Articles by Month: February 2005

User experience diagrams

Luke Wroblewski has published another list of user experience diagrams. This points to thirteen different ways of representing user experience, usability and information architecture in the context of real-world projects and problems.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:48 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Is communications up to running intranet?

Gerry McGovern has written an article that asks: is communications up to running intranet? To quote:

The natural home of the intranet is in communications. However, intranet management requires particular skills that many traditional communications departments don’t have.

(For more on this topic, see my recent article Who should own the intranet?)

Posted by jamesr at 08:23 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Designing for Usability (Canberra)

Just a quick reminder that it's only a few days until the early-bird rate closes for the Designing for Usability workshop to be held in Canberra on 6 April 2005. To quote:

This one day workshop provides an in-depth examination of two key elements required to design highly usable systems: an understanding of human abilities and practical approaches to involve users throughout the design process.

Human abilities and limitations affect the way people use computer systems. By focusing on these attributes, we can design systems that better match the way people really work.

Successful systems are those that allow users to complete their tasks easily. A user focus can be achieved by learning about needs, tasks and abilities, and by involving users during the design process.

(If you've done any of our previous usability events, this workshop will take your expertise and skills to the next level.)

Posted by jamesr at 03:10 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Visiting Auckland in late March

At this point, it looks like I'll be traveling across to Auckland (New Zealand) in late March, to run an in-house intranet alignment day for a local non-profit organisation.

If anyone else would like me to run a similar session for their organisation (or other intranet/IA/CMS work), just drop me a line. (This would, for example, be a good opportunity to kick off an ongoing mentoring engagement, if that would be useful to you.)

Posted by jamesr at 10:15 AM | Permalink
Categories:

Prioritise usability testing and web analytics

Bryan Eisenberg has written an article that compares usability testing and web analytics. To quote:

If you've performed usability tests and tried to reconcile those results with your current site metrics, you've probably been left scratching your head. Usability respondents find something wrong on a particular page, yet the same "problem" isn't evident in the site analytics.

This leaves you with a rather big question: How do you justify Web analytics and usability, and what role does each play in the conversion equation?

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:52 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Stronger year predicted for usability professionals

Ann Light reports on the results of a UK-based usability salary survey. To quote:

The UK chapter of the Usability Professionals Association (UKUPA) have completed their second annual survey with no significant rise in salaries to report, but plenty of recruitment in the sector.

Posted by jamesr at 01:35 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

KM as a framework for managing knowledge assets

Lynda Moulton has written an article on KM as a framework for managing knowledge assets. To quote:

In spite of the mostly negative things we had to say about KM, we did recognize there was a real, identifiable problem that a combination of business practices and processes, with the help of a little technology, could address. In fact, and this was part of the cause of the vendor frenzy, businesses thought of many of their information management problems as knowledge management problems. You can argue that the concept is flawed, but you can’t tell the customer they don’t have a problem.

Today, the idea of KM is much more respectable -- there is less hype, and a lot more understanding of the role technology can legitimately play in helping companies better manage their knowledge assets. Contributor Lynda Moulton is one technologist and KM expert that has helped KM become reputable. Her advice in this issue is valuable, current, and hype-free.

Posted by jamesr at 08:20 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Building fudgable IT systems

Jonathan Boutelle has written a blog entry about building fudgable IT systems, by which he means providing similar flexibility to paper processes that are being replaced. To quote:

It turns out that there are really two types of fudgability: the type that relies on giving humans flexibility in how they process documents, and the type that relies on real (but untraceable) transgressions (violations, even for the best of reasons, of the regulatory frameworks that an industry inhabits). Examples of the second sort to fudgability include communication of information that is protected by privacy laws, adding data to a form anonymously, communicating the desired value of an appraisal, and so on).

I think this provides a very interesting perspective on web content management in general, and workflow in specific...

