Diary of a Superfluous Man:
Diary of a Superfluous Man: "People used to be willing to put up with frustrating usability experiences, convinced that it was their fault technology products took so much time to learn. No more. Today people are as sophisticated as they are ruthless. Frequent interaction with the technology of our always-connected world has given users a sense of power, freedom, and control. People have the option to disengage at any time and demand that technology interact with them in familiar ways. People now expect the applications they use and the Web sites they visit to be usable. Period. Usability today is table stakes %u2013 it is what is required to let you into the party to play.
So why do we as a community of designers spend so much of our time and effort debating, blogging, attending conferences and writing essays about something that is akin to %u201Cshould the television turn on when the power button is pushed?%u201D Everybody agrees that the products we design should be usable."
trust-security-privacy: "Imagine a future where
trust-security-privacy: "Imagine a future where enterprise systems are distributed across continents, where applications are built from e-services and software agents acting autonomously and where people are using them on the move from almost anywhere.
Now imagine what spies, fraudsters and electronic vandals will do with those same tools and systems available to them."
A Distributed Product Review Data
A Distributed Product Review Data Standard (Stefan Smalla's Info Feed): "I think we could all profit from a decentralized way of standardised product reviewing." Nice. "It would have to hang onto some (actually many) centrally available product catalogues." Nope. It could use psi's for that instead: published subject indicators as used in topicmaps.
Semantic Blogging Demonstrator. Too bad
Semantic Blogging Demonstrator. Too bad they don't use facets or xfml, but a good blog anyways.
Ramana Rao: "Before the Internet
Ramana Rao: "Before the Internet became the Internet, I had access to perhaps one of the finest Intranets of all times at Xerox PARC in the
early eighties. There were amazing documents available, and it really deepened my appreciation of directly reaching the ideas of other living people through documents lying around on networks.
And to top things off there was a great library at PARC as measured in the quality of the librarians. Once I asked one of them, Kathy Jarvis, about famous papers. She pulled out a folder of papers with the word "Seminal" scrawled on a bunch of Xerox manuscripts. Many of these are now well-known because of various popular historical accounts and because the Internet is now full of people that also found these documents."
Usability News - CHI 2003
Usability News - CHI 2003 Feature: Testing... 1 2 3 4 5 ... Testing..., wherein Dennis Wixon brings some common sense to the usability profession: "the total set of problems is irrelevant. The true goal of testing is not finding defects but fixing them.". Amen brother. Read it if you want to find out why Rolf Molich himself predicts the downfall of the usability profession.
:: phpPatterns() - XUL: rendering
:: phpPatterns() - XUL: rendering GUIs with PHP: "What's particularily wierd about XUL is how little attention it's getting while (IMO) it's a truly outstanding technology. That probably has alot to do with who's paying the IT press to talk about their products (Open Source relies on developers to spread the word) as well as Mozilla being perceived to have "lost" the browser wars.
Given PHP's pervasiveness on the web, if the PHP Community as a whole began to "push" XUL, that situation could change radically."
I have a feeling that,
I have a feeling that, if I just understood what this was, I would get some insights of some kind. Via Tanya. Mushrooms might do the trick equally well though.
Making Intelligence a Bit Less
Making Intelligence a Bit Less Artificial (NY Times - free registration required): "To improve the recommendations, many software developers are doing an about-face from the mid-1990's, when they put their energy into getting computers to do all the work. Today they say that automated programs that look for patterns in customer data are not smart enough to detect a gaffe. Something more sophisticated is required: the human mind.
People are becoming a critical component: analysts who understand why a particular type of music appeals to some people, categorization experts who know how to cross-reference material, retail executives who tweak the system to improve the bottom line and reviewers who check for nonsensical or offensive results."
Horizontal CMS Tools: "You may
Horizontal CMS Tools: "You may add links to a Listing, a Search, a faceted Directory, and a Feature Comparator to your CMS site. Simply select the appropriate code below and paste it into your site."
This is very cool. Something I wanted to do for years, but now someone has done it for me. Have a look.
Google Buys Applied Semantics: "In
Google Buys Applied Semantics: "In addition, the purchase gives Google a presence in Southern California, where it hopes to recruit new engineering staff. Overture is already based in the area, and its Pasadena headquarters is only 30 miles from Santa Monica-based Applied Semantics. The close proximity means that if Google and Overture are both after a particular engineering candidate in Southern California, accepting a Google offer will no longer require relocation to Northern California."
Taxonomy Warehouse - A Comprehensive
Taxonomy Warehouse - A Comprehensive Web-Directory of Taxonomies. Excellent. If only they would make their database available as XFML - then we could browse it in Facetmap and use that as a superior browsing interface.
Wireless News: Why Blogs Haven't
Wireless News: Why Blogs Haven't Stormed the Business World: "That way lies trouble. While the actual pages in a blog may be simple HTML, the sum total of elements in a blog is a giant heap of files and folders understood only by the tool a blogger is using at present. What would happen if you were to switch tools tomorrow? With even the simplest blogs, many users would be daunted by the need to move files, change directories, get the new tools to hook up with the old. In short, each new tool would break your current blog. There simply is no portability under the current structure.
While such a situation can be a frustration for individual users, it could be a huge barrier to entry for blogging in the enterprise. Just as instant messaging has been hit with claims that its security and bandwidth use are not efficient on local area networks, the heap of content produced by blogging is not the ideal knowledge store a company might wish to produce as a result of employee participation. It is just a big heap of stuff. What's needed is a uniform way for every blog tool to understand the blogs created by another tool and to pick them up when a user switches tools, much like the way browsers can share HTML."
Nonono. While Ray identifies the problem correctly (blog knowledge is unstructured), the solution is NOT to make blog tools exchange their content (even though that would be a nice feature). Exchanged content is still unstructured. The solution is to add a flexible layer of metadata on top of the existing blog content, whether that content be in a database, an exchangable XML format or identified by URLs. The technologies exist: use Topicmaps or XFML.
Lou's Enterprise Information Architecture Seminar
Lou's Enterprise Information Architecture Seminar is kicking in, have a look if you can easily get to Washington, LA or Chicago.
Art House Digital Cinema Is
Art House Digital Cinema Is Here: "We%u2019re developing a national network of specialty screens, called EmergingCinemas, by entering into joint ventures with local cultural centers, such as museums, performing arts centers, and, perhaps the most exciting of all, restored %u201Cmovie palaces,%u201D via a strategic marketing alliance with the League of Historic American Theaters (LHAT). New digital technology can return %u201Cthe movies%u201D to these grand old venues, which in many cases have abandoned an ongoing cinema offering. We%u2019re providing the required hardware, the programming and the marketing expertise for them to have an ongoing quality cinema offering for their communities."
The Rogue Librarian -- notes
The Rogue Librarian -- notes from the Book Culture talk at SXSW: "Half of all the web sites created in 1998 are now gone. 320 Million websites exist, with a new one being added every 4 seconds."
ongoing ? Perfect Tool: Dandelion
ongoing · Perfect Tool: Dandelion Killer: "So from time to time I'll write up an example of a tool that comes close to the Platonic ideal: it does what it does as well as what it does can be done. I'll use a very inclusive definition of %u201Ctool%u201D: hardware, software, you name it. Suggestions are welcome. Today we start with the humble Dandelion Killer."
ongoing ? On the Goodness
ongoing · On the Goodness of Unicode: excellent brief introduction to Unicode for developers, but useful for IA's as well, even if you are not a techie.
Simon Willison: XmlWriter: Generating XML
Simon Willison: XmlWriter: Generating XML from PHP: Simon produced the extremely useful looking XML writer class.
Visual SourceSafe isn't really great
Visual SourceSafe isn't really great for versioning with documents (as opposed to code). When I create a new doc, I have to create the doc locally, close it, put it in sourcesafe, check it out and open it again locally. Annoying. When I want to edit a doc I have to close it if I have it open, open Sourcesafe, browse to the right directory, check it out, open the document again and then edit it. And then not forget to check it in again.
BBC NEWS | Technology |
BBC NEWS | Technology | Where spam comes from: "e-mail addresses posted on websites or in newsgroups attract the most spam."
Good news for IA's. Corporations
Good news for IA's.
Corporations seek better search results | CNET News.com: "Ford Motor got a crash course in the science of search analytics two years ago during a high-profile product recall.
When the carmaker announced that it was replacing Firestone tires on all of its vehicles, consumers stampeded the corporate Web site in search of information that went beyond the typical product sheet. Over the following days and months, Ford and search partner Ask Jeeves not only fielded thousands of searches a day; they recorded and analyzed the queries on the fly in hopes of improving the service, a practice that continues today.
"The Ask Jeeves reports are used in two ways," according to Joyce Mueller, a consumer e-marketing manager at Ford. "First: to evaluate the site design and understand what content people are having trouble finding...Second: to learn what people are looking for. Currently, the majority of our searches are not for our main vehicles, but for other information such as the SVT (Special Vehicles Team). This helps us prioritize enhancements to the site."
In the field of customer intelligence, search analytics is poised to become a star. Examining search queries is now the preferred way for corporations to analyze Web site activity, to make sites more responsive and profitable."
O'Reilly Network: Request for help
O'Reilly Network: Request for help from a Geek Volunteer [April 26, 2003]: "Over the years, we've donated books to many nonprofits and schools in developing countries. Last October, I received an email from Sudhakar Chandra, a self-described "geek volunteer," that got me thinking about how O'Reilly and other companies could do a better job of supporting the good works of people like Sudhakar. His email was a compelling reminder that books are a rare and precious resource in many parts of the world."
