past speakers (I had two proposals in that round). Voting for the first round is now closed.

2007 SXSW Interactive Panel Proposal Picker (Round Two) starts today, featuring panel proposals that were submitted in the last few months.

Go check out all the creative ideas and vote.