Posted by jamesr at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

The Future of Copyright (Sydney, 3rd March 2005)

Details on the next NSW KM Forum meeting:

The Future of Copyright: The role for Creative Commons in enabling knowledge sharing and encouraging innovation

When: 5.30pm for 6pm, Thursday 3rd March 2005

Where: Standards Australia, 286 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000

How much? Free

Managing intellectual property (IP) effectively is already a major concern for many organisations and will only increase in importance. Copyright rewards the creation of new IP. It can also limit the free flow of ideas that fuels innovation. What can we do about this?

This month's NSW KM Forum meeting begins with a presentation from Ian Oi on the iCommons project. Ian will then be joined in an open forum panel discussion by David Vaile (Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre UNSW) and Bruce Badger (OpenSkills and ACS Open Source SIG).

Full details

Posted by jamesr at 08:14 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

CM Pros Resource Library

The CM Pros organisation (of which I'm a member) has just published a content management resource library. To quote:

The Resource Library aims to provide a single comprehensive collection of content management related information. We have compiled a list of useful content management resources (research findings, magazines, web sites, conferences, listservs, articles, presentations, weblogs, and white papers) and hope that members will submit many more.

Posted by jamesr at 09:26 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Computer-aided paper sorting (Caps)

William Hudson (and his company Syntagm) have released a new approach to card sorting: Computer-aided paper sorting. To quote:

Appropriate allocation of tasks to users and computers has always been an important part of successful interaction design. In the case of card sorting, we would like users to work with materials they are comfortable with (cards and pens), while reducing the task load for researchers. This is where Caps (Computer-Aided Paper Sorting) comes in. The cards are computer printed with barcodes that can be used for very quick data capture.

Interesting, and it's great to see that innovation is still happening...

[Thanks to Louise Ferguson.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:18 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Role of design and usability

Tom Chi has written an article that provides an interesting perspective on the role of design and usability in a project. It even has diagrams! To quote:

If our process is too usability heavy, we are not able to explore the space widely enough. The testing prematurely optimizes on a region and we end up doing many design tweaks, but comparatively few significant changes.

If our process is too design heavy, we can zip all around the space, but there's no way to know when to stop. A designer might hit a workable solution and iterate right past it. There is also no way to know which directions to prune, so we use up design time on failing directions, and this can cause our team to optimize too late.

(The corresponding comic strip is also very amusing.)

Posted by jamesr at 09:07 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Information architecture exercises

Peter Van Dijck has posted a collection of ideas for information architecture exercises, to use during a workshop. To quote:

I am preparing some information architecture workshops, and I’m collecting various types of exercises. I've managed to identify some general rules for developing workshop exercises as well.

To add to these suggestions, in our IA Fundamentals workshops (running in Canberra and Sydney), we base the day around the design of a mock "snowfields website". Using this type of example, we can then construct examples around:

• brainstorming the types of visitors to this site (thereby introducing personas)
• types of tasks they might want to complete (task analysis)
• types of information required (content modeling)
• overall structure for the site (card sorting)
• confirming the final design (card-based classification evaluation)

It makes for a fun day, and the use of a single site throughout the day makes it both concrete and easy to explore IA concepts and techniques...

Posted by jamesr at 08:53 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Constructing a state web portal through design alternatives, measurement and iterative refinement

Tom Brinck has written an excellent case study on the redesign of a state web portal in the US, following sound usability and IA practices. To quote:

In the year 2000, the developers of a large-state portal approached us with a need to redesign the information architecture of their state website. The portal provided access to thousands of state agencies. Users consistently expressed frustration in finding relevant information.

Through a series of user interviews and user tests with successive prototypes of the new architecture, we dramatically improved the success rate and time for finding information through the state site. Our approach was based on systematically exploring the design space and was metric-based, allowing us to show formal quantitative evidence of site improvement and make well-grounded estimates of financial benefit for the state. Our approach was fundamentally user-centered, gathering feedback from many people throughout the process to achieve effective tradeoffs in the design.

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 02:25 PM | Permalink
Categories:

Book review: The Content Management Handbook

The Content Management Handbook
Martin White

The best thing about the Content Management Handbook is that it provides something that has been missing for some time: a simple and clear overview of the whole field of content management. While other books have delved in-depth into specific aspects of content management, Martin White's book aims to provide a 10,000 foot view of everything that goes into a successful content management implementation.

