How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On the Web

Describes when to use faceted classification on web sites and provides instruction for creating a faceted classification system.

Denton, William. William Denton (2003). Articles>Information Design>Web Design

How to Make Wireless Directory Services Useful

Wireless directory services need to recognize both the limitations and the benefits of mobile phones, by making search results more to-the-point and context-sensitive.

Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Articles>Information Design>Wireless Web

How to Organize a Portfolio

You have collected the pieces you would like to include in your portfolio. You have sorted through your collection and selected your best work. You have made entry cards for each piece to provide a good introduction for each sample. And you are ready to place your work, introduction page, entry cards, section dividers, and give-aways into your new leather portfolio. Where do you start?

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson. Careers>Portfolios>Information Design>Card Sorting

How to Restart Style-Based Numbering

The most reliable way of creating numbered paragraphs is to use paragraph styles to apply the numbering. This makes all paragraphs with the same numbered style belong to the same numbered list, and numbering is continuous through the whole document.

Aldis, Margaret. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Information Design>Microsoft Word

How to Share Everything with Everyone (well, a few things anyway)

We're moving toward a shared network model, where people publish and subscribe. The really appealing sites integrate feeds for a community of users in an invisible, seamless way, making it easy to see what we're all up to.

Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>RSS

HTML, XHTML, Semantics and the Future of the Web

Clarifies exactly what XHTML is, explains why you need to be learning about it from today, and steps through the process of transitioning to the standards based way of marking up for the web, and beyond.

Allsopp, John. Western Civilization (2005). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>XHTML

Humanistic Virtues in Information Graphics

The media, in confronting the challenge of presenting heartrending information and the overwhelming amount of bereavement on 9/11, relied on a quantifiable approach to designing such statistics for mass consumption. Evidently, production inserts keyed in on the bottom of television screens displayed scrolling numbers, sound-byte tracks of seemingly instantaneous gratification in coping with the economy of airtime and awesome amount of news. One could imagine information “tickers” of human tragedy—where numbers surmount, anxiety and anticipation cultivates. Quantitative virtues portrayed in these information graphics argued for numerical clarity in its message; whereby in the days following, the world could have been changed forever, and these momentary glances at numbers assuage how humanity stood frozen at that very moment in time. Nonetheless, today the tickers are gone; numbers are no longer news; families are left bereft; and a war is well underway. The media has retreated to capture screen shots of “Ground-Zero” as it stands in recovery, and the news, while still overpopulated with information, may perhaps be apologetic for the dispassionate exhibit it proposed soon after the catastrophe.

Fukumoto, Dane K.T. Orange Journal, The (2001). Design>Graphic Design>Information Design

Hypermedia: A Design Philosophy  

Few designers explicitly think about their applications' interrelationships. Designers appear not have a deep enough conceptualization of their domains to identify intuitive relationships and realize the full scope and interconnections within domains. RNA (Relationship-Navigation Analysis) gives designers and developers an analysis tool to think about an information domain in terms of its interrelationships. RNA incorporates a complete taxonomy of generic relationship types that would apply to any application domain.

Bieber, Michael and Joonhee Yoo. ACM Computing Surveys (1999). Design>Information Design>Hypertext

Hypermedia Systems in the New Millennium  

This article revisits three past articles about the implications of hypermedia in the 21st century. Each August, the ACM Journal of Computer Documentation reprints a classic article, book chapter, or report along with several analytical commen- taries and a response by the author of the classic document. In this context, a 'classic' document means one that was published at least five years ago but is no longer in print. It also means one that raises issues of lasting importance to the profession.

Waite, Bob. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>Information Design>Hypertext

Hypertext as a Productivity Tool for Technical Writing  

Hypertext is a novel approach to computer-based information management based on associative indexing. The concept in general and the characteristics of typical systems are briefly reviewed. Strategies for applying hypertext techniques to the process of writing a technical document are examined. The way in which hypertext documents are used is discussed, focusing on a commonly encountered problem -- user disorientation within the document. Hypertext-based technical documents are compared and contrasted against their paper-based antecedents.

Lenarcic, John. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext>Technical Writing

Hypertext Functionality  

The Hypertext Functionality field studies techniques for and the impact of supplementing everyday computer applications with hypertext (or hypermedia) functionality (HTF). The HTF approach encourages system developers to think actively about an application's interrelationships, and whether users should access and navigate along these relationships directly. It views hypertext as value-added support functionality. The HTF approach fosters three major areas of research: using HTF to improve personal and organizational effectiveness, HTF and application design,and integrating HTF into applications.

