#28259
Diversity is Power for Specialized Sites
Small websites get less traffic than big ones, but they can still dominate their niches. For each question users ask, the Web delivers a different set of sites to provide the answers.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Information Design
#28147
Do Internet Users Want Deep Content or Immediate Gratification?
For a long time I have been an advocate of quality content on web sites. And now I am conducting an experiment that pitches quality content against immediate gratification.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Writing
#28221
Do We Really Need a Site Navigation?
Whoever performed any usability tests knows, that users look straight away at the content. Users first look the pictures then at the titles then at the text. Navigation often gets completely ignored. In my seven years of conceiving websites and monitoring usablity tests I am tempted to say that navigation is useless.
Information Architects Japan (2006). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#18944
Doing a Content Inventory (Or, A Mind-Numbingly Detailed Odyssey Through Your Web Site)
I've spent the last year working with clients on a variety of information architecture and design problems. One of the most strikingly consistent issues, however, has been how many of these companies still haven't developed content management systems. I've spoken with enterprises in the Fortune 100 who find themselves sitting on top of 6 years' worth of Web content trapped in static HTML files. They know they need to get this stuff into database and redesign their site into a template-driven system. But their first question is inevitably, 'So, uh, where do we start?' If you're in a similar situation, your first step is to take stock of what you've got. This process, known as a content inventory, is a relatively straightforward process of clicking through your Web site and recording what you find. We've developed a simple Excel spreadsheet to help you structure your findings, and some tips on how to get through it. Start at your home page. Identify the major sections of your site. For example, at adaptivepath.com, we've divided our site into these sections: team, services, workshops, publications, and contact. If I were doing an inventory of this site, I'd start with one of those sections, click in, and see what's linked from it. For each page that I visit, I'd record the information specified in the columns of the spreadsheet. I'd follow every link and navigate as far as I could through the site, making sure to gather data about every possible page on the site.
Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2002). Design>Information Design>Web Design
#23985
Don't Get Burned by Bad Mapping
The term mapping describes the relationship between a control, the thing it affects, and the intended result. Poor mapping is evident when a control does not relate visually or symbolically with the object it affects, requiring the user to stop and think, 'what's going to happen when I turn this knob?'
Greenwood, Wayne. Cooper Interaction Design (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability
#23057
Dynamic Dueling: Grappling with Java-Based Site Maps
When I compare the usability of the highly graphical MAPA dynamic site map with that of a more traditional text-based table of contents, the traditional approach wins hands-down. You can scan the contents much faster and you don't need a fast connection or a Java-enabled browser.
Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1997). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps
#18849
The Effect of Hyperlink Wording on User Performance 
A Web-based study is underway to examine the effect of the wording of local navigational links in hypertext documents on user performance. We anticipate that more concretely labeled links will enhance user performance, specifically comprehension and perceptions of an informational Web site. In the study, subjects will log in remotely and complete a content knowledge test and background surveys; they will browse a test Web site and complete another knowledge test and a questionnaire on perceptions of the site. Log file data will be collected. Results will be analyzed and presented.
Mobrand, Kathryn A. and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#29493
Effective Search Engine Submission Strategies
Now that you've got a website it's time to start thinking about promoting it. Search engine listings are the number one way to generate traffic to your website.
stevenforsyth.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization
#21730
The Elements of User Experience
The Web was originally conceived as a hypertextual information space; but the development of increasingly sophisticated front- and back-end technologies has fostered its use as a remote software interface.
Garrett, Jesse James. JJG.net (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Web Design
#28354
Enterprise Information Architecture: A Semantic and Organizational Foundation
People disagree on what happens when IAs grow up, but Tom Reamy offers a foundation for information architecture as it advances, grappling with problems across the enterprise.
Reamy, Tom. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Information Design>Web Design
#20124
The Essentials of WWW Page Design
The World Wide Web (WWW) is undergoing exponential growth. Everyone seems to be moving onto the information superhighway: it’s here, it’s now, and you can learn to drive. But before you buckle up, make sure you understand the basics of Web page design. First, make sure your content is suitable. Next, design an overall structure for your site and provide adequate navigation aids so that people won’t get lost. Use visuals to convey information and keep their size to a manageable level. Finally, set the tone on the home page; 'hook' the viewer into exploring your site.
Sabadosh, Nick and Beth Mazur. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#19259
An Evaluation of Document Keyphrase Sets 
Keywords and keyphrases have many useful roles as document surrogates and descriptors, but the manual production of keyphrase metadata for large digital library collections is at best expensive and time-consuming, and at worst logistically impossible. Algorithms for keyphrase extraction like Kea and Extractor produce a set of phrases that are associated with a document. Though these sets are often utilized as a group, keyphrase extraction is usually evaluated by measuring the quality of individual keyphrases. This paper reports an assessment that asks human assessors to rate entire sets of keyphrases produced by Kea, Extractor and document authors. The results provide further evidence that human assessors rate all three sources highly (with some caveats), but show that the relationship between the quality of the phrases in a set and the set as a whole is not always simple. Choosing the best individual phrases will not necessarily produce the best set; combinations of lesser phrases may result in better overall quality.
Jones, Steve and Gordon W. Paynter. Journal of Digital Information (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Metadata
#21293
What if there was a new way of navigating an online information space we've all seen before but just never thought to use? I'm talking about subtracting away information the user doesn't want. Content filtering is a much more natural way of sorting through categories, especially when the majority of your content is under more than one subject.