Martin is one of the leading vendor-neutral intranet and CMS consultants in the UK, and his experience shines through in this book. This is not just the "sales pitch" for all that CMS could be, but rather a balanced view of what works, what doesn't, and what will require some serious work and thinking.

This book is written in a casual, chatty style that makes it light work to browse through the chapters. The material covered is diverse, including:

• key content management system capabilities
• developing a content management strategy
• role of information architecture and usability
• building a business case
• state of the CMS marketplace
• capturing requirements and building a tender
• selecting a product
• implementing the CMS

To clearly set expectations, however: this is not one of those two-inch-thick "definitive tomes" that seem so popular in the IT bookshops nowadays. This is a slim volume that does not attempt to provide every detail required in every section. Instead, it provides key references to further reading in each chapter, pointing the reader to additional sources of in-depth coverage on specific topics.

So, if you are new to content management, read the Content Management Handbook to get an overview of the work that is ahead of you. If you are already knowledgeable in the material covered by a specific chapter then skip over it, and if you need more detail then follow the references to further reading and resources. In either case, by the time you finish this book, you will have a clearer idea of the whole content management landscape.

Overall score: 7/10

(Book listing on Amazon.co.uk)

Posted by jamesr at 12:32 PM | Permalink
Categories: Book & product reviews, Content management

A comparison of two evaluation techniques for technical documentation

Bonnie Rogers, Chris Hamblin, & Alex Chaparro have written an article that compares ways of evaluating technical documentation. To quote:

This study compared two evaluation techniques, Usability Testing and Cognitive Walkthrough, in their ability to identify errors in aviation maintenance documentation. The techniques were evaluated to see how much unique information they each produced as well as the type of errors identified. Results showed that the techniques were complementary in their findings and both are recommended in the development of technical documentation.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:04 AM | Permalink
Categories:

Seven common usability testing mistakes

Jared M. Spool has written an article which highlights seven common usability testing mistakes. These are:

• Do You Know Why You're Testing?
• Not Bringing the Team Together
• Not Recruiting the Right Participants
• Not Designing the Right Tasks
• Not Facilitating the Test Effectively
• Not Planning How You'll Disseminate the Results
• Not Iterating to Test Potential Solutions

Posted by jamesr at 07:47 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Authentic behaviour in user testing

Jakob Nielsen has written an article on user behaviour in usability testing. To quote:

It's a miracle that user testing works: You bring people into a room where they're surrounded by strangers, monitored by cameras, and asked to perform difficult tasks with miserable websites. Often, there's even an intimidating one-way mirror dominating one wall. Under these conditions, how can anybody accomplish anything?

In fact, all experience shows that people can and do use websites and other user interfaces during test sessions, and that many valuable usability findings emerge from such studies. Why? Two main reasons: the power of engagement and the suspension of disbelief.

Posted by jamesr at 07:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Survey: Intranet teams

Some of the most commonly asked questions:

• Where in organisations are intranet teams located?
• How big are intranet teams?
• What skills do they have?

The intranet teams survey now being conducted aims to answer these questions. It will take just 5 minutes to answer the small number of questions, and the full results will be publicly shared.

Other issues explored include:

• Are websites and intranets managed by the one team, or separate teams?
• How large are intranets?
• What tools are used to publish intranets?

Thanks in advance for completing this survey, and please spread the word...
(The survey closes on 11 March 2005.)

Posted by jamesr at 07:15 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Intranet Mentoring Programme

I like to think that we know a fair bit about intranets. Not just the usability, information architecture or even IT aspects, but intranets as a whole. Our interest has always been all the elements that go into making an intranet successful (see the Intranet Roadmap as an example of this.)

What you may not have realised is that you can arrange to have us "on call" as advisers, providing a sounding-board for your intranet planning, providing input on best-practice approaches, or putting you in contact with other organisations who are wrestling with similar issues.

