Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Eric Reiss

Eric Reiss — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:46:46 GMT

This is the most intriguing piece I’ve read in ages. Simply wonderful, Grant. Do you have any thoughts on what the common denominator is for the people who call themselves “information architects”? For my part, I’ve long suspected it’s our particular way of observing the world around us – our peculiar way of thinking, our ability to find the “eye of the hurricane.” Perhaps this is why “IA” difficult to define and even more difficult to teach. And it makes me wonder, is information architecture a discipline or a lifestyle?

Eric Reiss — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:51:04 GMT

Amy, you say many important things here. Thanks for an excellent review. However, the first of your two arguments, “A UX process helps build products people want and need,” while true, is not always convincing. This is because the CEO or developer or product manager who dreamed up an idea usually believes that this IS a produce people want and need. Why hire a UX expert just to tell them something they already think they know?

Napoleon put it well when he said, “There are two levers with which one can set a man in motion – fear and self-interest.” Hence, if the CEO or developer is accountable to somebody (or some body) higher up, you can play the fear card quite successfully – “What if people DON’T want or need the product you are promoting? I can help you make sure your product becomes the success you envision.”

Another card you can play is “UX is the key to getting your innovation process moving.” Most companies these days get all starry eyed when they hear the word “innovation.” And true innovation ALWAYS solves a problem. If not, so-called “innovation” will invariably create a problem. And the CEO doesn’t want problems. It’s a back-door kind of approach, but it can be effective.

Sorry to sound so crassly political here, but these are often political decisions. And while money is always an important consideration, contributing to the personal success of the stakeholders is usually more compelling.

Eric Reiss — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:45:37 GMT

I thought this was wonderfully insightful article, but sincerely hope Boxes and Arrows will consider changing the title. The fold is not a myth. It is very real, as you rightly point out (well below the fold) in the third-to-last subsection. And yes, readers scroll – which Amazon and eBay have known for ages. Nevertheless, the fold (on any page) remains critically important.

What we’ve discovered during user testing over the years is that anything that determines site behavior (changing language, text size, adjusting volume, etc.) should be above the fold. Any “you are here” information (page title, breadcrumbs, etc) should be above the fold, as well as any feature used to initiate the visitor’s journey (global navigation, search, sitemap) although these should probably also be repeated in the footer. And as you point out (also in the third-to-last subsection), business-critical links (contact info, key landing pages, etc.) are best placed above the fold.

On the other hand, surveys and polls tend to do much better at the bottom of a page, particularly if they deal directly with page content (in other words, people need to read the page before they can comment on it). And convenience features that refer directly to page content (print this page, tip a friend) generally do better at the bottom of the page, although visitors seem to like redundant links at both the top and bottom of the page even if they only use the ones at the bottom.

Your very last paragraph about the bottom of the page being “the next frontier” is perhaps the most valuable advice of all; when people are through reading, give them a logical place to continue their journey. Like a magician forcing a card on an unsuspecting audience member, good websites discreetly create linear flows through their site. Visitors choose to follow your contextual lead, even though they have the option to move about freely.

I hope you’ll write this article, too, someday. In the meantime, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

Eric Reiss — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:32:25 GMT

Excellent article! I was wondering why you chose to draw several boxes for mouseout behavior instead of just one. Normally, we draw a single large rectangle under the area in question, give it a fill color temporarily, and move it down the layers until the button elements we need to see are visible. We then make the square transparent.

If you make this single transparent layer large enough, you can quickly make duplicate slides and swap out the individual mouseover elements as needed. Naturally, you need to change the target slide for the mouseover behavior of the transparent layer to reflect different actions. But this is much easier than drawing multiple boxes each time you need to create a mouseout routine.

Eric Reiss — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:36:03 GMT

I think a basic car should get me from A to B without hassles. I expect a more advanced car to provide some ergonomic advantages. Search and cars have a lot in common.

We accept that we need to learn how to drive a car. We don’t expect manufacturers to design idiot-proof vehicles that can be driven effectively and safely without a modicum of experience. Could it be that search, despite the most intuitive interfaces, could benefit from a bit of training, too?

I ask this simply because give the same interface (say Google’s basic search), some people get good results and others fail miserably. The variable does not lie in the application but in the skill of the user.

This community spends a lot of time thinking and talking about educational initiatives – usually at the grad-school level. But why aren’t we encouraging grade schools to start teaching search techniques already in the third grade? Why aren’t we introducing grades 3-8 to the basics of IA so they can better organize their ring-binders and MySpace pages? Why should we wait until people are well along a career path to start explaining how all of this works – and why they need it in their everyday lives?

Eric Reiss — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:42:58 GMT

The Savannah event was one of the most interesting conferences I’ve attended in years – you, David Malouf, and the entire committee are to be congratulated on your well-deserved success. But to say that interaction designers merely “design behaviour” is both simplistic and limiting. Something like saying UX designers merely facilitate “endorphin and dopamine release.”

Curiously absent in Savannah were both IA and usability sessions. Hopefully, the recipe for future conferences will include all four of the UX foodgroups you mentioned earlier – HCI, design, IA, and usability.