October 31, 2006
Info Architect
The information architects’ role is to define the organizational structure and behavior of the web site.1 Steve Krug states as a fact that people won’t use your web site is they can’t find their way around it.2 This makes the information architect the linchpin of all web development and design. Which makes it ironic that Allan Hoffman states that information architects sometimes find it necessary to justify their roles.3
With a lot of web designs and maintenance under the jurisdiction of Information Technology Departments it is not surprising that an difficult job to define poses some problems. Computer positions tend to be analytical and technical and Hoffman says information architects need to be a people person, as well as analytical. James Robertson agrees with Hoffman and said that the information architect needs more people skills than IT skills.4
I imagine it is not always easy to find people that are efficient in both their left brain and right brain roles. Another position that may be similar to the information architect, in terms of scope of knowledge and the ability to get people to work together is the project manager.
1 Wodke, Christina. Boxes and Arrows: Defining Information Architecture Deliverables. February 10, 2001. Sitepoint.com
2 Krug, Steve. Don’t Make Me Think. Berkeley, California. New Riders. 2006.
3 Hoffman, Allan. Information Architects: Web Builders with a Sales Bent. http://discussion.monster.com/experts/hoffman/).
4 Robertson, James. Succeeding at IA in the Enterprise. June 12, 2006. www.boxesandarrows.com.
October 24, 2006
Make it work
We are past the infancy stage on the World Wide Web. The Web is no longer an oddity, or the “new thing.” We have gotten to the point were we want to get on the Web, find what we want, and move on with our lives. The focus is not on the developer or designer; but on the user. Thus, usability should be the first and final factor when designing or redesigning a website.
In 1997, Richard C. Rockwell wrote that “Even just three years ago, the Web was in its infancy, an amazing plaything for some enormously creative people. Now it’s beginning to walk and to talk.1 Rockwell discusses that the Web must be predictable and reliable, have authoritative content, be functional, and built so that the user does not have to learn new procedures for every site that the user visits.1
Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think2 is a book that is solely user-centric. The title, Don’t Make Me Think, is just a nice way to say “keep it simple, stupid.” The book and the article, Usability Testing of an Academic Library Web Site,3 explore how to determine what your Web site should look like by answering the following questions: Who is your audience or users? Why are people going to your Web site? What will they be looking for? How will they use it?
You can design a great looking Web site, all the bells and whistles, but if no one uses it, you just wasted a lot of time and money. When creating a Web site, you also have to take into consideration what type of technology and experience you user possesses. Less frustration will be experience if pages are designed for slower, dial-up access speeds. Also, Lynch and Horton in their Web Style Guide, bring up accessibility standards; creating sites that ensure your pages are accessible to all users. They even provide a Web address for a free site that has a tool to check your site’s accessibility www.cast.org/bobby.4
Think of a building a Web site as the same as building a house. The concepts are the same. What’s your audience? Is it a house for a single person who’s not home much or will it be for a married couple with six children, two dogs and a cat? Do you have an unlimited budget or a fixed amount? The only way to find this out is ask the homeowner, or the Web site user. Formal usability testing3 throughout the design process will help mitigate increases in costs, labor, and time due to redesigns.
1 Rockwell, Richard C. The World Wide Web as a Resource for Scholars and Students, American Council of Learned Societies Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 4, February 1997.
2 Krug Steve. Don’t Make Me Think. Second Edition. Berkely: New Riders, 2000.
3 Battleson, B., Booth, A., & Weintrop, J. (2001). Usability testing of an academic library web site: a case study. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(3), 188-198.
4 Lynch, Patrick J. and Horton, Sarah. Web Style Guide. Second Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Deja Vu
Just this week I was invited to take part in some usability testing for a web site redesign. The testing is what Battleson, et al describes as “inspection.” The two readings, Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think,” and Battleson, Booth, and Wintrop’s “Usability Testing of an Academic Library Web Site: A Case Study” comes in very handy for this assessment of the usability of the proposed site.
October 23, 2006
Witchcraft
A Descendant’s Duty
Mary Sanford Was Hanged As A Witch, And Her Granddaughter (8 Generations Removed) Wants Her Exonerated
October 22, 2006
By WILLIAM WEIR, Courant Staff Writer
(Abridged version)
For the last few weeks, Debra Avery’s dining room home has become the unofficial center for exonerating the women of Connecticut executed as witches.
Avery was surprised at first that the issue has sparked such interest. Now she thinks it’s because so many of the issues brought up by the witch trials still reverberate today.
”In 350 years, we have come a certain distance, but there are still people pointing fingers at each other for being different,” she says.
October 19, 2006
Archived Memory
The reading on archiving all of our documents, photos, etc. hit home this week. Mostly, I think my life is not all that interesting and I have pretty easy access to important documents. Except this week. I think having our medical records recorded on on microchip implanted in our bodies is a great thing. I have been sunk neck high in forms, faxes and other paper work trying to substantiate I’ve been vaccinated against measles. I was re-vaccinated back in 1990. The doctor no longer practices and my medical records are moldering in some archive vault somewhere, unattainable, and useless. If I had those records electronically I could have avoided drawing blood for a titer test and another measles, mumps, rubella shot. Besides the discomfort of the needles, insurance doesn’t pay, and I’m up to $200 in lab & medical cost. We can chip our pets, why can’t we chip ourselves. We could incorporate a password to protect sensitive information and have an automatic I.C.E. function in case we get run over by a car.
