Information Architecture

It’s Not You; It’s Me

Jun 20, 2008

Is saying goodbye really that hard? Apparently, yes: yes it is. Instead of following through and cutting ties properly, I have to admit, I’ve been taking the easy way out.

For longer than I feel comfortable discussing, I’ve been relying on Apple Mail’s Junk filter to be the bad guy. Instead of taking the few extra seconds to unsubscribe from unwanted email newsletters, I’ve trained Junk to inauspiciously hide mail I’m too lazy to deal with myself.

I’m well aware of Training Mode and respect Mail’s ability to learn. But no matter. The Flavorpill newsletter I signed up for in hopes of being the first to know? The Daily Candy list I subscribed to in hopes of being first at the sample sale? The Threadless announcements I subscribed to hoping to never have to deal with Women’s Medium being sold out again? No slight against these fine texts (and they really are), but I just lost interest. They’re all junk to me now. (more…)

Everything New is Old Again

Jun 3, 2008

For as far as we’ve come, are we just evolving back to where we started? As part a panel for The HappyCorp‘s publishing workshop for New York’s Design Week recently, I helped field questions from an audience of online publishers. Their primary questions were about “RSS,” focused on ways they can improve the reading experience of their content through feed readers.

As I listened to my co-panelists answer, I heard them describing not new ways to design for reading in social environments, not new strategies for user engagement, but something pretty pedestrian: how to improve the isolated reading experience.

Designers are becoming more masterful at creating social experiences, yet reading with most feed readers is still much like reading a magazine or a book: isolated but portable, modular yet somewhat sequential. While that timing and sequence is controlled by the reader, it is still a solo experience. (more…)

The WordPress on the Street

Mar 31, 2008

A quick Monday note to mention a recent project I’m quite excited about. WordPress fans may already know that the redesign of the administration panel has been talked about for some time. Well, this weekend saw the release of WordPress 2.5, which included improvements far and wide, including the redesign of the admin.

I’m honored to have been a small part of its redesign. WordPress approached Happy Cog to streamline WordPress’ information architecture and design. We worked with the valliant Matt Mullenweg, who in turn gathered feedback from the team at Auttomatic, while we developed a new structural and design system. (more…)

Full of Class: An Interview with Joseph Williams

Dec 27, 2007

Before we knew web design, before we knew what we did was called information architecture, we wrote. We sat patiently through grammar class, learning when the participle dangled and the sentence ran on. As we got older, we were handed down paperbacks gilded with lessons and rules about how to write. Guidelines from Strunk & White guided our high school prose.

But if we braved on, we may have encountered a different kind of grammatical attitude. Grammar rules dropped away; Strunk & White became idle on the bookshelf, and we were left to our own devices. (more…)

Judge a Book by its Cover (and its Interior Too)

Oct 5, 2007

Sure it’s true. Books — real books in print — have been around for, well, quite a while. But as a new publisher of user experience books (and staunch researchers), we want to ensure that the books we design are as usable as possible.

We’re looking to apply some usability research strategies to test both print and digital editions of our first book, Indi Young’s Mental Models. To do this, we need your help. (more…)

Older Is Wiser: An Interview with Alex Wright

Sep 12, 2007

I’m really excited about the upcoming IDEA conference in New York City. Not only is its lineup of speakers the very people I’ve been looking to for inspiration recently, but it’s being put on by the Information Architecture Institute.

OK. It’s true. I’m on the advisory board of the IAI, but I’m still thrilled to see an event sponsored by an IA-related organization reaching outside the typical boundaries of what’s considered to be “information architecture.” (more…)

The Seven Lies (of Information Architecture) in Chicago

Sep 2, 2007

Last week at An Event Apart Chicago hosted by Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, I had the pleasure of meeting a huge number of approachable and impassioned attendees. I heard talks ranging from the high-level-inspiration kind to the get-your-hands-dirty kind that define the event.

For the first time, I gave a talk on The Seven Lies of Information Architecture. I wasn’t sure how it would fare, as I’m an IA myself, and contesting principles is always tricky. I got good feedback from some nice attendees and look forward to refining the ideas, providing more examples, as I develop the Lies. (more…)

Case Study: Boxes and Arrows

Jul 31, 2006

Boxes and Arrows is devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and even business design. Since 2001, it’s been a peer-written journal promoting contributors who want to provoke thinking, push limits, and teach a few things along the way.
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Search Interfaces

Sep 10, 2002

Typically, users know what they’re searching for even before they choose a search engine over the site’s navigation. In this investigation, I’d like to explore how we can provide a user interface to help them search more effectively before they get started.

This investigation is about the ordering and structure of the search fields themselves, not the results, which have been the topic of much discussion already. For reference, I will refer to these interfaces in one of four ways: Standard, Surfacing, Qualifying, and Passive interfaces. (more…)