Learning from the "Powers of Ten"

To most designers, the Eames name brings to mind rows and rows of molded plywood chairs and Herman Miller furniture of the 1950s. But the Eameses were more than just designers of furniture; they were masters of exploration and experimentation into the realm of experience.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Humor>Web Design>Information Design

Lessons from the Medical Community: Physicians Access Patient Information via PDAs

Genesys, a system of medical care facilities in central Michigan, has introduced an innovative way to couple emerging mobile communication technology with sophisticated medical care. Recently, the hospital system introduced the use of hand-held wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) by physicians in its 440-bed system, which is made up of three local hospitals merged into one.

Ficorelli, Cindy. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Information Design>Wireless Web>Biomedical

Liquid Web Design

Glenn Davis once said, 'Webpage building is a lot like bar tending. Build it right and it will work no matter what the container.' I think he was either very drunk when he said that or really on to something. Some people consider the web to be an information resource while others swear up and down that it's a form of entertainment. Web interface design has taken a giant leap in the past few years from the all-too-haunting gray backgrounds and bulleted lists to colorful interactive interfaces and eye-candy. A good web designer knows how to blend just the right amount of interface with information, so that it appears seamless and the navigation almost transparent to the end user. This is where Davis's idea of liquid design comes into play. Through his years of web development, he has come to a conclusion that there are three elements of interface on the web today: those that are Liquid, Jell-O, and Ice.

Finck, Nick. Digital Web Magazine (1999). Design>Information Design>Web Design

Make it Mobile

Handheld devices are everywhere. How can you start delivering Web content that can be viewed on these devices? This article discusses the challenges of writing for these devices, what specific issues are involved. Also included in this discussion is a case study of one organization going mobile and the challenges it faces.

Rose, Emma. EServer (2001). Design>Information Design>Wireless Web

Making Cents from Information Architecture

Discusses the monetary cost of taking a short cut and skipping development of a sound information architecture with proper documentation for later reference.

K'necht, Alan. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Design>Information Design>Web Design

The Making of www.tc-forum.org

There have been tries to put modern software technology to work for our profession. True, we use tools that were created using object-oriented (OO) technology and we even document such programs. But you know the problem: The programmers change 'a single bit' of the program and you chase down all those 39 instances of that change. This paper will give you insights into possible ways to use object-oriented technology by yourself.

von Obert, Alexander. TC-FORUM (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design

A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory

A map-based approach to building a content inventory allows it to be a tool from the concept stages and throughout the life of the website. Patrick Walsh tells us why to use them, shows us how to create the maps, and how to leverage them over the long haul.

Walsh, Patrick C. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Review: Mapping Websites: Digital Media Design  

When we are trying to envision the structure of a Web site, we may sketch diagrams on white boards, create outlines, fill whole walls with yellow stickies. Kahn and Lenk offer many sophisticated ways of visualizing your site. If you are planning a new site or reorganizing an existing site, this book provides an historical context for your information architecture, in-depth studies of complex sites, and a wide range of inspiring diagrams and site maps.

Price, Jonathan R. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>Information Design>Web Design

Maps of Web Sites

Web site maps are created by webmasters and content providers to help users navigate and search complex web sites. A variety of styles of map are used, many based on organisational charts. Presented here are some of the best examples from around the Web.

Cybergeography (2004). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

A Metadata Framework Developed at the Tsinghua University Library to Aid in the Preservation of Digital Resources

This article provides an overview of work completed at Tsinghua University Library in which a metadata framework was developed to aid in the preservation of digital resources. The metadata framework is used for the creation of metadata to describe resources, and includes an encoding standard used to store metadata and resource structures in information systems. The author points out that the Tsinghua University Library metadata framework provides a successful digital preservation solution that may be an appropriate solution for other organizations as well.

Niu, Jinfang. D-Lib Magazine (2002). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Metadata

Mobile Phones: Europe's Next Minitel?

Europe's cellular phone system is far superior to that in the United States. However, telephones will not be the platform for the mobile Internet. Given this, Europe's advantage may in fact be an obstacle to real innovations, as France's experience with Minitel shows.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Information Design>Wireless Web

Mobile: The State of the Art

The world of mobile phones is a jungle of technologies with few established standards that, in some ways, resembles the early days of personal computing. Here the author presents an impressionistic landscape of this world, a glimpse of the near future, and thoughts on what it might mean for IAs.

