Topics: User Science: Information Architecture
The semantics of user experience. (Nice, huh?) The art and science of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities, and software to support usability and findability. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape and especially to the web. Figuring out what users need and making it easy for them to achieve their objectives. Narratives of experience. Designing user flow. Pathways of desire. Wireframes, use cases, scenarios, persona development. (25 articles)
Audiences, Outcomes, and Determining User Needs
by Corey Vilhauer
Issue 345February 28, 2012
Every website needs an audience. And every audience needs a goal. Advocating for end-user needs is the very foundation of the user experience disciplines. We make websites for real people. Those real people are able to do real things. But how do we get to really know our audience and find out what these mystery users really want from our sites and applications? Learn to ensure that every piece of content on your site relates back to a specific, desired outcome — one that achieves business goals by serving the end user. Corey Vilhauer explains the threads that bind UX research to content strategy and project deliverables that deliver.
The UX of Learning
by Tyler Tate
Issue 331July 26, 2011
Think of the last time you ordered a book, booked a flight, or bought a car. How did you choose which book to read, where to go for vacation, or which car was best for you? You may have searched online, read reviews, or asked others for advice to help you make an informed decision. In a word, you learned. Learning is a complex process with distinct stages, each with corresponding tasks and emotions. Understanding how users learn can help us design experiences that support the user throughout the entire process. To design better learning experiences online, start by learning a thing or two about learning itself.
Infrequently Asked Questions of FAQs
by R. Stephen Gracey
Issue 303March 30, 2010
We take FAQs for granted as part of our sites’ content, but do they really work, or are they a band-aid for poor content? FAQ-hater R. Stephen Gracey explores the history and usability of FAQs. Learn how to collect, track, and analyze real user questions, sales inquiries, and support requests—and use the insights gained thereby to improve your site's content, not just to write a FAQ. Find out when FAQs are an appropriate part of your content strategy, and discover how to ensure that your FAQ is doing all it should to help your customers.
You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners
by Amber Simmons
Issue 295November 3, 2009
"Content-rich" is not enough. Most websites are not learner-friendly. As an industry, we haven’t done our best to make our content-rich websites suitable for learning and exploration. Learners require more from us than keywords and killer headlines. They need an environment that is narrative, interactive, and discoverable. Amber Simmons tells how to begin creating rich content sites that invite and repay exploration and discovery.
Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients
by David Sherwin
Issue 295November 3, 2009
It's hard for clients to understand the true value of user experience research. As much as you'd like to tell your clients to go read The Elements of User Experience and call you back when they’re done, that won’t cut it in a professional services environment. David Sherwin creates a cheat sheet to help you pitch UX research using plain, client-friendly language that focuses on the business value of each exercise.
Beyond Goals: Site Search Analytics from the Bottom Up
by Lou Rosenfeld
Issue 292September 22, 2009
Top-down analytics are great for creating measurable goals you can use to benchmark and evaluate the performance of your content and designs. But bottom-up analysis teaches you something new and unexpected about your customers—something goal-driven analysis can't show you. Discover the kinds of information users want, and identify your site's most urgent mistakes.
Internal Site Search Analysis: Simple, Effective, Life Altering!
by Avinash Kaushik
Issue 292September 22, 2009
Your search and clickstream data is missing a key ingredient: customer intent. You have all the clicks, the pages people viewed, and where they bailed, but not why they came to the site. Your internal site-search data contains that missing ingredient: intent. Learn five ways to analyze your internal site-search data—data that’s easy to get, to understand, and to act on.
The Elements of Social Architecture
by Christina Wodtke
Issue 279March 3, 2009
While our designs can never control people, they can encourage good behavior and discourage bad. In this excerpt from Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web 2nd Edition, Christina Wodtke tells us how to make products that delight people and change their lives by remembering the social in social architecture.
Flexible Fuel: Educating the Client on IA
by Keith LaFerriere
Issue 273December 2, 2008
IA is about selling ideas effectively, designing with accuracy, and working with complex interactivity to guide different types of customers through website experiences. The more your client knows about IA's processes and deliverables, the likelier the project is to succeed.
Understanding Progressive Enhancement
by Aaron Gustafson
Issue 269October 7, 2008
Steven Champeon turned web development upside down, and created an instant best practice of standards-based design, when he introduced the notion of designing for content and experience instead of browsers. In part one of a series, ALA’s Gustafson refreshes us on the principles of progressive enhancement. Upcoming installments will translate the philosophy into sophisticated, future-focused design and code.
Mapping Memory: Web Designer as Information Cartographer
by Aaron Rester
Issue 266August 26, 2008
The rise of the social web demands that we rethink our traditional role as builders of digital monuments, and turn our attention to the close observation of the spaces that our users are producing around us. It's time for a new metaphor. Consider cartography.
Never Use a Warning When you Mean Undo
by Aza Raskin
Issue 241July 13, 2007
Are our web apps as smart as they should be? By failing to account for habituation (the tendency, when presented with a string of repetitive tasks, to keep clicking OK), do our designs cause people to lose their work? Raskin's simple, foolproof rule solves the problem.
Human-to-Human Design
by Sharon Lee
Issue 240June 26, 2007
Help your audience fall in love with you by moving beyond human-to-computer interfaces and embracing human-to-human design.
Paper Prototyping
by Shawn Medero
Issue 231January 23, 2007
Running with scissors isn't recommended for kids, but it might be ideal for your next big development project. With interfaces becoming more complex and schedules growing shorter, the best prototyping tools may be simpler than you think.
Where Am I?
by Derek Powazek
Issue 221August 8, 2006
It’s 2006 and we’re still messing up global navigation. Derek Powazek gets back to basics and offers a few simple guidelines for getting it right.
Home Page Goals
by Derek Powazek
Issue 211January 30, 2006
Home pages may get plenty of design attention, but that doesn't mean they don't need improvement.
Use Cases Part II: Taming Scope
by Norm Carr, Tim Meehan
Issue 196March 2, 2005
The use-case model can be a powerful tool for controlling scope throughout a project’s life cycle. Because a simplified use-case model can be understood by all project participants, it can also serve as a framework for ongoing collaboration and a visual map of all agreed-upon functionality. Use it to plan, to negotiate, and to prevent scope creep.
What’s the Problem?
by Norm Carr, Tim Meehan
Issue 193January 25, 2005
Freud asked, “What does a user really want?” Ten-plus years into web development, we still don’t know. One of the biggest problems in creating and delivering a site is how to decide, specify, and communicate exactly what we’re building and why. Use cases can help answer these questions by providing a simple, fast means to decide and describe the purpose of your project. In this quick-reading article, Messieurs Carr and Meehan introduce use cases and their, uh, uses.
Slash Forward (Some URLs are Better Than Others)
by waferbaby
Issue 138February 22, 2002
Some URLs are better than others: easier for visitors to remember, easier for designers and developers when it comes time to change the technology that drives the site. Waferbaby neatly and briefly considers the effect of web addresses on usability, design, and ease of maintenance and technological transition.
A Failure to Communicate
by George Olsen
Issue 103March 30, 2001
It’s ironic that, as professionals dedicated to clear communication, information architects and user interface designers are having such trouble communicating with each other. Information designer George Olsen digs up the roots of communication breakdown and explores the three aspects of web design.
The Curse of Information Design
by Scott Jason Cohen
Issue 96January 27, 2001
With the rise of information architecture, user experience consultants, and usability experts, the fate of a website is no longer left to chance, and its design is no longer a function of organic processes. That may be good for business, but is it really good for the web? Scott Cohen has his doubts.
The Art of Topless Dancing and Information Design
by Denice Warren
Issue 93December 20, 2000
Creating a web site makes for all sorts of strange working relationships. What does an information designer have to do to get a little cooperation?
Experience Design
by Bob Jacobson
Issue 77August 18, 2000
It’s time for web designers to peek over the cubicle and start sharing ideas with their peers in related design disciplines. Jacobson suggests one way to do that in this overview of the emerging Experience Design paradigm.
Why IE5/Mac Matters
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 57March 31, 2000
It complies with two key web standards. And leaves out two others. It's IE5 Macintosh Edition, the first browser on any platform to truly support HTML 4 and CSS-1. Its accessibility enhancements put the user in charge, and its clever new features solve long-standing cross-platform and usability problems. All this ... but still no XML or DOM. Zeldman explains what IE5/Mac means to the web.
The Money Page
by Alan Herrell
Issue 40November 5, 1999
Low tech, high yield: A funny thing happened on the way to the shopping cart. One Web designer found a simpler way to make e-commerce pay. Alan Herrell shows you The Money Page.
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