Gerry Gaffney interviews Ginny Redish about the communication needs of web users, about whether those needs are changing, and about how to meet them. It's not about the words, says Ginny, it's about helping people accomplish their goals. She says that this has led to a change from command-based to task-based communication. Ginny's book is Letting go of the words: Writing Web Content that Works (tinyurl.com/3m5fee). Ginny mentions the forthcoming book by Caroline Jarrett and me - that's Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability (tinyurl.com/44muxd). In the interests of full disclosure, I must point out that both books are in the same series. Ginny also refers to Christensen ; that book is The Innovator's Dilemma (tinyurl.com/4otvnq). Older Wiser Wired (aarp.org/olderwiserwired) is at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). An article by Tom Tullis of Fidelity Investments about designing for older users (tinyurl.com/537ooa) is also online there. Gerry mentions a previous episode with Dave Grey of Xplane (www.uxpod.com/index.php?post_id=238707). (References to individual books on this website are links to Amazon.com - we earn a small commission on any purchases you make on following such links). Duration: 19:55 File size: 3.41MB
In Click for Clients Brief 03, Andy explains how to structure your web site the right way using content silos.Want to learn how you can build your own Small Business Internet Web Marketing machine? Visit us at Click for Clients.
SpoolCast: Followup Q A from The Scent of Information Recorded: July 1st, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 27m | File size: 16 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] Brian Christiansen and I recorded a special episode comprised entirely of questions from our customers. Last week, we held the UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content. During the seminar, we received far more questions than time would allow answering. As is tradition, we put together this follow-up podcast to answer even more of your excellent questions. In this episode, we discussed where you can find your users trigger words, talked about our 7-12 word link recommendation, discussed if you should replace your home page with your site map, and shared some examples of sites that handle long links well. Tune in to hear these and the answers to other questions from our seminar attendees. If you missed our live seminar, a recording of the session is available for viewing. See The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content for details. Still have questions about our research into the Scent of Information? Ask them in the comments below!
Gerry Gaffney spoke to Sam Ng from Optimal Usability in New Zealand (www.optimalusability.com). Sam is responsible for OptimalSort, an online card sorting tool (www.optimalsort.com). Sam speaks about the challenges of balancing user-centred design practices with the need to meet deadlines. Do small development teams really need to use personas? Sam says software can be too convenient if we rely too much on stats to spit out answers. Sam mentions some other products: Morae (www.techsmith.com/morae.asp) Axure (www.axure.com) LiveMeeting (office.microsoft.com/livemeeting) GoTo Meeting (www.gotomeeting.com) Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) Crazy Egg (crazyegg.com) UserTesting.com (www.usertesting.com) BaseCamp (www.basecamphq.com) from 37 signals (www.37signals.com). Thanks to Jo Eaton for the photo of Sam. And apparently if Optimal Usability were a person it would be Jackie Chan (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan) Duration: 17:04 File size: 2.92MB
SpoolCast: What Makes a Great IA with Donna (Maurer) Spencer Recorded: May 27th, 2007. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 33m | File size: 17.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript ] This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Donna (Maurer) Spencer, a world-renowned information architect and owner of the freelance agency MaadMob, based in Canberra, Australia. For nearly 10 years, Donna has been a prominent player in the information architecture world, sharing her experiences for designing some of the most challenging clients around: large government sites. For this interview, I asked Donna, What separates good information architects from great information architects? Donna said that she believes that great IAs can think structurally, can synthesize many inputs at once, can work strategically, and can work in the smallest details. A good IA can get by doing these things very occasionally, or not at all. But, great IAs do all of these constantly, bringing more value to the project. Over the years, Donna has come into contact with some diverse and multi-talented IAs. She noted that one thing they all have in common is they all do more than just information architecture. Donna told us how she keeps herself balanced by also practicing other user experience disciplines, such as interaction design. Donna also suggested that perhaps the strongest skill the great information architect needs is people skills. It s one thing to build a quality taxonomy or navigation system, but if you cannot interface with your own team or the client, you may find your usefulness diminishes greatly. This was a great interview. We had a lot of fun making it and I ll bet you ll enjoy listening to it. This October, Donna present a full-day workshop, Information Architecture Essentials: Best Practices for Organizing Your Site s Content , at the User Interface 13 Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It s a great place to learn what it takes to become a great information architect. We look forward to your questions and thoughts on this podcast. Do you agree with Donna about what it takes to become a great information architect? Is there anything she left out? Let us know what you think in the comments!
