Category: Information Architecture
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Muddling Through eBay
The online auction site eBay recently redesigned their site, and (as it usually has in the past) the new design is being subjected to some pretty harsh critique. When critics bash eBay’s design, they usually focus on the site’s general visual design, or on the information design of individual pages. Even I have in the…
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Klutzes and Touch Screens
The HTC Touch (ht Dave Malouf) is a new touch-screen mobile phone with an iPhone-like seductive user interface, replete with the same kind of stunning UI bells and whistles — animations, rotations, sliding, flinging, and bouncing — that we are all eagerly awaiting in the Apple iPhone. A recent review in MEX magazine, however, isn’t…
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A View From Singapore
Going through my server logs the other day, I discovered that my series of articles from last summer, User Research Smoke & Mirrors, was a required reading assignment for a User Experience Design class at the National University of Singapore, taught by Mr. Raghavendra Reddy. In browsing the official site for the course, I was…
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A Peek into the Sausage Factory (IA Summit Presentation Post-Mortem)
My IA Summit presentation was an experiment in what is a new presentation style for me. I have long admired the rapid-fire presentation style of Lawrence Lessig (aka the “Lessig method“) and in particular the example of Dick Hardt’s keynote at Identity 2.0. Also, I’ve always wanted to achieve the same aesthetic and pedagogical dazzle…
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Interaction Design Style (My IA Summit 2007 Presentation)
It’s been a little less than a week since my IA Summit presentation. To my great surprise, it went really well. I mean really well. In the next day or so I will be posting a summary of my experiences preparing and discussing my topic, which was, in a word, style. Many people came to…
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Come to my Classy SXSW Panel
UPDATE, 3/11/07: My post-mortem on the panel, and links to many other people’s opinions on the panel, are now posted here. I am running a panel entitled High Class and Low Class Web Design at the 2007 South by South West Interactive conference. It will explore the same subjects I discussed in my series of…
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Aura of Inevitability (or: When a Technology’s Time has Come)
New technology products often take us by surprise. In 1992, for example, we couldn’t possibly have dreamed of how the Internet would transform the world by 1997, only 5 years later. The best innovations are things “you never knew you wanted but cannot live without” kind, inventions that come out of nowhere. YouTube, for example.…
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I Would Prefer Not to Set Preferences
I would prefer not to. Everybody likes preferences, right? Maybe not. Maybe some people would prefer not to have to deal with it. Apple users, for example, are given a fraction of the number of preference-setting options that Windows users get. In OSX, for example, you can choose several different ways for the dock to…
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Performative Diagramming
The cover of Bill Moggridge’s excellent Designing Interactions features a sketch/diagram that looks intriguing at first glance. But then when you actually try to figure out what it means, you’re stumped. I tried, but I couldn’t even scratch the surface. Inside the book itself, we learn that the diagram is based on sketches that Bill…