Jakob Nielsen on IA tasks: "Although usability has improved overall, IA is becoming a sore thumb that's preventing websites from meeting their business goals... Bad IA is now the greatest cause of task failures because it's the stumbling block for getting anywhere on a site. Users try to find their way around a site, and if they're particularly motivated, they might even try again if they fail. But if users are repeatedly led in circles or dumped into no-man's land by weak search, they give up and leave for another site. That's why deficiencies in your IA are costing you a lot of money, right now. "

Metropolis magazine lists 10 tips that IDEO has learnt creating the Ormondale Elementary School in Portola Valley, California. It seems the items in this list have been around for many years now. So the problem is not about knowing what to do, but how to do it. Jay Mathews's book, Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America is a much better read on how to bring change to the classroom. Here are some items from IDEO's list: Change the discourse. If you want to drive new behavior, you have to measure new things. Skills such as creativity and collaboration can’t be measured on a bubble chart. We need to create new assessments that help us understand and talk about the developmental progress of 21st-century skills. This is not just about measuring outcomes, but also measuring process. We need formative assessments that are just as important as numeric ones. And here’s the trick: we can’t just have the measures. We actually have to value them. Teachers are designers. Let them create. Build an environment where your teachers are actively engaged in learning by doing. Shift the conversation from prescriptive rules to permissive guidance. Even though the resulting environment may be more complicated to manage, the teachers will produce amazing results.

Interesting read from Strategy+Business. In this piece author Kenneth Roman describes the business genius of David Ogilvy and the principles he used to build the enduring firm. More than anything else, the glue that held together the organization as it grew around the world was training. Ogilvy used the metaphor of a teaching hospital. "Great hospitals do two things," he said. "They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people. Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world. And as such, it is to be respected above all other agencies."

A UIE article by Stephanie Lemiux: "Faceted search lets users refine or navigate a collection of information by using a number of discrete attributes - the so-called facets. A facet represents a specific perspective on content that is typically clearly bounded and mutually exclusive. The values within a facet can be a flat list that allows only one choice (e.g. a list of possible shoe sizes) or a hierarchical list that allow you to drill-down through multiple levels (e.g. product types, Computers > Laptops). The combination of all facets and values are often called a faceted taxonomy. These faceted values can be added directly to content as metadata or extracted automatically using text mining software."

From Patrick Lambe: Here’s another in our series of video tutorials to different practical knowledge management techniques. It’s taken from a workshop we conducted last week on knowledge audits and knowledge mapping. For ease of use it’s split into three short parts: Different types of knowledge; Different strategies for different knowledge types; and conducting a knowledge audit and building knowledge maps.

Just got a tender requirement spec that had around 200 pages for a 3 page web application. Yes, this video sums up the feeling.

Here is a Flickr archive of their infographics.

Brianna Sylver has written a nice overview of design research methods and then summarizes by showing when to use which method. The comments on this article debate the use of the term 'market research' over 'design research'. I won't fret over vocabulary. If you prefer the term 'design research', just use it in place of 'market research'. Confused already?

Gerry McGovern takes information to task :-): "The world we work and live in is becoming more information-based. What that means is that we complete more and more of the tasks of our lives as a result of accessing information. This information is active, driven, purposeful, and measured. How is it measured? By whether it has helped people complete the tasks that they have used this information to help them complete."

The field of Content Strategy (CS) is galloping forward. Here is a presentation by Karen McGrane where she provides a good framework (slide 80,81) to focus on content strategy. Content Strategy: Content is King!View more PDF documents from Karen Mcgrane.