Information design

As a way of enabling address input, the UK postcode look-up is fraught with danger and is rarely implemented well. As is often the case in UX design, everything is fine until an exception is reached.

Laying down some thoughts about the differences between ACD and UCD and how they can gel together.

I’ve finally got around to redesigning clagnut.com.

Clearleft and Indi Young are putting on a Mental Models workshop.

Here’s the links you’ll need from mine and James’s wireframing presentation at South by Southwest.

I’m presenting Wireframing in a Web 2.0 World with James Box at South by Southwest, with a warm-up Skillswap in Brighton next week. I’m also involved with Singularity, an online conference to be held in October.

We need a talented producer/information architect to join our team in Brighton.

In acknowlegement of CSS Reboot I have created Clagnut 2.0 beta in which I have started exploring APIs and thinking more about tagging.

Mike Stenhouse has written up thoughts on his recent redesign of Donotremove. Of particular note is his zooming content approach in which ‘the information view and relevance on the page zooms out as the page goes down’. Also: Adactio pour Homme.

I just noticed the way John Gruber handles footnotes on Daring Fireball. In particular the little arrow appended to the footnote which sends readers back to their place in the text.

So the election has been announced. This, Election Blog, and other simple choices.

When I started this blog, I built the CMS myself. Not using off-the-shelf software meant designing and building things like next/previous links and comments. But it seems I got it wrong – should I change things and go with convention?

Adam Greenfield has just published an eye opening article for Vodafone’s Receiver magazine where he perverts our current idea of use cases in favour of ‘designing for deception, dishonesty, and other happy facts of human nature’.

th his new blog, Functioning Form, Luke Wroblewski has created a nifty bit of functionality he calls continuum links.

How the new BBC Radio 3 site provides permanent points of reference for an otherwise ephemeral medium.

Peter Morville, co-author of the classic Polar Bear book, has recently launched Findability, a portal to anything and anyone related to findability. Or as Morville puts it: [A] complex query, run against the brains of users, who will hopefully contribute additional ideas,…

Christina has come across a fantastic quote to illustrate the importance and ramifications of good labelling.

City of Sound is a new addition to my blog roll. Written by Dan Hill, it’s a London-centric weblog with a somewhat grand raison d’être.

Mark Hurst tell us that users don’t care where they are and that breadcrumbs are nice but irrelevent. Peter Merholz wholeheartedly disagrees and Christina Wodtke provides a little balance to the argument. Incidentally, Dan Cederholm has posed the question, how best…

Christina Wodtke has created Widgetopia, a collection UI elements, and discusses solving user interface problems – by best practice or common practice?

In a recent Friday Feast, Shirley notes that the new version of A List Apart could benefit from having a site index. A site index is a book-style alphabetical index, such as that compiled by Adaptive Path for PeopleSoft. All information laden sites like ALA would benefit from…

I’ve never been a big fan of sitemaps on Web sites, perhaps because I’ve too often seen them done badly. A recent Boxes & Arrows article explains how to do them properly.

The Disability Rights Commission publishes an inaccessible website demonstration. Try the simulation of a user who has difficulty controlling a mouse. Nielsen argues for separate interfaces for sighted on non-sighted users, saying that auditory methods need a 1-D approach.

The Design Council has published a detailed look at what information design is and what is expected from information designers.

Boxes & Arrows has a great article on the Principles of Task Flow for Web Applications which outlines the concept of views and forms. All the cool kids are doing it, so why not me. Go and buy Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards, or better still get your employers…

This month in DigitalWeb mag, Jeff Lash talks about using Information Architecture to promote business goals as well as user needs: Using information architecture to meet business goals by focusing on user needs not only proves your professional worth, but makes users happy…

It makes for really dull conversation when everyone agrees, but right now a number of people are talking sense and I feel better for it….

Judging of the Guardian Best British Blog began this weekend. And yes, it was the kick up the backside I needed to get the About page up. This compo has other ramifications, particularly if you should win (like you may have to spend the prize money to pay for the extra…

Last month Adobe and Macromedia finally settled their patent squabbles. Perhaps it went like this: Adobe BigWig: Heh, those Macromedia palettes are just like ours! Let’s sue their ass! Macromedia BigWig: That does it! Your element blending & sound technology…

I love the work that goes on over at 37signals; they are all about focussing on the task at hand. And guess what: form does indeed follow function – I firmly believe that easy-to-use things are inherently good looking. For proof, check out the make-over of FedEx’s…

Behind the typeface: Cooper Black – a brilliant satire. A cry for help with a smart quotes algorithm. Typography links including designing logos from ligatures. And how close to the real thing your wireframes should be when presented for user testing.

BlogAmp is a free Winamp plugin that allows you to publish details of songs being played. I will be playing with it soon. This week Jakob tells us how to become Usability professionals, just like him. Experience is the key, my friend. Nick Usborne writes copy for web sites;…

“Ultimately, of course, the users’ performance defines what’s usable. If users can easily accomplish what they want to do, then the design is usable.” Pixelsurgeon Interviews Jakob Nielsen. I have embarked on a project called ukbloggers with Ed from…

Interesting article on how the London Underground presents a metaphor for information architecture. Nicely presented too. Get your clagnut fix. You can now sign up for the less than monthly clagnut newsletter. Summer has finally arrived so I’m off down the beach.

Jakob’s latest rant is his Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability which, while providing useful food for thought, is a desperately transparent plug for his latest book (blast: there’s another plug). Personally I would recommend the Home Page chapter of Steve…