Gerry Gaffney conducts a wide-ranging interview with Jakob Nielsen. Is web usability where it's at? Does usability have a say on climate change? Why is the keyboard so popular? Jakob talks about having data propagate to multiple devices, about why government agencies continue to apply an outdated waterfall' model, and about how usability can make developing countries rich quickly and thus improve the environment. He talks about the need to make things easier if you want people to do those things, about future directions in user interaction, and about the need to start small if you're budget-constrained. Jakob Nielsen's website is useit.com (www.useit.com) His company is the Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com). Jakob refers to Microsoft's Ray Ozzie (www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/ozzie/default.mspx) and Groove (www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/10/24/ozzie_interview.html). He also refers to the anti-mac interface (www.useit.com/papers/anti-mac.html). Jakob's forthcoming event is usability week (www.nngroup.com/events/). Jakob's excellent books include Usability Engineering (tinyurl.com/4lsfdv) and Designing Web Usability (tinyurl.com/5ymz5t).
Gerry Gaffney spoke to Patrick Kennedy from Step Two Designs in Sydney (www.steptwo.com.au) about mentoring. What are the benefits - and the pitfalls - in mentoring? The book Patrick mentions is The Tao of Coaching, by Max Landsberg (tinyurl.com/yt8kaj). (Our book links go to Amazon, and we get a small commission from books sold in this way). Check out Patrick's Point of View blog (www.gurtle.com/ppov). Duration: 17:05 File size: 2.93MB
Gerry Gaffney spoke to Celeste Lyn Paul about the state of usability efforts in open source software, and about her card sorting method - the Modified Delphi. Celeste mentioned Open Usability (openusability.org) You might like to check out Celeste's presentation to the District of Columbia (DC) chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association (tinyurl.com/2v2eza) Gerry mentions a previous card-sorting episode of UXpod with Donna Maurer (tinyurl.com/3xzglj) Celeste mentioned Michael Gladwell's book 'Blink' (http://tinyurl.com/235vnd) The spreadsheet that Celeste spoke about is Joe Lamantia's on BoxesAndArrows (http://tinyurl.com/3742xt) Celeste's blog is weblog.obso1337.org Duration: 25:46 File size: 8.84MB
Gerry Gaffney asked Brian Donohue from iQcontent (www.iqcontent.com) about when, why and how to use web analytics. Brian talked about avoiding 'zero insight', and how you can use analytics to understand users, improve your site, and validate success. A few books and resources were mentioned: Web Analytics Demystified by Eric Peterson (tinyurl.com/ys498j) Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik (tinyurl.com/2bnc8d) Google Analytics Shortcuts by Justin Cutroni (www.gashortcut.com) Sitescan (sitescanga.com) Emetrics (www.emetrics.org) Advanced Web Metrics is Brian Clifton's blog (www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/) Occam's Razor is Avinash Kaushik's blog (www.kaushik.net/avinash/) Duration: 22:49 File size: 7.83MB
Gerry Gaffney interviews social media maven Tom Raftery. What does it mean to be a 'social media consultant'? In a wide-ranging discussion, Tom talks about: The meaning and relevance of social mediaWhether bus drivers in Cork will use social media softwareWhy companies should embrace complaint Carbon-neutral data centres Tom's blog is Tom Raftery's Social Media (www.tomrafteryit.net/) You can follow the progress of Tom's carbon-neutral data centre - the Cork Internet Exchange (www.cix.ie/). Tom's presentation on reducing IT's carbon footprint is online (tinyurl.com/2u5bvz). Several venues and conferences are mentioned: Barcamp Galway (barcampgalway.wordpress.com/) Barcamp Dublin (www.barcampdublin.com/) Reboot Copenhagen (www.reboot.dk/) Le Web conference (www.leweb3.com/) Web 2.0 Expo (www.web2expo.com/) DLD Munich (www.dld-conference.com/) Duration: 23:17 File size: 8.2MB
Gerry Gaffney asks Jason Furnell about designing for mobile devices. Along the way, Jason talks about the poetry of movement, the Agile development methodology, and how to navigate a career path in design. He tells us that without a vision, great minds can go to waste; and how high-fidelity wireframes can help communicate a simple vision. Jason's blog is 'the architecture of everything'. (jasonfurnell.wordpress.com) The William Gibson book is 'Spook Country'. (tinyurl.com/2a7mf9) Duration: 20:29 File size: 7.2MB
Peter Morville's career started with an advanced degree in library and information science from the University of Michigan's School of Information. He has since become an internationally recognized consultant and thought leader in Information Architecture and Findability. In this free ranging conversation we discuss some of the issues that his books Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability, address, and the way search and findability are handled on the web today. The conversation is even more interesting because of Peter's library science background. Listen NowDownload MP3 [40 mins, 36Mb] During the conversation we reference the following: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Adam Greenfield Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, David Weinberger Endeca Search Wikia Technorati Tags: Peter Morville, Ambient Findability, Information Architecture, Talis, Podcasting, Talking with Talis
Spoolcast: The Josh and Jared Show - Getting into Trouble Recorded: June 19th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 45 min | File size: 22 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] This week Josh and I talk about all the ways we get in trouble. Whether its speaking in public or writing on our blogs, sometimes we kick up a sandstorm unintentionally. » I attended a conference for the Society of Technical Communication. While I was attending the conference, I blogged that I saw technical writing as an art I see slowly morphing away. Is it telling that the two most popular topics at the annual conference are user experience and interaction design? » Josh has designers and artists riled up with his blog series on Design is not Art. Both sides are represented in his comments, from designers who think design done right is art, and from designers who think design reveals while art conceals. » We also discussed the new FaceBook Platform Apps. These are an interesting case study as more sites consider making a public API to expand their offerings. APIs create an ecology where some sites can expand their usefulness, while other shops can extend their services to an existing community instead fighting the uphill battle of creating one from scratch. We may create more questions than we answer, but never the less it was an interesting discussion. I think you ll enjoy it.