Judge: File-swapping tools are legal:
Judge: File-swapping tools are legal: "In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry."
BBC NEWS | Technology |
BBC NEWS | Technology | Gadgets go back to basics: "As a backlash towards simplicity manifests itself throughout the electronics world, experts will call on designers to develop technology that works well in the real world."
Microsoft Research seeks better search
Microsoft Research seeks better search | CNET News.com: "A prototype application called "Stuff I've Seen," for instance, will store every screen that has popped up on a given computer monitor for a year. Another prototype called "Ask MSR" allows users to pose queries using the natural flow of language, asking "Where is Saddam Hussein?" for example."
Dented Reality Australia: Information Architecture,
Dented Reality Australia: Information Architecture, Usability, Web Development by Beau Lebens.
SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Search vs.
SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Search vs. Browse - the debate continues. Good stuff from Jared Spool.
peterme.com: Who is Wired Magazine's
peterme.com: Who is Wired Magazine's Audience? - Wired is Tired.
"headshot" is a good query
"headshot" is a good query if you are looking for some images for personas - mind the rights issues of course.
If only I had had
If only I had had these Patterns for XML Documents when designing XFML.
This has been hovering on
This has been hovering on the border of my consciousness for months, and it sounds kinda stupid, but I just realized what's wrong with Automatic Classification and the general approach to classification, and how to fix it. It is, ironically, because of the (largely unconscious) worldview inherent in the heritage of the library sciences. I'm gonna try to write it down clearly - or I'll probably come to my senses later.
Easy News Topics - RSS2.0
Easy News Topics - RSS2.0 Module: "This specification defines the Easy News Topics (ENT) Module for the RSS2.0 syndication format. ENT is intended to be a very simple standard for describing how topic information can be introduced into an RSS2.0 news feed." (thanks Eric Scheid)
I was setting up Microsoft
I was setting up Microsoft Money with the hope and expectation I would be able to import my bank statement details from my online (US) bank account. Turns out I need to actually type in every transaction! Did I miss something? I was using Money 2000 - maybe the new version does that? I'll buy it if it does, but if I have to type in everything, forget about it. Anyone know how this works?
FacetMap: "FacetMap continues to bring
FacetMap: "FacetMap continues to bring you innovations in faceted classification. There's a certain type of facet which almost everyone would like to use, but which no one has offered -- until now. The new Spectrum facet type allows your users to navigate numerical data, by specifying their own range of numbers instead of picking from a list of arbitrarily predefined ranges." Nifty.
Information Architecture: You Do It,
Information Architecture: You Do It, You Just Don't Know It (a reminder link for myself)
Tanya's list of resources that
Tanya's list of resources that argue for and suggest best practices in URI construction.
On Semantics and Markup: "When
On Semantics and Markup: "When you get an ASN.1 message, you can unpack it and you get the data items and their types. So you know: This is a fraction with 2 digits of precision, this is a 17-character string, this is a non-negative integer, and so on. But, you don't get labels.
XML, on the other hand, tells you: this is called price, this is called Bill-To, and this is called quantity-shipped, but (by default) tells you nothing about data types.
To oversimplify, XML is winning and ASN.1 is losing. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one of them is that it seems to be more important to know what something is called than what data type it is. This result is not obvious from first principles, and has to count as something of a surprise in the big picture."
Interview: Lou Rosenfeld and Steve
Interview: Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug on UX: "Lou: Well, I'll admit that I have plenty of trepidation, because Steve seems like the kind of guy who snores.
Steve: How did you know? It's true, as Melanie can tell you. But my real drawback as a roommate would be the fact that I tend to stay up all night watching old movies and infomercials. And since I suspect that Lou is fairly neat, I think we'd have the potential for a real Felix/Oscar thing. (I'd rather think of us as more like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the old Road movies, like The Road to Morocco ("...like Web- ster's Dic- tion- ary, we're Moroc- co bounnnddddd.")"
Search Workshop Submissions (CHI -
Search Workshop Submissions (CHI - via Lou) Happy printing!
I stayed away from eZ
I stayed away from eZ publish (PHP cms) because of the installation nightmares. With eZ publish 3 released those seem to have been addressed, so I am going to take another look.
Patterns vs. evolutionary design: stop
Patterns vs. evolutionary design: stop overengineering (PDF): "When I first began learning patterns, they represented a flexible, sophisticated and even elegant way of doing object-oriented design that I very much wanted to master. After thoroughly studying the patterns, I used them to improve systems I'd already built and to formulate designs for systems I was about to build. Since the results of these efforts were promising, I was sure I was on the right path. But over time, the power of patterns led me to lose sight of simpler ways of writing code. After learning that there were two or three different ways to do a calculation, I'd immediately race toward implementing the Strategy pattern, when, in fact, a simple conditional expression would have been a perfectly sufficient solution." (more goodies here)