Participatory design is an approach to design that attempts to actively involve end users in the design process to help ensure that the product designed meets their needs and is usable. This approach is focused on process and is not a design style. For some, this approach has a political dimension of user empowerment and democratisation. For others, it is seen as a way of abrogating design responsibility and innovation by designers.
#13552
Beyond the Buzzword: Single Sourcing 
Single sourcing, which has been a buzzword in technical communication for several years, is now emerging as a practical, efficient, and cost-effective method for creating multiple deliverables. You might want to consider single sourcing if you have some documentation projects that repeat, if not every one of your projects is a one-off, if you reuse some of your content, and if your budget planning includes more than just the very next project.
Brierley, Sean. Intercom (2002). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing
#21179
Beyond the FONT Tag: Practical HTML Text Styling
Since its introduction, HTML's FONT tag has been the predominant means of specifying font size, face, and color on the Web. Use of FONT is unfortunate on many counts, not least of which for Web developers is the tedium and bloat of adding, e.g., '...' dozens or even hundreds of times to complex table-based pages. Modem users suffer too: often more than 20% of a typical commerce/portal site's weighty HTML code consists of FONT and its attributes. FONT is slow.
Fahrner, Todd. Cleverchimp (1997). Design>Web Design>Typography
#26943
Men and women don't browse the Web the same way; one should design for both feminine and masculine webs.
Bowie, Jennifer L. Texas Tech University (2003). Presentations>Web Design>Information Design>Gender
#21934
Whether you know it or not, 'database publishing' probably describes some of what you do. Here's how to do it better!
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Databases
#26944
Beyond the Universal User: How to Design for the Universe of Users 
There are problems with non-user-centered/system-centered design. We must know, understand, and work with actual users so that the people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks.
Bowie, Jennifer L. Texas Tech University (2003). Presentations>Web Design>Usability>Personas
#26823
Beyond Usability Testing: User-Centred Design and Organisational Maturity
What lies beyond usability testing? User-centred design, based on ISO standards. We discuss this approach and the organisational maturity needed to put it into action.
Philip, Ross and Rourke, Chris. Mercurytide (2006). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#30009
Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience: Designing for User Performance
The shortcomings and limitations of user-centered and user experience design are considered and contrasted with usage-centered design. The iterative, trial-and-error approach of traditional user-centered approaches is argued to lead to excessive dependence on user testing and user approval, leading to overly conservative designs. By contrast, model-driven approaches based on fine-grained task models have a proven record of leading to dramatic improvements in user performance through innovative designs.
Constantine, Larry L. Constantine and Lockwood (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>EPSS
#22717
Beyond Web Usability: Web Credibility 
If you've been developing websites on Mars for the past few years then you'll be forgiven for not knowing about web usability. You'll still be creating splash intro pages, having pages with massive download times and using more images than you can shake a stick at. Well, back in Earth these days have long gone and today web usability rules the web development world.
Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability
#21444
Computer graphics programs offer you a variety of different tools and functions for your work as illustrators. One function that is provided by all graphics programs is the so-called Bézier curve.
ITEDO Software (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#14308
Bibliographie Informationsdesign
Zur Entwicklung seiner Anliegen nimmt IIID weltweit Kontakte mit Informations-Designern, Beratungsorganisationen und Forschungsinstituten, Universitäten, kommerziellen Unternehmen und design-fördernden Institutionen auf. Organisation des jährlich stattfindenden Symposiums 'Vision Plus' und Veröffentlichung der dort gehaltenen Präsentationen.
Freenet.de. (German) Resources>Bibliographies>Information Design
#21727
Big Architect, Little Architect
First came the primordial soup. Thousands of relatively simple single-celled web sites appeared on the scene, and each one was quickly claimed by a multi-functional organism called a "webmaster." A symbiotic relationship quickly became apparent. Webmaster fed web site. Web site got bigger and more important. So did the role of the webmaster. Life was good. Then, bad things started to happen. The size and complexity and importance of the web sites began to spiral out of control. Mutations started cropping up. Strange new organisms with names like interaction designer, usability engineer, customer experience analyst, and information architect began competing with the webmaster and each other for responsibilities and rewards. Equilibrium had been punctuated and we entered the current era of rapid speciation and specialization.
Morville, Peter. Argus Center (2000). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>Project Management
#20848
Big Boxes and Shoppertainment: More Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design
Explores some tactical issues in structuring and presenting content.