Not sure what Information Architecture is? Learn how to use this important role and skill within a modern Web strategy, from business messaging, search and social media. Chris is the editor of popular IA webzine, Boxes and Arrows, and is well-versed in the industry. Chris can be found from his blog eXperience. Tags: Information Architecture, Web strategy, Boxes and Arrows
What is the current status of Version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Gian Sampson-Wild tells us the story. She also explains how Flickr and Google have used Ajax without sacrificing accessibility. For more on the Maguire vs SOCOG case, see Joe Clark's reader's guide (www.contenu.nu/socog.html). A listener subsequently pointed out a USA case - National Federation of the Blind v Target, as described on the Disability Rights Advocates website (http://tinyurl.com/djrfd) - thanks elDavo. Gian's blog is The Kismet Heuristic (www.tkh.com.au). You can also read her peer review of the Samurai Errata. (samuraireview.wordpress.com) You might also want to check out the WCAG Samurai Group website (wcagsamurai.org). Gian mentions the work of Cameron Adams and Jeremy Keith. Cameron wrote 'AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting' (www.sitepoint.com/article/remote-scripting-ajax) in 2005. Jeremy Keith's book is 'Bulletproof Ajax' (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321472667/informdesign); you can read an interview with him on Digital Web magazine (www.digital-web.com/articles/jeremy_keith_2) ... and the giveaway: Andy Budd of Clearleft (clearleft.com) has donated a free ticket (worth 85 pounds sterling plus VAT) for dConstruct 2007 (2007.dconstruct.org) to a UXpod listener. To be in the draw, send an email to gerry at infodesign.com.au, with the subject line dConstruct, by June 28. Winner drawn on June 30, and notified by email. Ticket is non-transferrable, so please only enter if you or a colleague wish to attend. Duration: 16:40 File size: 11.5MB
Podcast: Christian Rohrer - eBay s Transactions on a Massive Scale Recorded: January 23, 2007 at the UIE Web App Summit Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 1h 02min | File size: 29 MB [ Presentation Slides available here, PDF 2.2MB ] [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] At first glance, eBay is a very simple site: sellers post products and buyers bid on them. A little application originally built to sell PEZ dispensers, eBay is elegant in how simple it all seems to work. But dig a little deeper and it becomes clear how incredible the eBay system really is. A series of tightly coupled web-based applications, eBay provides a system that can handle selling practically any object, from office supplies to automobiles, from computer equipment to software companies. It would be difficult to find a site that completes the same amount of business per minute as eBay. A change that results in a minor dip in sales could equate to huge monetary losses. Given these challenges, how does eBay approach their design decisions? Enter Christian Rohrer, Director of User Experience Research at eBay. In this presentation from January s UIE Web App Summit, Christian provides a peek behind the curtain at eBay s User Experience (UX) process. In this information-packed talk, Christian discusses: » The unique challenges of creating a successful user experience with a sophisticated application like eBay » The UX team s key role in eBay s overall business strategy » The evolution of several eBay UI elements based on solid user research and key business levers » eBay s focus on ROI to justify design decisions » The rationale behind the redesign of areas of eBay.com, including the site pagination and registration process [ Producer s Note: The recording begins a couple of minutes after Christian started his presentation. Despite this small technical issue, we believe this content is far too valuable for you to miss. I think you ll agree. We also expect to post a transcript of Christian s talk in the next few days. Stay tuned! ]
I had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Moran, IBM Distinguished Engineer and co-author of the book: Search Engine Marketing, Inc.- Driving Search Traffic to your company's Web Site. We discuss a number of topics in his book including:
