http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Rosenfeld,_Louis A bibliography of works by Rosenfeld, Louis in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Rosenfeld,_Louis http://tc.eserver.org/35163.html http://tc.eserver.org/35163.html While goal-driven analysis is wonderfully useful, we’ll explore a different, “bottom-up” approach that relies on pattern analysis and failure analysis to help you understand your users’ intent in qualitative ways that complement the top-down approach. http://tc.eserver.org/33351.html http://tc.eserver.org/33351.html Argues that we should focus our design and architectural efforts on the few options that provide the greatest benefit. http://tc.eserver.org/33368.html http://tc.eserver.org/33368.html Enterprise design tasks are typically owned--if addressed at all--by a disjointed collection of business units concerned mostly with their own requirements and politics. The needs of the users of enterprise information and the managers concerned for those users often get left out. That's why I encourage placing enterprise design functions in the hands of a central, stand-alone team or business unit. Such a group has a broad perspective that counterbalances the localised goals of autonomous business units. But our new team will be a cost center; how do we pay for it? http://tc.eserver.org/33174.html http://tc.eserver.org/33174.html Let's start with a single, seemingly simple premise: A website's main page should allow users to find the answers to basic questions. Amazingly, this fairly obvious rule is often ignored. http://tc.eserver.org/33026.html http://tc.eserver.org/33026.html Folksonomies are clearly compelling, supporting a serendipitous form of browsing that can be quite useful. But they don't support searching and other types of browsing nearly as well as tags from controlled vocabularies applied by professionals. http://tc.eserver.org/32925.html http://tc.eserver.org/32925.html How could an $11,000,000,000 company fail so miserably in its e-commerce efforts that it had to turn its storefront over to a relative newcomer? And what is the Big Lesson we can learn from Toys'R'Us' difficulties? http://tc.eserver.org/32926.html http://tc.eserver.org/32926.html Information architect Lou Rosenfeld never thought he'd criticize a website for being over-architected. Then he saw Brint.com and its 16 navigational systems. http://tc.eserver.org/32927.html http://tc.eserver.org/32927.html It's all too common for IT players to emphasize the technology and ignore the information that the technology exists to convey. Take my friendly local cable provider, MediaOne. http://tc.eserver.org/32928.html http://tc.eserver.org/32928.html His own vendor conspiracy theories aside, Lou Rosenfeld knows of three main reason why technical "support" is often not support at all. http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html Website critic Lou Rosenfeld is shopping for a baby present, but the website he's using is making his task tougher than it should be. Lou takes on www.toysrus.com. http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html With April 15th approaching, Lou needed some basic tax information, but Merrill Lynch's labeling system made the easiest answers tough to find. http://tc.eserver.org/32931.html http://tc.eserver.org/32931.html Creating a user interface that is consistent across a website isn't easy. But managers of sites that serve multilingual, multinational users are going to have to rise to the task, however daunting it may be. http://tc.eserver.org/23761.html http://tc.eserver.org/23761.html We're pleased to bring you the first of two excerpts from upcoming second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' The excerpts look at MSWeb, which the authors say provides a glimpse of what most intranets will be doing in three to five years. http://tc.eserver.org/23763.html http://tc.eserver.org/23763.html In our second excerpt from the newly-released second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' the authors look at how the MSWeb team succeeded at spreading its gospel through a huge organization like Microsoft when similar efforts at smaller companies often fail. http://tc.eserver.org/21800.html http://tc.eserver.org/21800.html Information Architect: 1) the individual who organizes the patterns inherent in data, making the complex clear; 2) a person who creates the structure or map of information which allows others to find their personal paths to knowledge; 3) the emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age focused upon clarity, human understanding and the science of the organization of information. http://tc.eserver.org/21756.html http://tc.eserver.org/21756.html This chapter often uses examples of search systems from sites that allow you to search the entire Web, as well as site-specific search engines. Although these web-wide tools tend to index a very broad collection of content, it is extremely useful to study them. Of all search systems, none has undergone the testing, usage, and investment that web-wide search tools have, so why not benefit from their research? Many of these tools are available for use on local sites as well. http://tc.eserver.org/21372.html http://tc.eserver.org/21372.html Discussions of how we should label ourselves and define our work are like flu epidemics. They break out from time to time, follow a fairly predictable course, and often make us want to barf. http://tc.eserver.org/18707.html http://tc.eserver.org/18707.html Until recently, few people had heard of information architecture, which I define as the process of structuring and organizing information so that it’s easier for users to find and for owners to maintain. But go to any major job site today, and you’ll see many job openings for information architects. It’s not surprising: After five years of authoring and coding, many of us are stuck with Web sites and intranets that are huge, messy, unusable and impossible to maintain. With such a great demand for help, there are many inexperienced information architects repeatedly making the same mistakes. In the hope of fast-forwarding global information architecture literacy, here are some of the most common and avoidable errors I have learned from. http://tc.eserver.org/18708.html http://tc.eserver.org/18708.html Yahoo is truly one of the Best of the Net, as it has filled an enormous void in the areas of browsing and searching Internet-based information. So I hope you'll believe that I am truly sad as I predict the death of Yahoo. It seems inevitable, as Yahoo's organization, its information architecture, will collapse under the weight of the high volume of entries. And, unfortunately, searching won't solve the problem of volume.