Smith, Shawn. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Wireless Web

Modeling Information in Electronic Space: An Introduction to This Special Issue    

Organizing content for delivery on the computer screen challenges us to design our information in an imagined three dimensions. As mobile devices respond to the surrounding world, our content also needs to adjust to the real physical environment around our user. Our rhetorical space has changed, and in this special issue, authors wrestle with the ways in which we think, move, and design differently as we explore these virtual and real worlds. One team suggests showing the user the structure of the information gradually in search forms. Another author suggests that merging object-oriented thinking with visual language may offer us a way to consider structure and format together, while granting each its own distinct qualities. Focusing on mobile devices, one author sketches out the challenges we face in this new rhetorical space, and another highlights the idea of embeddedness, the fact that our devices are enmeshed within a content-rich world that we move through. Our final contributor takes us to museums, to

Price, Jonathan R. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Information Design>User Interface>Web Design

Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teaching the Rules of Design  

Monitoring Order looks at two potential sources -- writings about book design and writings about visual arrangement in painting -- for helping teachers of writing think about teaching visual composition for Web pages; both sources are problematic but suggest directions for further study.

Wysocki, Anne Frances. Kairos (1998). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Visual Rhetoric

Naked

Every content producer cowers before twin demons. On one side stands the publisher’s mandate: you must make your deadline. Readers expect it, and readers lose trust if you’re late to market. On the other side stands the editor’s prime directive: you must publish worthwhile material. Readers expect it, and readers lose trust if you publish filler simply because an issue is due. Publish junk once, and you lose a few discerning people. Do it continually, and you lose everybody.

Zeldman, Jeffrey. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Information Design>Web Design

Navigating Isn't Fun

The artless Websites created during the Web's infancy were of necessity built only with simple HTML tags, and were forced to divide up their functionality and content into a maze (a web?) of separate pages. This made a navigation scheme an unavoidable component of any Website design, and of course, a clear, visually arresting navigation scheme was better than an obscure or hidden one. But many Web designers have incorrectly deduced from this that users want navigation schemes. Actually, they'd be happy if there were no navigation at all.

Cooper, Alan. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability

Navigation: An Often Neglected Component of Web Authorship

Web authors should follow web design conventions that account for the variety of ways users will try to navigate through their pages. While usability testing is the best way to ensure your site is really operating as you intend it to, this page offers a basic overview of basic navigation principles that most visitors will expect on most pages that they visit.

Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability

The Need for Web Site Navigation

I know that a Web site with good navigation will put you closer to your goals than one without. The article that follows may give you ideas for adding navigation to your own site.

Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. W-edge Design (1999). Design>Web Design>Information Design

The Organized Web

This document discusses the evolution of the Internet from an unorganized collection of web pages to an organized collection of data. It outlines how XML is at the center of that transformation, and how organizations can take advantage of this evolution with the development of web based services.

Duffy, Scott. XGuru (2001). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>XML

The Page as a Map: Multiple Pathways for Multiple Users  

Can our users and what they need quickly, with the least amount of effort and frustration? How can we make information work for different types of users? We know that 'visual is easier,' but we need to understand how people actually use documents to harness the visual power. This session focuses on a core task:page design for impatient, goal-oriented users. It proposes that visual designs which provide a clear 'map' to the information make user orientation and navigation easier, and provide access options for different users. While the focus is on print, the principles also apply to the electronic environment.

Keyes, Elizabeth. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Personalization

The Paper Mountain Goes Online

Ample research has proved that companies can save many thousands of dollars by rewriting key documents in plain English. Poor communication on the Web and intranet are squandering the time and money of many an organisation.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Minimalism

Particle Physics, Frank Lloyd Wright and Feng Shui: A Walking Tour Through Spatial Web Design  

Although the concept of the internet as a virtual space is not new, after nearly ten years of development, our understanding of web space still remains more textually based than spatial. Because the World Wide Web provides a new kind of information space, we need to understand it in both informational and spatial terms. As such, we can benefit from exploring the shape of cyberspace from an architectural perspective, just as we would other spaces and shapes in our experience. In this discussion I offer a model that views web site design from three architectural perspectives: motion, structure and flow.

Heba, Gary M. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Information Design

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

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