Carliner, Saul. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>E Commerce
#19482
The Big Cocktail: Cognitive and Humanistic Traits of an Information Designer
This paper describes how our experience in striving to hire Information Designers led us to identify the very basic cognitive and humanistic traits that make up a successful technical communicator. It also shows how, once identified, such traits can be used to unveil hidden potentialities which can help turn a non expert candidate into a successful and gratified Information Designer and communicator. This paper focuses mainly on psychological traits, not on technical skills, that have been extensively discussed in a series of other papers.
Zace, Sokol. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Cognitive Psychology
#21724
The Big Dig: Mining Nuggets of Value
It is difficult to apply the lessons learned from e-commerce search interfaces to more complex ones, such as those for libraries or technical material. This article provides a guide to tailoring search interfaces to users with a persona-based approach.
McDaniel, Scott M. User Experience (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#25440
Big List of Blog Search Engines
My new theory on blogging is that whenever I can't find a particular piece of information on Google I should just create it myself. What's the point of all this easy-to-use publishing technology if you don't publish stuff, right?
Aripaparo.com (2002). Articles>Web Design>Search>Blogging
#21285
The Big O: IA Lessons from Orienteering
Several orienteering strategies - including map simplification and contact, navigating by checkpoints, rough and precise map reading, and using attack points to find the goal - have useful IA parallels. Gene Smith explores how IAs can learn from these parallel techniques and create digital spaces that are easier to navigate.
Smith, Gene. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#22700
The analog format of the CRT is challenged by the digital capabilities of the LCD monitor.
Hawver, Mark. Digital Output (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Prepress>Color
#20940
OpenType is an awesome font format. Based on Unicode, and created by Microsoft and Adobe, it will inevitably become a universal standard—sooner or later.
Shinn, Nick. ShinnType (2002). Design>Typography>Standards
#25262
Research shows that low-vision people need dramatically different web design. CSS lets you give them what they need.
Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#21060
Bimodal Distributions Contain Clues
One of the most unusual aspects of data about people and nature is its uneven distribution. Explore the non-normal distribution called bimodal distribution.
Allen, Cliff. Allen.com (2001). Design>Web Design>Statistics>Log Analysis
#10752
If you're printing a booklet, book, or multi-page report you need to plan how the finished product will be put together before you set up your document in your page layout program. For some types of binding it might simply be a matter of ensuring that the margins are wide enough to accommodate the holes for a three ring binder or spiral binding. For saddle-stitching, you may need to compensate for creep. Some bindings are more durable, others allow your book to lay flat when open. You'll also want to weigh the cost of special equipment if you want to do-it-yourself rather than using a local copy shop or printer.
Howard Bear, Jacci. About.com (1999). Design>Publishing>Finishing>Binding
#22682
I like bit-mapped screen fonts. In fact, I prefer old-fashioned bit-mapped screen fonts to anything that ATM, TrueType, or Speedo can throw up on the screen. If we're expected to read documents on screen, we need better type than they can offer.
Will-Harris, Daniel. Typofile (1996). Design>Typography>Fonts>Online
#26008
Line art and stencils from a bitmap? Tough question. If it's line art you're looking for, convert the bitmaps to grayscale, then use the Brightness / Contrast adjustment layers to 'homogenize' your image and clean up edges.
Photoshop 911 (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#23602
Bits and PCs: Designing Icons for Software Interfaces
When creating icons for internationally-marketed software products there are many factors that the icon designer should consider. Whilst the users' needs are paramount, other considerations will influence the final designs. These include the technical requirements and established visual design style of the operating system, legal issues and the avoidance of culturally sensitive images. The process for gathering information, designing, and building icons is also important. To assist the icon designer there are many valuable resources available, these range from reference books, to web resources maintained by the major platform providers, and published International Standards addressing software icons and symbols.
Hodgkinson, Richard N.P. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Graphic Design>International
#14384
Black and White and Red All Over
Color is a powerful motivation and selling tool. We can also use color to improve people’s performance. Color is comprised of hue, value and saturation. When selecting a color scheme for a web site or slide presentation select a pastel background, then a complimentary or contrasting secondary color for accents. Select black or neutral text. Avoid the jelly-bean syndrome of contrasting, saturated, adjacent colors that fatigue the eye. Instead, use bright colors only for accents, not for major areas.
Lisberg, Beth Conney. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Graphic Design>Design
