Pattern Languages For Interaction Design  

Discusses Christopher Alexander's theories about a group of related design patterns, referred to as a 'pattern language.'

Lombardi, Victor. Razorfish (2000). Design>Information Design>Metadata

PDF Bookmarks: Surveying the Options

Most PDF files do not include bookmarks. This is a pity, because they are so easy to add, and because the real-world usability of longer PDF files suffers significantly by their absence. And there's no shortage of tools for creating and managing bookmarks, as this product survey article explains.

Johnson, Duff. Adobe (2007). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

PDF in Government

Duff Johnson looks at how several federal government agencies use Acrobat and PDF to solve old problems and, in some cases, to create new opportunities.

Johnson, Duff. Adobe (2007). Articles>Information Design>Government>Adobe Acrobat

PDF in Practice: Simple Creation of Electronic Publications, Catalogues and Archives

In electronic media we come across the two 'competing' formats, PDF and HTML. A closer look reveals, however, that the two formats are used with a different aim in mind and therefore cannot be considered as competitors.

Boegler, Peter. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Information Design>Online

PDF Link Usability

Das kennt man: ein ahnungsloser Klick und plötzlich öffnet sich eine mega-lange PDF-Datei. Seitengestalter sind deshalb angehalten Links auf PDF-Dateien zu kennzeichnen. Selbstverständlich macht das inzwischen auch (fast) jeder.

Lennartz, Sven. Dr. Web (2007). (German) Articles>Usability>Information Design>Adobe Acrobat

PDF Prototypes: Mistakenly Disregarded and Underutilized

Creating a clickable PDF to prototype a new design is not a new concept, but it is a valuable tool that is often overlooked and underutilized. While working over the years with other designers, information architects and usability professionals, I've noticed that many of my colleagues believe the same fallacies about the limitations of PDFs. Contrary to popular belief, you can do more than just create links and interactive forms with PDFs; you can also add dynamic elements such as rollovers and drop-down menus, embed audio and video files, validate form data, perform calculations and respond to user actions. PDF prototypes have the ability to replicate most interactive design elements without investing a lot of time and effort.

Pero Soucy, Kyle. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Information Design>Prototyping>Adobe Acrobat

PDF Usability: Debate and Reality

This article examines the claims of those PDF critics and argues that usability complaints about PDF documents are misdirected, and further, highlights some of the key reasons why PDF is the preferred electronic document format.

Johnson, Duff. Adobe (2006). Articles>Usability>Information Design>Adobe Acrobat

PDFs and Accessibility

Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format that allows the page creator to ensure that all fonts, formatting and graphics etc are preserved throughout the document regardless of the platform on which it is being viewed. Due to the control the author has over the style of the document, a number of accessibility problems can be identified.

Draffan, E.A. and Sue Harrison. TechDis (2002). Design>Information Design>Accessibility>Adobe Acrobat

The Pendulum Returns, Part 1: Unifying the Online Presence of Decentralized Organizations

A number of smart businesses are realizing that the organizational characteristics that lead to their successes — such as agility, decentralized decision making, and fast growth — have made their Web sites unworkable through poor development processes and inconsistent user experiences. This frustrates any attempt by visitors to find meaningful information. The irony here is that for day-to-day business operations such decentralized companies have proven much more 'customer-centered' than their monolithic ancestors. By allowing departments to own the customer relationship, these companies rapidly accommodate their customers' particular needs. However, upon migrating their information and services to the Web, such companies typically offered a site organization that simply mimicked the company's structure, inevitably confusing the customer, who was not expecting to see labyrinthine departmental structures that they hadn't realized existed.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design

The Pendulum Returns, Part 2

Last week I argued for the importance of decentralized organizations to unify their online presences. Now, achieving that is much easier said than done. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a handful of companies that have very successful web experiences despite strongly decentralized organizations. We set out to discover what makes these companies’ sites more effective, and found some consistent characteristics.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design

Per un Accesso Multidimensionale all'informazione. O della Classificazione a Faccette

L'articolo fornisce una introduzione al concetto di 'classificazione a faccette', descrivendo: i suoi vantaggi rispetto ai sistemi di classificazione gerarchici; esempi di applicazione al web; un esempio di applicazione alla classificazione dei formaggi.

Rosati, Luca. AIfIA (2003). (Italian) Articles>Information Design>Metadata

Perceived Information Architecture: User Feedback

The purpose of this article is to explain how the Perceived Information Architecture test was used by BBC New Media. The testing procedure is outlined, along with a list of pros and cons of the method. Several actual user diagrams are provided.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2002). Design>Information Design>Case Studies

Performing Information Requirements Analysis: A View from the Top  

Usability engineering, instructional design, technical communication, and business process re-engineering disciplines have long co-existed as distinct entities within the corporate computer world. As companies continue to understand and accept the important relationships among these fields, technical communicators and educators find themselves exposed to a myriad of powerful new techniques that can be adopted for performing information and training requirements analyses. Information and instructional designers can now take advantage of higher-level assessment methods for performing up-front information requirements analyses... Regardless of the method you currently employ, or methods that allow designers to work with clients from a plan to employ in the future, you’ll want to ensure top-down, business 'entetprise engineering' perspective that your resulting data will give you the as never before.

