Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them
Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them - Boxes and Arrows I discovered the concepts in this article while preparing material for an introductory information architecture workshop. In the workshop, I thought it important to highlight that one aspect of designing for users was to understand the ways in which they may approach an information task. I was already familiar with the concepts of known-item and exploratory information seeking: they are common in the library and information science literature and are also discussed in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.
In my work on intranets and complex websites, I noticed a range of situations where people didn’t necessarily know what they needed to know. Additionally, when I opened my browser history to look for examples from recently-visited sites, I noticed that the majority of my own time was spent trying to find things that I had already discovered. These two modes didn’t fit into the concepts of known-item and exploratory information seeking. I call these “don’t know what you need to know” and re-finding.
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searching,
navigation,
user experience
knemeyer.com: Mind: Essays :: Design Vision: Parts 5-8
knemeyer.com: Mind: Essays :: Design Vision: Parts 5-8Design Vision is an ongoing conversation between four industry veterans who want to explore the boundaries and definitions of design leadership today, particularly in digital product design. The first four parts of this conversation appeared on Luke Wroblewski's Functioning Form; parts 9-12 are hosted at Jim Leftwich's Orbitstar Interactica, while the last four parts will debut at Bob Baxley's Drowning in the Current.
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design,
information architecture,
ia
Looks Good Works Well: Slides from eTech Talk
Looks Good Works Well: Slides from eTech Talk I gave my eTech talk today at 12:15pm. I followed an incredible sweeping history of computing by George Dyson.
I kept thinking, wow! how to follow someone like Mr. Dyson.
But the talk seemed to be well received. Most importantly several folks really got excited about the vision that I was putting forth. In a nutshell, a pattern library becames a vocabulary for a tribe. It becomes a nesting place for exposing solutions to help create a passionate design development community.
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UX,
patterns,
IA
Digital Web Magazine - Usability for Rich Internet Applications
Digital Web Magazine - Usability for Rich Internet Applications After struggling for years to design Internet applications around the limitations of HTML, I have been very excited by the recent release of a range of Internet applications with increased richness and interactivity.
Rich Internet applications (RIAs) can provide opportunities to design much better user experiences. They can be faster, more engaging and much more usable. However, this improvement is not without its downside—RIAs are much more difficult to design than the previous generation of page-based applications. The richer interaction requires a better understanding of users and of human-computer interaction (HCI). Although there is a lot of HCI material and research available, it can be difficult to determine how it applies to this new environment.
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ria,
rich internet applications,
ia,
information architecture
Bloug: Design resources from the Design Council
Bloug: Design resources from the Design Council About Design looks like a promising resource; the UK's Design Council has pulled together useful information on a variety of design disciplines, ranging from information design to automotive design. Each section includes a variety of useful components, including definitions, examples, quotes, trends, events information, FAQs, tips, and further readings.
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design,
ux,
user experience,
resources