Evans, Clifton. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Information Design>Web Design
#23098
Automated classification tools can't solve today's large-scale web and intranet indexing challenges alone. Neither can humans. But solutions that integrate human expertise with software products such as Interwoven's Metatagger and Autonomy's Categorizer can provide real value and savings. After a brief introduction to automated classification, this white paper discusses the benefits and limitations of manual, automated, and hybrid approaches. It explores the opportunities for leveraging controlled vocabularies and thesauri to produce more effective indexing solutions.
Hagedorn, Kat. DLib Magazine (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Metadata
#18723
FacetMap is both a data model and a software package, created to let users browse complex metadata while retaining a simple, familiar, menu interface.
FacetMap (2003). Design>Information Design>Metadata>Web Design
#10549
Fast Cars, Fast Food, Fast Access
I tend to sit in my own corner and do what I enjoy doing without too much concern with the latest fad, style or trend. Yet, every so often I do look around the web to see what others are doing, and what, if any, benefit this might have for me. So it was that I came to pick up a copy of 'Flash Web Design, the art of motion graphics' by Hillman Curtis. On page 01:08, Mr. Curtis talks briefly about Multitasking Attention Deficit (M.A.D.), and that web motion designers need to be aware of it. The bottom line was, because of M.A.D. you need to communicate your message in 10 seconds or less.
Torrence, Parker. Digital Web Magazine (2000). Design>Information Design>Web Design
#29953
Firefox 2.0 brought several important changes in its XML support. It's currently reaching its peak in user deployment. Learn about updated XML features in Firefox 2.0, including a controversial change to the handling of RSS Web feeds.
Ogbuji, Uche. IBM (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>Web Browsers
#24494
Flash: Create an Animated Navigation Bar
This exercise will show you how to create an interesting rollover effect with a nested symbol.
Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#21764
Fourth-Generation Hypermedia: Some Missing Links for the World-Wide Web
World Wide Web authors must cope in a hypermedia environment analogous to second-generation computing languages, building and managing most hypermedia links using simple anchors and single-step navigation. Following this analogy, sophisticated application environments on the World Wide Web will require third- and fourth-generation hypermedia features. Implementing third- and fourth-generation hypermedia involves designing both high- level hypermedia features and the high-level authoring environments system developers build for authors to specify them. We present a set of high-level hypermedia features including typed nodes and links, link attributes, structure-based query, transclusions, warm and hot links, private and public links, hypermedia access permissions, computed personalized links, external link databases, link update mechanisms, overviews, trails, guided tours, backtracking, and history-based navigation. We ground our discussion in the hypermedia research literature, and illustrate each feature both from existing implementations and a running scenario. We also give some direction for implementing these on the World Wide Web and in other information systems.
Open University, The (1997). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext>Web Design
#22044
Generating a site plan is an optimal approach to starting your site.
Tech-Writer (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Project Management
#23180
Good Information Architecture Increases Online Sales
This article explains how information architecture can impact the sales process, and how and effective information architecture can help a site flourish.
Walsh, Ivan. SitePoint (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>E Commerce
#29491
The Google Sandbox and How To Get Out
The Google Sandbox is a filter that was put in place in about March of 2004. New websites with new domain names can take 6 to 12 months to get decent rankings on Google. Some are reporting stays of up to 18 months. The Sandbox seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on probation. Similarly, websites that have made comprehensive redesigns have been caught up in this Sandbox. Does this Sandbox Really Exist, or is it just part of the Google algorithm? This has been a big controversy with many different opinions. Most now believe that this is an algorithm. In either case, the Sandbox functions to keep new sites from shooting to the top of Google in just a few weeks and overtaking quality sites that have been around for many years. This appears to be an initiation period for new websites.
Williams, Doug. stevenforsyth.com (2006). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization
#29489
Google Search Engine Optimisation and their 80/20 Rule
Google's increasing use of anti-spam features has meant that optimising websites for Google has become much harder and it's now not just a case of opening your websites source files in notepad, adding some keywords into your various HTML tags, uploading your files and waiting for the results. In fact in my opinion and I'm sure others will agree with me, this type of optimisation, commonly referred to as onpage optimisation will only ever be 20% effective at achieving rankings for any keywords which are even mildly competitive. Those of us who aced maths in school will know this leaves us with 80% unaccounted for.
Callan, David. stevenforsyth.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization
#28844
Guide Site Visitors Forward to the Next Page
All too often web pages, even home pages, provide readers with a variety of choices, but don't really provide a clear way forward. This is particularly true when a site has multiple products or services to sell. But this lack of direction is also evident on some sites which have just a single offering.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2007). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#22863
"Here, Just Stick this Document on the Web": Planning Usable Web Documents
Drawn by the lure of being 'on the Web' and wanting a quick Web presence, corporate clients increasingly ask information developers to take an existing paper document and 'just stick it on the Web.' This request may arise without considering whether the Web is appropriate, whether the document can or will be used in this medium, or whether the target audience even has Web access! If you’re the information developer asked to turn existing information into a Web document, take comfort: your careful analysis and preparation can make the result a usable Web site, not just an information dump.
Collins, William L., Elinor L. Knodel and Michael V. Mahoney. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Information Design>Web Design
