My new article over at PebbleRoad looks at design of site structures: "A good site structure makes users happy. They can easily find, understand and use the information on your site. For the business, this makes all the difference. In this article I’ll go through principles behind good site structures and describe a methodology for creating site structures."

Web Designer Wall has put up a collection of appealing navigation systems: "Web designers always have to strike a balance between usability and visual appeal when designing a website. Without this balance, a website might be nice to look at or difficult to navigate. Or, it might be easy to navigate, but not easy on the eyes. With this in mind, balancing attractive navigation with usability does not need to be overly difficult. To help you generate new ideas and inspiration for user navigation, here are 30 great examples of attractive and usable navigation."

The just announced Google Wave is getting a lot of people interested. The Wave is not just another application, it's a whole new way of using online information. If you have not seen the demo yet, you should. The Wave takes collaboration to a whole new level. When I was watching the collaboration demo, I felt the entire experience was more like an extension into multiple minds rather than the 'switch-type' collaboration we see in the likes of Sharepoint and Lotus Notes. The engagement just felt more organic, more emergent, more fun. There are many people thinking along these lines, Gabor Cselle, for one talk about how to build a business using Wave, and he has some pretty viable suggestions. There are going to be many more ideas around the Wave in the coming days as more people come to grips with a new mental model of working online. These are definitely interesting times.

A inspiring story of how Kicker studio, which started during the recession, is trying to survive the recession. In spite of having a stellar team, they are finding it difficult to get clients. Great story for those who take clients and projects for granted.

Nice post by Seth Earley on the how Groove ended up with Sharepoint and what are we can expect now. Here's a quote worth repeating: "Don’t make this mistake. Collaboration should not be all chaos and without governance. It can be freewheeling and encourage creativity, but that does not mean there are no rules. If you let things go, it will be very difficult to bring under control."

"I love winning. I love the fans, but the bottom line is that I still love the game" 2009, July 26, Quotes of the week. The Straits Times, p.30. This quote has all the 3 parts that I always assign to a job: Dedication to work (skills & knowledge) Dedication to clients (service & attitude) Dedication to profession (giving back, adding to the body of knowledge)

Introduction to metadata Tony Gill, Anne J. Gilliland, Maureen Whalen, and Mary S. Woodley Edited by Murtha Baca An online publication devoted to metadata, its types and uses, and how it can improve access to digital resources. I was about to purchase this book when I stumbled upon this online version (free of course). Here is the TOC Introduction Setting the Stage Metadata and the Web Crosswalks, Metadata Harvesting, Federated Searching, Metasearching Rights Metadata Made Simple Practical Principles for Metadata Creation and Maintenance

Nice collection of accessibility and web development tools. "Ever wonder how usable your site appears to someone with a disability, slower connection, or different setup? This list of tools highlights some of the most useful tools and extensions for making your website more usable."

A very useful article by Jakob Nielsen. His main point in this article is that we need to be wary of how we present usability activities like card sorting to users. If we are not careful, we may be priming them towards an option rather than allowing them to think through the different options. Jakob Nielsen explains his theory by way of an card-sorting exercise. Go ahead and read it.

The ASIS&T Bulletin current issue is on information architecture. There are a number of articles including one by Colleen Jones on The Debut of Usable, Influential Content and another by Christian Crumlish on The Information Architecture of Social Experience Design.

McKinsey Quarterly reports on survey done in June 09 to understand the impact of Web 2.0 inside companies. You’ll have to register (free) to read the entire report. Here are some quotes. "Regardless of industry, executives at companies that use more Web 2.0 technologies also report greater benefits. Comparing respondents’ industries, those at high-technology companies are most likely to report measurable benefits from Web 2.0 across the board, followed by those at companies offering business, legal, and professional services." "Web 2.0 delivers benefits by multiplying the opportunities for collaboration and by allowing knowledge to spread more effectively. These benefits can accrue through companies’ use of automatic information feeds such as RSS2 or microblogs, of which Twitter is the most popular manifestation. Although many companies use a mix of tools, the survey shows that among all respondents deriving benefits, the more heavily used technologies are blogs, wikis, and podcasts—the same tools that are popular among consumers." "Many companies experiment with Web 2.0 technologies, but creating an environment with a critical mass of committed users is more difficult. The survey results confirm that successful adoption requires that the use of these tools be integrated into the flow of users’ work."

