Archive for the ‘Design Practice’ Category
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
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When you organise content on a web site, how can you be confident its relevant and clear for your users? The following walk-through tells of how you can ensure you build a site with users’ interests at heart.
What is a taxonomy?
The term ‘taxonomy’ is a bit of a misnomer, having its origins in Biological study denoting sub-species within a species classification. However, in the business sense of the word, taxonomies can encompass a whole range of different elements that, broadly speaking, are ways of classifying content under categories recognised by a user group.
Continue reading “Creating user centred taxonomies” » |
Tags: Taxonomy, taxonomy design, Taxonomy Management, Teragram, User Centred Design
Posted in Collaboration, Concept Models, Design Practice, Information Architecture, Metadata, Personas, Taxonomy, Taxonomy Management, User Centred Design, User Experience, User stories, Wireframes | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 11th, 2008
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Synthesis of research, business culture and product goals ensures a UX team sits in the middle of a web development process. However the team can benefit by not being solely project focused…
User experience is heavily associated with brand experience and as technology becomes less visible and more pervasive, the two elements will converge into one. User experience adds substance to the brand experience – experience design defines the brand.
Continue reading “Extending the experience” »
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Tags: Company Culture, Design Practice, User Experience
Posted in Company Culture, Design Practice, IA emergence, Information Architecture, User Centred Design, User Experience | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
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Published here, the first in a two-part article I have written about the mechanics of creating user centred taxonomies. |
Tags: Information Architecture, Taxonomy, taxonomy design, UCD, User Centred Design
Posted in Design Practice, Information Architecture, Taxonomy, UCD | No Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
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This post started from the ideas of a two-part post written last year by Seth Gottlieb & Brice Dunwoodie. It made me think about a list of tools and techniques that content editors could use whilst editing in a collaborative environment. The post is a point of reference for those involved in the daily running and development of sites that are continually evolving.
Continue reading “Tools and techniques for managing website evolution” » |
Tags: Content Management, Findability, Information Architecture, Metadata, UCD, Usability, User Centred Design, User Experience
Posted in Content Management, Design Practice, Findability, Information Architecture, Metadata, UCD, Usability, User Centred Design, User Experience | No Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
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I recently presented at a conference on the humble wireframe and thought it would be a good idea to run through some key points. I have also noted that some feel the wireframe is dead, though if anything its more alive now than ever. Pay heed to 37 signal’s take on the subject…
If a wireframe document is destined to stop and never directly become the actual design, don’t bother doing it. If the wireframe starts as a wireframe and then morphs into the actual design, go for it.
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Tags: Agile, Design Practice, Design Strategy, User Centred Design, Wireframes
Posted in Agile, Design Tools, User Centred Design, Wireframes | 47 Comments »
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
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A recent article by Alex Iskold brilliantly captures the separations of where we imagine semantic search should be and the reality. Even if it were trying to knock Google off a top spot, what he highlights is that it would be an unnecessary exercise.
Google does its thing very well. Few would argue with that. Alex suggests that semantic search should do something completely different…
Continue reading “The answer is in the interface” » |
Tags: concept, Concept Models, Findability, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Mental Models, Metadata, Semantic search, Tagging
Posted in Concept Models, Design Theory, Findability, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Mental Models, Metadata, Semantic search, Tagging | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Tags: Christopher Alexander, conc, Page Layout, Persuasion Architecture, Persuasive design, Peter Merholz, Peter Morville, User Centred Design, User paths, user pathways, Web Metrics
Posted in Concept Models, Engagement, Optimisation, Page Layout, Persuasion Architecture, Persuasive design, User Centred Design, User Experience, User paths, Web Analytics, Web Metrics | No Comments »
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
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A year ago I was involved in a major restructure of 7 major websites. Each had a new taxonomy and controlled vocabulary created. A clear vision of the direction of each site was drawn up and site maps and wireframes produced. The one problem we had, was there wasn’t a generic metadata schema that was adhered to. It was a combination of ad hoc, legacy tags. Some originated from the SEO team and some from the developers and database administrators on each site.
Continue reading “Building a metadata schema” » |
Tags: Findability, Metadata, search technology, Semantic search, SEO, Tagging
Posted in Design Practice, Findability, Metadata, SEO, Semantic search, Tagging, search technology | 1 Comment »