Our Intranet Mentoring Programme provides an alternative to the traditional "big bang" consulting that finishes with the delivery of a thick report. In our mentoring work, our sole goal is to give you the additional knowledge, skills and ideas needed to make your intranet truly successful.

Maybe we just touch base once a month for a chat, or you just ring us up when you have a question. It's in your hands. Anyway, if you are interested in this, drop us a line.

Posted by jamesr at 08:44 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Attentional spotlighting in user interfaces

Mike Rundle has written an article on the effect of attentional spotlighting, when conducting "eye-tracking" usability tests. To quote:

Unfortunately, where you are looking is not necessarily where you are paying attention. The spotlight theory of attention states that you can attend to a different section of your visual field than you are currently looking at. This means that even though you are currently looking at this line of text, your attentional spotlight could be on your buddy list to see who just signed on, or down at your Mac OS X dock to notice an application icon bouncing up and down, or even on nothing in particular because you are paying attention to a thought process going on in your head as opposed to what's happening on the screen. Ever read a passage of a book and then realize after the paragraph is complete that you don't remember anything you just read? That happened because your visual focus wasn't in sync with your spotlight of attention, thus your attention wandered and you missed the point of your reading.

[Thanks to Nick Finck.]

Posted by jamesr at 01:51 PM | Permalink
Categories:

Launch of KeyContent.org

A new website has been launched: KeyContent.org. This is designed to provide a clearinghouse for resources relating to technical writing, content engineering (or whatever you call it). To quote from the press release:

A new content management-based Web site, www.keycontent.org, offers a place for online publishing and collaborative authoring that is unparalleled by any related professional association. Formed by a group of communication experts, KeyContent.org is a new non-profit dedicated to sharing ideas between professionals in the front lines of technical and scientific fields. The new Web site includes a wiki-based area for collaborations of any number of authors around the world, with as little as a Web browser to gain access. Mainly a repository of ideas about content engineering and technical communication, the site offers an area for professionals to immediately publish and share articles while still maintaining their copyrights to intellectual material. The collaborative area, where several authors can work together on a draft, makes use of the Creative Commons license for shared material. Another innovation is the databasing of links to other sites to allow reference throughout the site and categorization of links as another resource available on the site.

Posted by jamesr at 01:32 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

CMS do's and don'ts

Kirk Biglione has written an excellent (and practical) list of CMS do's and don'ts. To quote:

CMS doesn't have to be synonymous with failure. There is no doubt that the right CMS, properly implemented, can offer real benefits to organizations of all sizes. The catch seems to be that it's not always easy to find the right CMS, let alone a qualified team with the skills needed for a proper implementation.

[Thanks to 456 Berea Street.]

Posted by jamesr at 12:48 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Full text of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1st edition)

O'Rielly has generously published the full text of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. (Note that this is the 1st edition of the book, and the 2nd edition has been substantially enhanced, expanded and improved.)

[Thanks to Digital Web Magazine.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:20 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Colour Contrast Analyser 0.9

NILS has just released their Colour Contrast Analyser 0.9. To quote:

It is a tool for checking foreground & background colour combinations to determine if they provide good colour visibility. Determining "colour visibility" is based on algorithms suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

"Two colours are considered to provide good colour visibility if the brightness difference and the colour difference between the two colours are greater than a set range." The range suggested by the W3C is > 125 for colour brightness and > 500 for colour difference.

[Thanks to Accessify.]

Posted by jamesr at 03:45 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Folksonomy

D. Keith Robinson has written a blog entry providing a very simple introduction to folksonomy. To quote:

I've been thinking about folksonomies lately and it seems like so have many of you. Since I mentioned them a few weeks back I've had lots of questions about them and there are been much talk about how useful they are (or can be) and where and when they'd provide their greatest use. I've not had time to put too much thought into it, but I'd like to open it up for discussion and see what many of you think about this stuff.

