Managing the Complexity of Content Management

Content management systems suck. Or so you would think from the strife heard from analysts and practitioners alike. And yet, many websites regularly publish vast amounts of information with superior control and ease compared to manually editing pages.

Lombardi, Victor. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Content Management

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

Measuring the Success Of a Classification System

When working with government and large private organizations on complex information systems, project managers and business representatives often demand early-stage validation that the proposed classification system provides the user-friendly solution they are charged with delivering. They also require this validation in a format that will be engaging for senior business stakeholders.

Barker, Iain. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Information Design>Taxonomy>User Centered Design

Metrics for Heuristics: Quantifying User Experience (Part 2 of 2)

In part one of 'Metrics for Heuristics,' Andrea Wiggins discussed how designers can use Rubinoff’s user experience audit to determine metrics for measuring brand. In part two, Wiggins examines how web analytics can quantify usability, content, and navigation.

Wiggins, Andrea. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Heuristic Evaluation

Mission Statements: Why You Might Want One

I recently started a new job. The group I manage is new and all the people on my team have recently been transferred into this group. Additionally, each person has spent a lot of time in the recent past working on individual, solitary projects, and has not regularly been part of a collaborative team.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Careers>Project Management>Writing

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 the Creative Organization

A few months ago, on the cusp of another reorganization, my boss challenged me to present ideas about how my group should be organized. The challenge: 'If you could organize the group in whatever way you wanted, what would you recommend doing?' Everyone who has ever been a manager longs to hear those words.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Careers>Management

Moving from Flatland to Hyperspace Part I

My entrée into the web world--Spaceland, or 'Hyperspace'--was not a smooth one; in fact, it was downright mind-bending. My personal journey from designing and writing for print media to becoming an information architect for websites conjures up images of Flatland, written by Edwin A. Abbott, an English clergyman, educator, and Shakespearean scholar (1884).

Cole, Meg. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

Moving from Flatland to Hyperspace Part II

The intense focus on the user experience differentiates websites from printed products—and information architects from print designers and writers—more than anything else. Information architects must think like print designers and writers—and they must do what print designers and writers do—on a much bigger scale, in 'N dimensions.'

Cole, Meg. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #1

We're pleased to bring you the first of two excerpts from upcoming second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' The excerpts look at MSWeb, which the authors say provides a glimpse of what most intranets will be doing in three to five years.

Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Software

MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #2

In our second excerpt from the newly-released second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' the authors look at how the MSWeb team succeeded at spreading its gospel through a huge organization like Microsoft when similar efforts at smaller companies often fail.

Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design

The web is awash with sterile design solutions. IBM, Dell, Microsoft, and countless others are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Though one might say this makes browsing easier by virtue of a standardized interface, in reality such sites create mundane experiences for their users and fail to make a positive connection with their audience.

Wroblewski, Luke. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>Color

The New R and D: Relevant and Desirable

Somewhere in the process of evangelizing user-centered design, user experience professionals seem to have forgotten the value of vision-driven design, which can be equally important in making sites and software relevant and desirable. We need to integrate both approaches.

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

(Not) Defining the Damn Thing

Discussions of how we should label ourselves and define our work are like flu epidemics. They break out from time to time, follow a fairly predictable course, and often make us want to barf.

Rosenfeld, Louis. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>Professionalism

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research

With all the attention to usability over the last five years or so and the wonderful swelling of information-architecture-related books just since 2001, you would think we would have enough methods and advice to keep our projects in perfect tack. But so many of these resources, excellent though they are, tend to be more about how to pilot the ship than how to find that all-important star and keep it in sight.

Hinton, Andrew. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods

On a Scale of 1 to 5: Understanding Risk Improves Rating and Reputation Systems

Where would we be without rating and reputation systems these days? Take them away, and we wouldn’t know who to trust on eBay, what movies to pick on Netflix, or what books to buy on Amazon. Reputation systems (essentially a rating system for people) also help guide us through the labyrinth of individuals who make up our social web. Is he or she worthwhile to spend my time on? For pity’s sake, please don’t check out our reputation points before deciding whether to read this article.

Kirtland, Alex. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Social Networking

Opening Pandora's Box: Special Deliverable

In the first of a continuing series, Dan Brown will seek to elaborate on the preparation of deliverables, a crucial component in the maturation of Interactive Design. He will regularly explore the nuances of artifacts and share techniques that can help make your deliverables more valuable to other team members and clients.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Interactive

(Over)simple Answers for Simple Minds

Part of me feels for Jakob Nielsen for the grief he’s taken over deciding to work with Macromedia after declaring 'Flash 99 percent bad.' After all, the pressures and temptations to provide simple answers to complex issues are ones we all face in our professional practices.

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Multimedia>Interactive>Flash

Paradigm Dissonance: A Significant Factor in Design and Business Problems

Identifying paradigm dissonance as a source of problems isn't new, but creating a framework for dealing with this problem in a business and design environment moves this idea in a new direction.

Withrow, Jason and Mark Geljon. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric

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

People Finder: Searching Without Logic? Improving the People Finder Application

One of the most frequent tasks on many intranets is finding people within the company. Providing an effective way to search people is thus a key goal in designing intranets. This goal becomes even more important for an organization like Emirates, a leading international airline, which has over 35,000 employees with over 140 nationalities and where more people are likely to use this feature more frequently.

Deshmukh, Vivek. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Interface

Personalization is not Technology: Using Web Personalization to Promote your Business Goal

Personalization, properly implemented, brings focus to your message and delivers an experience that is visitor-oriented, quick to inform, and relevant. Personalization, poorly implemented, complicates the user experience and orphans content. This article describes what separates the freshness from the noise.

Ricci, Christian. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Personalization

Planning your Future

A few years ago, a manager of mine gave me the assignment to work on a five-year career plan. I had never created a career plan before (not even to plot out goals for the coming year), so I was completely unprepared for how and why I should do this.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Careers>Management>Planning

The Politics of User Experience

Governments hire thousands of employees and spend millions of dollars on contractors to design, build, and operate websites. Chances are good that you will have some exposure to government work, and therefore, some exposure to the politics of user experience.

Fleckenstein, Steve. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Collaboration>Government

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