http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Information-Design/Interaction-Design A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Information Design and Interaction Design 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/Design/Information-Design/Interaction-Design http://tc.eserver.org/35228.html http://tc.eserver.org/35228.html When you’re knee-deep in wireframes or CSS it’s all too easy to end up in a bubble of IxD books and blogs. One option is to take inspiration from vintage art and nature, but what about what other smart people are doing in their respective disciplines? In other words, why not steal from them? Here are my picks of a few other fields with ideas worth appropriating, or at least glancing at. http://tc.eserver.org/33571.html http://tc.eserver.org/33571.html Photo albums from previous presentations of Games To Explain Human Factors. http://tc.eserver.org/33292.html http://tc.eserver.org/33292.html Thoughts on interactive architecture, business and design. http://tc.eserver.org/33210.html http://tc.eserver.org/33210.html Evaluation is a fundamental part of human-computer interaction (HCI). Good HCI practice tells designers to evaluate: evaluate requirements, evaluate designs, evaluate prototypes. The purpose of evaluation is to improve the usability of a software system; that is to make it easy to use, easy to learn, effective and enjoyable. But what is usability and what makes one device easier to use than another? Traditional HCI theory has produced a number of evaluation techniques and guidelines. These are based on some basic psychological assumptions which date back to the sixties. http://tc.eserver.org/31874.html http://tc.eserver.org/31874.html The 2008 IA Summit was held April 10–14, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Miami, Florida, shown in Figure 1. It had the highest attendance in the conference’s nine-year history: Over 600 people signed up for the conference run by ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science and Technology). All the signs are that information architecture (IA) is a community and a practice that is growing, and that its sister disciplines—interaction design (IxD) and experience design—are well-represented at the conference—not just in terms of attendees, but also speakers. http://tc.eserver.org/30013.html http://tc.eserver.org/30013.html Visual and interaction design for successful e-commerce Web sites and Web-based applications requires meticulous attention to detail. Because the smallest matters can ruin the user experience, an orderly process--such as usage-centered design--guided by robust principles is needed; iterative testing and repetitive redesign is inadequate to find and address all the diverse matters needing attention. This paper reviews basic principles and then surveys best practices in the detailed aspects of Web design in three broad areas: details of architecture or organization, details of interaction design, and details relating to commercial activity, especially shopping. Specific recommendations in each area are offered as examples of best practices based on usage-centered principles. http://tc.eserver.org/26840.html http://tc.eserver.org/26840.html This is a second edition of the article on using Visio for rapid prototyping for the web. The new edition includes a new and improved version of the GUUUI Prototyping Tool for Visio 2003. http://tc.eserver.org/25839.html http://tc.eserver.org/25839.html While no one would argue that email is useless, continued inefficient management of emails makes email worse than useless—--it makes them dangerous. http://tc.eserver.org/23844.html http://tc.eserver.org/23844.html We stand poised to dive into the new year. What will 2003 hold for the profession known as 'what we do' and its children, information architecture, usability, interaction design, interface design, and graphic design? We asked our authors to hazard a guess. http://tc.eserver.org/23291.html http://tc.eserver.org/23291.html The reason why Visio is the favourite prototyping tool of many interaction designers is because of its ready-made interface objects, you can drag-and-drop onto pages and its ability to link pages together and export them as web pages. But what distinguishes Visio from other prototyping tools is its use of layered backgrounds. http://tc.eserver.org/21744.html http://tc.eserver.org/21744.html AIfIA is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to advancing and promoting information architecture. Founded in 2002, AIfIA has over 400 members in 30 countries. http://tc.eserver.org/19355.html http://tc.eserver.org/19355.html This article covers the design stage that marks the next step in the design process after site visits have been conducted and evaluated: It describes the process of successively deriving an interaction design from the data. The following article describes the creating of an interaction design - one of the most important steps involved in the creation of a user-oriented application system. This step is taken directly after the collection and analysis of data in working practice, gathered during site visits. The user interaction design is derived from this data successively. http://tc.eserver.org/19167.html http://tc.eserver.org/19167.html More than graphic design, more than technical writing, but not really in the information architecture or interaction design space, the ideal information design program combines coursework that may touch all of these fields. This can make it hard for those interested in learning ID to find a suitable degree program (or course, as our friends across the pond like to say). Below are some programs that may be of interest. http://tc.eserver.org/18662.html http://tc.eserver.org/18662.html OVID (Objects, Views, and Interaction Design) is a formal methodology for designing the user experience based on the analysis of users' goals and tasks. Drawn from the disciplines of engineering, it is ideally suited to interface and component-based development. The method is applied after user goals, tasks and objects have been identified, through other means. The output of the method is an abstract diagram that describes the architecture of the desired design, from the users' point of view. The diagram is used in conjunction with the visual specifications to enable implementation of the final diagram. http://tc.eserver.org/13905.html http://tc.eserver.org/13905.html What was intended to be an Interview immediately became an audience with the master. It became difficult to slide in the questions as Cooper began to tear up the rulebook for the technology industry and throw it out. He discusses why Interaction Design is about complete systems architecture and he hits on what's wrong with relational databases; what's wrong with file systems; why Interaction Design is a lot more than Interface Design; and why he really doesn't like Usability much either. http://tc.eserver.org/10380.html http://tc.eserver.org/10380.html The objectives of the study presented here are to help writers and editors better allocate their efforts, increase the discipline’s knowledge about reader performance with technical documents, and examine many text variables in one study. For this study, participants read and recalled one of two technical texts. Results reveal that readers are more likely to recall more important versus less important information. Additionally, readers are more likely to recall information in clauses, in independent clauses, and in the first paragraphs of documents. The implication of these results for writers and editors is discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/10417.html http://tc.eserver.org/10417.html This article first explores limitations of the prevailing concept of document design. Next, it offers a definition of information design—a framework meant to broaden the popular perspective on design in our field. The article then describes in detail the three types of design activities involved in technical communication: physical design, cognitive design, and affective design. Last, this article suggests the strengths and limitations of this framework. Appendixes describe implications of this framework to the teaching of technical communication to majors in the field, to the practice of technical communication in industry, and to research in the field.