Posted by jamesr at 09:00 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Usability in e-learning

Michael J. Miller has written an article on the importance of usability in e-learning. To quote:

While a large number of organizations have adopted e-learning programs, far fewer have addressed the usability of their learning applications. More attention should be devoted to assuring the usability of e-learning applications if organizations are to fully benefit from their investments.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 08:53 PM | Permalink
Categories: Area Health Service project, Book & product reviews, Conferences & presentations, Content management, Design & usability guidelines, Document & records management, E-learning, E-learning, Information architecture, Interface design, Intranets, James' articles, Knowledge management, Metrics & ROI, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design, Usability & user-centered design, Web development, Weblogs, XML

Predictive usability

Andrew Swartz has written an article exploring the concept of predictive usability, that is, determining whether someone will want to use a product. To quote:

Historically, usability research was focused on identifying obstacles to success, not on assessing how intensely people will desire a new product or service. The field of usability evolved studying how military personnel interacted with weapons systems and how employees used the software their bosses required of them. The goal was to increase efficiency and decrease errors, not necessarily to attract new customers.

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:18 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Not the usual suspects: How to recruit usability test participants

Elizabeth Neal has written an article on how to recruit usability test participants. To quote:

The more usability test participants you can round up, the more likely you are to conduct frequent and effective tests of your Web projects. To that end, it's worthwhile to think carefully about each project's intended audience, hone your sampling and recruiting techniques, improve your spiel, and offer adequate compensation. With a little planning, you can easily round up more than just the usual suspects.

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:06 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Further coverage on the Intranet Roadmap

Martin White has written a review of the Intranet Roadmap:

"There are no current books on intranet development, so this very concise handbook from James Robertson and his colleagues at Step Two Designs is very welcome indeed. The 54 page book sets out with great clarity the way in which an intranet should be set up, and will be especially useful to intranet managers in smaller companies, but in fact all intranet managers would do well to have a copy of this booklet to hand."

"The main sections of the book deal with strategy, design, content, change and communications and technology. The final section deals with techniques such as card-sorting, design patterns, paper prototyping, process mapping and usability testing. For all the sections there are hyperlinks to additional content on either the Step Two Designs site, or on other web sites. The book comes with a large wall chart that summarizes the steps that need to be taken, and would be very useful in project meetings and also pinned to the wall of the intranet team office."

"Although this is quite a short book the amount of practical expertise contained within is very high indeed. This is clearly a book written by someone who has considerable personal experience of intranet development, and the writing style is very clear and concise."

(Review published in Intranets)

Posted by jamesr at 08:38 AM | Permalink
Categories:

IA Progress Grants: intranet heuristic review kit

We've just heard from AIfIA that our application for one of the IA Progress Grants has been accepted! We will be developing a best-practice intranet heuristic review kit, as follows:

We propose to develop a set of heuristics and a heuristic review kit that can be applied specifically to intranets. The heuristics will cover key aspects of information architecture (site structure and search), screen design and layout, content and intranet strategy. The kit will include information on how and when to run the heuristic evaluation, plus limitations of the technique.

The heuristics will be developed using our significant experience with intranets and our deep understanding of the relevant issues from:

• human-computer interaction
• information seeking behaviour
• how people use informational sites

Each heuristic will also include background information on the major issues, which will help practitioners to make valid decisions.

The kit will be made available free of charge via our website and from the AIfIA IA Tools page.

Posted by jamesr at 08:03 AM | Permalink
Categories: Area Health Service project, Book & product reviews, Conferences & presentations, Content management, Design & usability guidelines, Document & records management, E-learning, Information architecture, Information architecture, Interface design, Intranets, James' articles, Knowledge management, Metrics & ROI, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design, Usability & user-centered design, Web development, Weblogs, XML

Developing sites for users with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties

Roger Hudson, Russ Weakley, and Peter Firminger have just written an article on developing sites for users with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties. To quote:

When people think about accessibility of web content, there's a tendency to concentrate on people with visual impairments. People with cognitive impairments and learning difficulties are often overlooked.

This article by Roger Hudson, Russ Weakley, and Peter Firminger, examines the types of problems visitors may encounter when using the web, with insightful and practical suggestions on how to develop websites that are inclusive for people with cognitive impairments and learning difficulties.

Posted by jamesr at 02:51 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design