Bieber, Michael, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen and V. Balasubramanian. ACM Computing Surveys (1999). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext

Hypertext Gardens: Delightful Vistas

The attention of the audience is a writer's most precious possession, and the value of audience attention is seldom more clear than in writing for the Web. The time, care, and expense devoted to creating and promoting a hypertext are lost if readers arrive, glance around, and click elsewhere.

Bernstein, Mark. Eastgate Systems (1998). Design>Information Design>Hypertext

Hypertext Reflections  

A discussion of some of the most compelling elements of current hypertext theory. By practicing the theory it preaches, it hopes to explicitly model the theoretical interrogations of the issue.

Palmquist, Mike, Will Hochman, Beth E. Kolko, Emily Golson, Jonathan Alexander, Luann Barnes and Kate Kiefer. Kairos (1997). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext

Hypertext Technology as a Tool for Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW)  

Because of the nature and complexity of collaborative work, there is currently much interest in examining computer support for team endeavors. Hypertext technology is particularly suited to providing such support. Many current hypertext applications support collaborative endeavors in diverse fields. Rensselaer’s Design Conference Room (DCR) is an Electronic Meeting System facility intended to support mechanical and software engineering design teams. Teams meeting or working in the DCR have access to sophisticated networking and hypertext technologies. Careful study of the processes and products of DCR team will contribute to an understanding of how hypertext (and other computer technologies) can best support team endeavors.

Mings, Susan M. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext

Hyperviews Online

News and Information from the Society for Technical Communication's Online Special Interest Group.

STC Online Information SIG. Resources>Information Design>Online>Blogs

I Know What You Mean!   

According to experts, the Semantic Web, an enhancement of the conventional web, is paving the way for new functionalities in future, web-based applications. The possible scenarios that we could face are reminiscent of fiction and cinema, where you just need to think of the question for which we are seeking answers. An invisible assistant would then perform the search.

Sieber, Tanja and Bartz, Wolfgang. tekom (2006). Articles>Information Design

IA再考

2001年のIAサミットを境にIAの理論と実践についてIAコミュニティでかつてない議論が起こりました。この6つの章からなるエッセイは、IAの今までとそしてこれからどこへ向かっていくべきなのか論争に終止符を打つべくJJGが書き上げた渾身のエッセイです。

Garrett, Jesse James. AIfIA (2002). (Japanese) Design>Information Design>Web Design

IA and Usability: When to Start

Information design is supposed to be done from the very beginning, as it's not a cosmetic but a substantial discipline. You are much faster if you hire an information designer in the beginning.

Information Architects Japan (2006). Design>Information Design>Usability

IA Classics: Tools of the Trade in Comic Book Form

'What I need are highly condensed overviews,' I thought, 'like those comic books that convert great literary works into a few illustrated pages. They condense Moby Dick down to 12 pages and provide a version of Great Expectations that can be read in 15 minutes.'

Willis, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design

Review: IA Summit 2007: Part I

In 2006, I attended my first Information Architecture (IA) Summit. It was the best of the many conferences I attended that year, making this year's conference a must-attend event.

Gabriel-Petit, Pabini. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Reviews>Information Design

ia/recon

There is a discipline, known as information architecture; and there is a role, known as the information architect. They have developed more or less hand in hand, and up to now any discussion of one has involved discussion of the other. But now that may have to change.

Garrett, Jesse James. JJG.net (2002). Articles>Information Design

iaslash

iaslash is a news site for information architects, modeled on slashdot, interested in information organization, usability, user testing, user interface design, and other areas related to the access and use of information in information-use environments.

iaslash. Resources>Information Design>User Centered Design>Blogs

IAwiki

IAwiki is a collaborative knowledge base for the topic of Information Architecture.

IAwiki (2004). Resources>Directories>Information Design

IAwiki Index

An glossary of thousands of terms and concepts from information architecture.

IAwiki. Resources>Directories>Information Design>Glossary

IDblog

IDblog is Beth Mazur tilting at power law windmills. A little bit Internet, a little bit technology, a little bit society, and a lot about designing useful information products.

Mazur, Beth. IDblog. Resources>Information Design>Journalism>Blogs