Murphy, Debra-Jo. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Information Design

Personal Identifiability in the Icelandic Health Sector Database  

Personal identifiability is a fundamental question in the ongoing debate about the Icelandic Bill and Act on the Health Sector Database (HSD). If the data are personally identifiable, Iceland's international legal commitments indicate that a priori consent must be obtained from patients for the use of their personal medical information. The HSD Act presumes that one-way coding of personal identifiers renders the data non-personally identifiable and that therefore a priori consent is not required. The history of the debate on the HSD shows that the concept of personal identifiability was initially based on a notion of 'considerable amount of time and manpower' as a criterion for defining personal identifiability. This definition comes from Recommendation R(97)5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on Medical Data. As a result of the Icelandic Data Protection Commission's opinion on the HSD, that concept was rejected and the resulting Bill and HSD Act adopted a definition from the European Data Protection Directive (95/46). The rejected concept, however, reentered with the idea that one-way coding of personal identifiers means there is no key that can be used to trace the identity of a person in the database. The question of what constitutes a key in this context is of fundamental importance. The database will collect and link data from different sources on individuals over time and therefore the method of coding must remain stable. It is possible therefore to construct a look-up table, which constitutes a key. Keys can also be built from comparisons of patterns of family trees as well as by putting generally available information into context The information in the Health Sector Database is personal information. Therefore reason and justice require that a priori consent be obtained from patients for the transfer of their health data to the database as Iceland's international legal obligations stipulate. Anything less is unreasonable and unjust.

Arnason, Einar. JILT (2002). Articles>Information Design>Biomedical

Personas: Matching a Design to the Users' Goals

We hear all the time from designers that they're faced with the huge challenge of designing products and web sites for a large number of different users. Many designers tackle this problem by making the functionality of the web site or product as extensive as possible. To do this, they outline all of the goals of each user, identify any commonalities between these goals, and add all of the functionality needed to satisfy these common goals.

Perfetti, Christine. User Interface Engineering (2001). Articles>Information Design>Usability

Perspectives on Information Retrieval  

This report provides a new look at the business and technology dynamics driving the move to a new generation of search in the enterprise.

Delphi Group (2002). Articles>Information Design>Search

Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-part Framework for Information Design    

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.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Information Design

Planning a Web Project

One of the most important aspects of information design is the planning process. Unfortunately, the planning process is one of the first items to get cut when schedules are tight. Projects that have skipped this step often suffer from problems that are difficult to fix once the site has been developed. For example, sites that have not been planned in advance often contain information that was added randomly and inconsistently, related topics don't link to one another, and readers have a frustrating experience navigating the site.

Kerr, Amy. Orange Journal, The (2001). Design>Information Design>Planning

Planning an Electronic Performance Support System Project  

Electronic performance support systems are programs that directly support a worker's ability to perform tasks. Such systems go beyond passive task-oriented online help. To be effective, EPS systems should be closely interlocked with the supported product's user interface and its online help. This paper outlines some of the planning considerations and steps involved in an EPSS project, and some of the problems and complications that arose during a specific project.

Weber, Jean Hollis. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Information Design>EPSS

Politexts, Hypertexts, and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print

I have twisted the language to contrive the title of this essay because I want to interrogate the future of literacy, both its electronic formations (if indeed these differ from its pre-electronic ones) and its social origins and effects. Hence: I am using the unpronounceable locution e-literacies in two different ways: first, to mean those reading and writing processes specific to electronic texts (by texts, I mean a whole range of digitally encoded materials -- words, sounds, pictures, video clips, simulations, etc.); second, to signify elite-racies as in those socio-economic elites whose interests might be served by electronic literacies of one sort or another, or who might come to be elites by virtue of their ability to shape electronic literacies.

Kaplan, Nancy. Computer-Mediated Communication (1995). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext

The Possibilities Are Wireless: Designing and Delivering Information in the Wireless Space    

Wireless communication is poised to become the next big thing since the advent of the Web. This article discusses the specific challenges associated with designing and delivering information in the wireless world and examines the impact that the wireless exchange of information will have on the creation of business and consumer services. Specifically, the article explores 1. Tools and technologies of wireless communication such as WAP and WML 2. The challenges of wireless communication and techniques to overcome them 3. Methods for designing information for the wireless world The article examines the interrelationship between technology and communication. It should help technical communicators understand the potential of wireless communication, its impact on our profession, and its new possibilities.

Chu, Steve W. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Information Design>Wireless Web>WAP

PostgreSQL vs. MySQL vs. Commercial Databases: It's All About What You Need

Can you trust the leading open-source database engines, PostgreSQL and MySQL, to deliver the performance and features that the Oracles, SQL Servers, and DB2s of the world do? Not just yet, but they could offer enough to meet your needs. Find out how they stack up against each other, as well as against the commercial alternatives.

Conrad, Tim. DevX.com (2004). Articles>Information Design>Databases>Open Source

The Power of Syndication at the Click of a Button

Have you ever wanted to bring the technical know-how of developerWorks straight to your workspace or personalized iGoogle, Netvibes, or My Yahoo page? Now you can with developer gizmos. It's the power of syndication at the click of the mouse: no programming, training, or registration required. Add any developerWorks custom feeds, or a developerWorks spaces portlet as a Google Gadget, Netvibes Module, or Yahoo Widget directly to your preferred syndication mashup, keep up with developerWorks feeds on your Apple iPhone, or download a developerWorks Gadget for Google Desktop with the content you select from developerWorks.

Pfeiffer, Melinda. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>RSS

Powering Pipelines with JAXP  

The JAXP API allows Java programmers easy access to the power and flexibility of XML parsing and filtering and XSLT transformation. However, while many programmers utilize JAXP for simple XML parsing or single-shot XSLT transformation, going further to construct processing pipelines often proves difficult.

Nichols, Thomas. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Programming>XML

Practical Applications: Visio or HTML for Wireframes

Design organizations inevitably run across the debate of Visio versus HTML wireframes. The decision for one over the other is never a clear-cut one since, as with all things IA-related, it depends. This article seeks to sort out the issues by describing the pros and cons of each and identifying situations where one may be more effective than the other.

Gothelf, Jeff. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Visio