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The Interaction Design Group (IxDG) launched a new Resource Library:
The IxDG Resource Library is a repository of information about interaction design (IxD) that the IxDG community has created. It includes documents, compilations of discussions from the IxD Discussion mailing list, and descriptions of and links to many interaction design resources on the Web. IxDG members may also comment on resources and contribute items to the Library.
James Melzer created a diagram titled Enterprise Management in Context to help visualize the relationship between content management and information architecture.
(via Bloug)
The feature story in the May issue of Technology Review, "The Infinite Library", looks at Google's plans to digitize millions of library books and the impact that may have on libraries, copyright, publishing industry, and the potential privitization of knowledge.
Whatever happens, transforming millions more books into bits is sure to change the habits of library patrons. What, then, will become of libraries themselves? Once the knowledge now trapped on the printed page moves onto the Web, where people can retrieve it from their homes, offices, and dorm rooms, libraries could turn into lonely caverns inhabited mainly by preservationists. Checking out a library book could become as anachronistic as using a pay phone, visiting a travel agent to book a flight, or sending a handwritten letter by post.
Surprisingly, however, most backers of library digitization expect exactly the opposite effect. They point out that libraries in the United States are gaining users, despite the advent of the Web, and that libraries are being constructed or renovated at an unprecedented rate (architect Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Central Library, for example, is the new jewel of that city’s downtown). And they predict that 21st-century citizens will head to their local libraries in even greater numbers, whether to use their free Internet terminals, consult reference specialists, or find physical copies of copyrighted books. (Under the Google model, only snippets from these books will be viewable on the Web, unless their authors and publishers agree otherwise.) And considering that the flood of new digital material will make the job of classifying, cataloguing, and guiding readers to the right texts even more demanding, librarians could become busier than ever.
Creative Bits has a really good overview as well as tips and guidelines on toolbar icon design for OSX.
The urge to be clever and inventive in design is a natural one, but with toolbar and application icon design, you are taking people's gut reaction into account. An icon needs clarity above all else. You have under a second to communicate a function no matter how complicated or esoteric.
Andrew Dillon relates the concept of "thin slicing", from Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, to a user's experience with web sites.
While Gladwell does not mention the digital world much in his book, there are fairly well established findings in the user experience world that suggest people are themselves pretty responsive to very quick impressions of a resource or application. I’ve mentioned aesthetics before in this column, and it is clear from research on this topic that, despite our protests to the contrary, we really are quickly influenced to think positively or negatively about an application or a website on the basis of its initial look. Indeed, in my own research I saw how people inferred usability from just a quick look, and that subsequent testing revealed these guesses to be just that, guesses. Perhaps even more worrying, evidence of poor usability gained by interacting with the design did not initially change the beliefs of these users about the application’s quality.
Joshua Porter talks about The Difficulty with Articulating Design:
So I propose that instead of, or perhaps part of, a “return to design”, we start a serious discourse about “articulating design”. I think we need a common language to do so, we need to name all the parts of design, and we need to clearly explain what it is we’re doing every step of the way. Sure, this might make us accountable for what we do, but we’ll have a leg up: if we’re the only ones who are accountable on a project, smart managers will begin to understand that we take our work seriously, and we’re at least meeting our challenges head-on. Compared with other folks, we’ll start sitting pretty.
Richard MacManus & Joshua Porter describe the six trends that characterize "Web 2.0" in their recent Digital Web article.
Enter Web 2.0, a vision of the Web in which information is broken up into “microcontent” units that can be distributed over dozens of domains. The Web of documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are no longer just looking to the same old sources for information. Now we’re looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways. The Web of documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are no longer just looking to the same old sources for information. Now we’re looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways.
These tools, the interfaces of Web 2.0, will become the frontier of design innovation.
To summarize, these are what we see as the six main themes covering design in the Web 2.0 world:
- Writing semantic markup (transition to everything XML)
- Providing Web services (moving away from place)
- Remixing content (about when and what, not who or why)
- Emergent navigation and relevance (users are in control)
- Adding metadata over time (communities building social information)
- Shift to programming (separation of structure and style)
Rick Schaut blogs on the dangers of "dumbing down" software: Let Word Do It:
Making smart software isn’t about handholding allegedly stupid users. Frankly, that kind of thinking is just plain foreign to me. Aunt Tillie is a figment of Eric Raymond’s imagination, and there she should forever remain. I don’t make software for Aunt Tillie. I make software for real people who need to get real work done.
Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, says that businesspeople need to become designers in the new Fast Company article The Business of Design.
In a recent interview in Toronto, Martin asserted that real value creation now comes from using the designer's foremost competitive weapon, his imagination, to peer into a mystery — a problem that we recognize but don't understand — and to devise a rough solution that explains it. "For any company that chooses to innovate, the foremost challenge is this," Martin says. "Are you willing to step back and ask, 'What's the problem we're trying to solve?' Well, that's what designers do: They take on a mystery, some abstract challenge, and they try to create a solution."
Organizations that embrace a design-based strategy also employ the practice of rapid prototyping. Whereas conventional companies won't bring a product to market until it's "just right," the design shop is unafraid to move when the product is unfinished but "good enough." Designers learn by doing: They identify weaknesses and make midflight corrections along the way.
Tim Sanders, Leadership Coach at Yahoo!, was the opening keynote speaker at my company's DigitalNow conference last month. Some bits & pieces I scribbled down...
People, Culture & Process
Studied where companies spent their money and what return they got for it across a number of areas. Found that companies spend over 92% on Technology and Information while only getting back 25%. Whereas over 1/3 of the return companies received came from investments in People, Culture & Process.
End Suffering = Happiness
If you work to end the suffering of your customers (solve problems) you will make them happy. You do this through Knowledge, Network, and Compassion. In each area you must be selfless in the act, for example, "true" networking involves putting people together and then disappearing. Do not expect to get something out of it (no free lunch) — you must delight in simply putting people together. Success will come from that.
Read Books
Reading on screen taps into the creative side of your brain while reading print taps into the logical side. We learn and retain more from reading print. Sanders surveyed executives and found they do not read enough books. The successful execs read extensively.
Leadership
Focus on abundance ("I Have") versus scarcity ("I Lack"). Sanders loves Google because they raise the market; they have abundance. The goal of leadership is to have followers. A Chinese proverb states "If you do not have followers. you're just taking a walk."
Young vs. Old
Cisco created the concept of "Digital Immigrant" and "Digital Native". Kids tend to be natives — they are comfortable with technology, juggling multiple IM windows. Adults tend to be immigrants however, they are better because they have a higher emotional intelligence and focus on looking and finding. There is also a paradigm shift with the younger generation from ownership goals (home, debt-free) to experience goals (work for someone I like, travel). Some companies get this, for example SAS Institute has a 35-hour work week.
Video clips from the keynote are online.