October 18, 2006
Video games 101 – The new meaning of online education
I saw this article in today’s CT Post . I found it online in yesterday’s USA Today. Check it out. It gives a new meaning to online education. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-10-17-gaming-education_x.htm
October 17, 2006
Online education goes cellular
Hiltz and Turoff in the article Education Goes Digital approach the concept of online learning in the same light as a new technology or product (2005). They compare the adoption on online education to the adoption of any innovation. They look at qualities, costs, uniqueness, etc. If you take the online education out of the text Hiltz and Turoff’s article may well be about telephones. The technology also allows for new and innovated uses not originally anticipated. For example, taking photos on our mobile telephones.
Traditional models for higher education is labled as a highly regulated industry and the introduction of the Web is beginning to turn it into a deregulated industry (Hiltz & Turoff, 2005). And, with any new deregulation, it is accompanied with evidence of growing pains and the potential for inferior products.
Robert Crandall wrote in The Regulated Telephone Industry in 1999 on how ill prepared the telephone industry was for deregulation. Now seven years later will the explosion of wireless technology and fierce competition, the warnings of deregulation have faded in importance. If online education follows the same premise, will the concerns on the traditional colleges and universities resolve themselves and survive and grow, or disappear.
One question posed by Hiltz& Turoff is whether online accessability make higher education “a right of the citizen as opposed to a privilege for those who can afford it, and what is in the best interests of society as a whole” (2005). Like any successful new product, online degrees and courses seem to have the ability to serve a multitude of choices, it can serve the privileged and the underprivileged.
The Onlineuniversities Weblog features articles and postings, descriptions and reviews, and information regarding online universities. The featured article posted by Rhys Alexander on October 15, 2006 is about offering higher education courses online for inmates in the Ohio prison system. This, like taking photos on our cell phones, may not have been the original intent; but it is a use of the innovation driven by the users. Prisoners would be considered non-traditional students, so a non-traditional learning experience could be a better fit. Also, since prison inmates are a stationary population, only a mobile, wireless technology may be a benefit to them, and with a college education, maybe society as a whole.
October 10, 2006
Second Life – the saga continues
I created a new avatar for Second Life after Tia, my cybergoth female got negative feedback from some of the other avatars. The second avatar I created was more conventional looking, a female better adapted to a music video rather than an anime feature. As the new avatar, I visited some of the places I visited with Tia and some new places. By the end of my adventure I had a few male avatars giving me gifts, a motorcycle, flowers, margaritas, and a pirate costume. I was offered friendships and was taken to a club to go dancing. (If you like clubs like they had in Greenwhich Village in the ’80s, with contemporary music, then I would recommend Bad Girls.) I waited a couple of days and returned to Second Life as Tia, the cybergoth. I went to the club and my male avatar that had given me gifts was there. I went up to him as Tia and tried to engage him in conversation. He was polite and responded, but we didn’t have a dialogue or a connection. Hmmmm. I’m thinking looks do count. When I first explored as Tia, I stumbled into a hard rock, goth club and was warmly welcomed. This was also why I started to look into whether or not we judge people in the virtual world with the same criteria we judge with in the real world. More info later….
Response Paper #5 – I’m so popular!
Clive Thompson hits it right on the head when he mentions the “A-list” in his article Blogs to Riches (2006). The is definitely an elite class in today’s blogs and techno-world.
In fact my first exposure to blogs, primarily Gawker.com, gave me the impression of elitism. I was at a media conference at Reuter’s in New York and Elizabeth Spiers, formerly the founding editor of Gawker.com, presented on the evolution of her blog. Gawker describes itself as “daily Manhattan media news and gossip. Reporting live from the center of the universe.” The Ms. Spiers spent the whole presentation dropping names, talking about parties, socially significant New Yorkers, and how they were recruiting blog readers to become paparazzi (the Gawker Stalker Map). By becoming a paparazzi, blog readers can now contribute and become one of the New York, Hollywood, Jet Set elite, even if it’s just through a star sighting and photo. Also, by contributing you become an A-lister because you’ve posted to Gawker.com.
Second Life also has an elite class. With the ability to upgrade your avatar’s clothing, residence, etc., you very much stand out from the “newbies.” How to upgrade your avatar is not always clear cut. You have to ask someone with an upgraded avatar for advice or how to get upgraded. From personal experience sometimes they share, sometimes they don’t. This was posted by Aimee Weber from the blog Slog: as second life resident blog:
We are all being judged for everything we do, either silently or in the public forum. If we aren’t ready to accept this, then we should just hide under the blankets. Most of us are painfully conscious of the judging eyes upon us, even if only on a subconscious level. When we expose some part of ourselves (like our work) we are secretly asking for public approval. We also feel extraordinarily hurt when our efforts are ripped apart like a dog’s chew toy. But hey, that’s the risk we take when we put our efforts “out there.”
I think Everett Rogers diffusion of innovation theory accurately encapsulates the elitism inherent in the innovator and early adoption category. Innovators are described as enthusiasts and visionaries–early adopters are popular and social leaders. Once the technology is adopted by almost everyone, there needs to be a way to separate the innovators and early adopters to maintain their A-list status. Gawker uses its readers for its Stalker section. By catching stars, etc. around New York City, Gawker separates itself from other static media, and has the potential to catch a real scoop, in real time. With more than 300,000 members, the ability to create new and innovative products, to keep proprietary or sell, gives more technologically savvy participants in Second Life an elitist title.
Whether we like to admit it or not, sometime in our life we want to be A-list, cool, popular, envied.
