Courtesy of Travis Bolander of Twisted Lime Media, I thought I’d share these entertaining resources: How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell, The Process (a.k.a. Designing The Stop Sign Video), Make My Logo Bigger Cream.
Recently I’ve been working on Sharepoint 2010 sites and need to learn about new features of 2010, including the taxonomy and metadata features. It took me a while to find these resources, so I’ve created this post to make finding them a bit easier.
When I attended the IA Summit in Phoenix this year, I attended a presentation about information architecture in metropolitan areas. It was a fascinating talk about what can be done with data and information in a metropolitan area: how information can be shared, how people can be tracked and given information at appropriate places.
There are a lot of resources that explain information architecture. I view it, essentially, as helping people create context on the Internet, helping them use these spaces better to build community or achieve goals. Here are some other points of view on What Is Information Architecture?
In his article, Hinton reviews how people create context in space. In my words, it essentially means a person has learned “I’m here” and “You’re there” by seeing herself standing here and the other person over there. As we’ve layered technology on top of our physical space, the immediacy of here/there is removed. Instead of speaking to someone in person, we send letters. Instead of sending letters, we use the phone. Instead of using the phone, we use the Internet.
Last week, the Economist featured “Data, Data Everywhere: a special report on managing information.” Of course, this peeked my interest, being an information architect interested in how companies manage information and use it to create new knowledge. As I read through the special report, a few items came to my attention…
Recently I’ve been using LinkedIn as a resource for contacting people. I thought I’d share this idea with you since it took me, oh, about six years to figure this out. Since I’ve always struggled with how to market my services – “information architecture” and “information architect” aren’t phrases that everyone understands and when they do, they usually don’t find it relevant – I thought I might save you some pain and misery and share the idea.
One of my class readings is Marchionini’s text Information Seeking in Electronic Environments (1995). In his chapter on “Browsing Strategies,” he has a section on navigation as a metaphor. In previous usability and user centred design research and readings, others have emphasized how the “desktop” metaphor only goes so far. In Marchionini’s text, he discusses how the navigation metaphor breaks down.
Information literacy is a set of standards used to evaluate an individual’s effective use of information. When I started comparing information poverty and information literacy, I assumed that information poverty would be the opposite to information literacy. Because people do not have the skills to use information effectively, they are information poor. Information poverty does not stand in opposition to information literacy, but is used in discourse about those with restricted access to information.
This past weekend I attended the InfoCamp Seattle in, obviously, Seattle. The InfoCamp is an “un-conference” where attendees can put together presentations and present them without a formal review and approval process. This allows for different kinds of people to present and, perhaps, more up-to-date topics. Seizing the opportunity, I decided to do a presentation on paper sketching.
After meeting Kevin Shoesmith about five years ago, I quickly realized he was an energetic, dedicated person who really understands his profession and takes the time to explain it to others. This article gives a profile of him and is, hopefully, a series of articles profiling entrepreneurs I know.
Since the term “content strategy” is all the buzz these days and Twitter supplies an endless number of references to content strategy articles, it’s come to my attention that people mean different things when they talk about content strategy.
Having never been one too into video or podcast presentations (I know, I’m behind the times – what can I say? I like to read), I thought I’d round up some podcasts that might be worth subscribing to, downloading on to my iPhone, and listening to on the train.
A few days ago, Lois Patterson interviewed me on my thoughts about the future of Technical Writing. When asked if I thought technical writing would survive, I said that any job in an organization needs to provide value. But perhaps more important than technical writers creating value is that users are starting to create content themselves.
Seeking Meaning and Information Seeking in Electronic Environments give us good reference points for how people seek out answers to questions.
This year, CanUX is taking on creating “…great experiences with less: less time, less money, or fewer people on the team.” It’s happening in Banff, Alberta from November 12-14. This year, they have a contest for a free admission and travel expenses. Naturally, I’m entering! So should you!
There’s always been this deep-seated need for me to categorize and classify. I never knew why, but my readings today have attempted an explanation.
There was a lot of reading in my undergrad and that was after 3 hours of lecture. In this MLIS program, I’ll need to read the lecture, potentially 3 more hours of reading!
One professor pointed us to the book called How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. Wow. This is possibly the most helpful book I’ve ever read.
As a follow up to my post on Paper Sketches for Early Buy-In, I’d like to share the results of subsequent UI design review meetings.
Once I had taken general feedback on the pages from the paper sketches, including the number of steps involved, the content for each page, and further business rules refinement, I created a slightly interactive prototype using Axure then held two more review meetings.
In June, the STC Intercom printed an article written by yours truly:
“Usability in Context Sensitive Help: Re-imagining the Ordinary to Provide Business Value“
Working on a client project, I decided to do paper drawings to flush out ideas, number of pages, and get early buy-in for the overall concept and to help the client feel that their needs were being addressed.
Michael Wesch gave the keynote from the IA Summit 2009. Working my way slowly through the podcast has given me time to reflect social media, the publication of information by the everyday, average Josephine, and what it means in our culture.
Backbone Magazine recently published an article about how people spend their free time online.
In honour of Ada Lovelace Day, I’m here to write about the women in technology who have influenced me. Coming from a technical writing background, many of my mentors and role models have been women (since this seems to be a female-dominated field).
Here are a few interesting items I wanted to pass along: Mega drop-down navigation menus, Xmind, Freelance Switch rate calculator.