Converge Magazine reports on some 3D learning modules used by the Kentucky Community & Technical College System. "But through computers and projectors, 3-D technology allows users to see a person, place or thing as it would appear in real life. This opens the door to a virtual world of possibilities in the classroom, where students can learn about science anatomy, geography, architecture and astronomy by interacting with the content rather than reading about it in a textbook."

Tim O’Reilly writes a short but direct piece on what Gov 2.0 should really focus on. "A lot of people equate the term with government use of social media, either to solicit public participation or to get out its message in new ways. Some people think it means making government more transparent. Some people think it means adding AJAX to government websites, or replacing those websites with government APIs, or building new cloud platforms for shared government services…" "... government agencies shouldn’t just provide web sites, they should provide web services. These services, in effect, become the government’s SDK (software development kit). The government may build some applications using these APIs, but there’s an opportunity for private citizens and innovative companies to build new, unexpected applications."

The Rockley Group has published DITA 101, a guide for authors and managers to understand and use DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). I’m reading it now and so far its been simple and easy to understand. "DITA 101 is designed for authors and managers. We’ve taken our years’ of experience helping organizations to move to DITA and training our clients in creating DITA content and distilled it into an easy to read and understand format. Combined with our expertise in developing effective reuse strategies and adopting content management, this book covers everything you need to know to understand DITA from an authors or managers viewpoint."

Content strategy is really picking up steam. InfoDesign links to 2 articles on this emerging discipline. Content Strategy SIG Content Strategy for the Web Professional I just finished reading Kristina Halvorson’s book, Content Strategy for the Web, which I think should be a must-read for designers. She makes a very good case for content strategy but does not build enough of a case to sell the discipline to the likes of busy managers and the IT department. The case for content lifecycle management will be a tough idea to get across to these folks. This nevertheless must be done. We designers should just be persistent about it.

"A tribesman was transported from a remote mountain wilderness (a society that had not yet discovered the wheel) to a large city. When he returned, he reported that the most significant thing he saw was somebody using a wheelbarrow to carry more bananas than he ever thought possible. He literally did not see the significance of automobiles and skyscrapers. He was not prepared to see them." By Arie de Gaus as stated by Peter Schwartz in Art of Long View, p.g. 33. Good to keep this in mind when dealing with the adoption of new ideas or a new way of working.

This is a good article on how to write the 3 types of page headings: Question heading: A heading in the form of a question Statement heading: A heading that uses a noun and a verb Topic heading: A heading that is a word or short phrase Here is another article on headings by Ginny Redish where she provides many more examples.

Mert Tol has created an exhaustive checklist of all design issues that one should consider before going live. There are points from visual design to architecture to content. Useful to have all these in one page.

Andrei Hagiu assistant professor in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School tries to rationalize why websites are so confusing: "Thus, consumers coming to the supermarket to buy daily staples (say, bread and milk) might be induced to also get expensive chocolate if they have to walk past the corresponding aisle anyway. Shoppers visiting a mall for its anchor store (say, Macy’s) may decide to stop by a small design store while walking around the mall. And while flipping through the pages of a magazine in search of the article promised on the cover, readers are exposed to advertising, which produces most of the revenues." "In the same way, Google faces a subtle issue in designing its search result pages: consumers are mostly interested in the "objective" (i.e., middle) search results, but all revenues come from the sponsored search ads on the right hand side. The result is a compromise between what users want and what produces more revenues. For any given search, the 11th objective search result might be more relevant than any of the sponsored search results displayed on the right; yet it will be displayed on the second search page only—well beyond the reach of most users."

The good folks at Devlearn have given me a journalists pass to attend Devlearn this year. So I am going. While I’m there I’ll also be attending KM World. I think it will be a terrific opportunity to meet the community and make new friends. If you are going as well and if you like to connect do mail me at maish-at-elearningpost.com. Looking forward to these events.

PEP stands for Passion, Experience, People. It's an event where experts share their passions with college students. Nice talks all around. From Chis Rockwell on Mind of Design to Jim Hendrickson on "choosing" vs. "following" your career path.

CNN reports on the increasing awareness and demand for digital ethnography education. "As trained observers of how people in a society live, ethnographers can help companies figure out what people need and then work with designers to meet those needs with new (or more often tweaked) products and services. In a world in which ever more people are using technology products on a daily basis, such skills are increasingly in demand."

A great way to show a technique in action. Patrick Lambe speeds up a video of ‘Ancedote Circles’ and explains steps in the process.