Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Nick Besseling

Nick Besseling — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:12 GMT

Shiv. This is a good article highlighting the new web functionality being commercialised at the moment.

It is interesting though that much of this functionality has been around in various forms before the term ‘Web 2.0’ was coined.

The whole phrase has been adopted by software and Web companies to create another bubble. Anyone with marketing knowledge can see this.

It is also in the interests of consultants to continue the hype to sell services to clients that perhaps don’t really need such things as social bookmarking in their organisations (and other things being touted as ‘Enterprise 2.0’).

I highlight a recent article in ‘Intelliegent Enterprise’ by Joshua Greebaum
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/channels/appmanageme…

Sure it’s an amusing rant but pretty much true as far as I’m concerned.

Legitimising new functionality that is good for organisations is great but I think it is a bad idea to promote terminology and hyperbole that is likely to be widely derised in 5 years time

Nick Besseling — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:21 GMT

I agree with Janine that wireframes should remain as ‘wireframes’.

Essentially whatever documentation you produce should be focused on a task and an audience at various stages of the project.

If the task is to map or test out a site structure then a ‘traditional wireframe’ should be used.

If the task is to mock-up a visual design incorporating a site structure than a more visual approach should be used. These should be flat images so variations can be done easily and designs viewed without the need or a computer.

Then an interactive mock-up (bult in HTML/FLASh etc) can be incorporated to test out UIs and structures (agreed on through the wireframe and visual mock-up) in a ‘live’ environment etc .

In my experience most web/intranet project approaches use all 3 approaches at different stages of the project for different purposes and different audiences. At any stage you can go back and revised previous diagrams/visuals.

Obviously if you are trying to sell a site to management using a wireframe you probably aren’t going to get a lot of imapact and thus a visual mock-up is needed but that doesn’t mean a traditional ‘wireframe’ doesn’t have value and meet it’s initial purpose of planning out the navigation and general site layout.

Nick Besseling — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:39 GMT

Hi Zef.
I like to read about any new approaches to developing good user -focused solutions and this is definitely an interesting one.

Obviously ‘put yourself in a users shoes’ is a fundamental responsibility for any usability/interaction designer etc etc so it begs the question that apart from having a ‘bit of fun’ how is this any different to what normally should be done aside from having to actually ‘act’ the part as opposed to just think the part?

As you mentioned ‘You can’t beat real customers for creating an authentic user experience” and because it should be standard practice anyway I can’t really see how this extra step will actually bring any real additional value especially if your team don’t particluar want to be ‘actors’.

But it is an innovative approach and in some cases I think it’ll work well but in the end it’ll come down to your team member’s personalities more than anything else. I myself would not wish to ‘act’ it out and would prefer to follow the normal utilisation methods of personas instead.
Boring perhaps but I’m not much of an actor…

Nick Besseling — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:28:16 GMT

Having read Boxes and arrows for several years now this is the first article I’ve seen on web accessibility.

Fantastic! About time. There’s a lot of prancing about with analytical studies and overly intellectualising of simple tasks but so little on the fundamentals which many readers likely still neglect.

While the article covers basic concepts that should be well known to anyone designing or planning a website/web based application it continues to shock me that professionals working on large websites for huge companies have a fundamnteal lack of knowledge inb this area.

The key thing about accessibility is not just that it supports a range of users who have major interaction barriers but that it supports ALL users.

Sometimes this can mean something as simple as basic resizing of fonts using browser controls (which takes about a 30 second CSS change to implement) or ensuring a site can be viewed on dial-up modems.

The probelm is that the visual astheics of a site often overtakes the practical nature of interaction and readabilty (the growing stain of using light grey text over black text for example).

Websites, intranets and applications suceedd not because they look good (sure we all want stuff to look good) but on the ability for a user to interact and make a decision or take an action. Any barrier thats gets in the way of this fundamental means the site/app fails to meet it purpose and in turn this affects the bottom line of the organisation it is supposed to support.

Nick Besseling — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:01:16 GMT

Frances. You’re right… it is more about responsibility. I have often taken this responsibility on with little mandate or reward. So let’s say that it is not an individual lack of the fundamentals but more a collective one. Individual;s can’t really be responsibile if budgets, job descriptions and resources are not made available for the accessibility area.

Yes the debate in that area is an interesting one indeed. Frankly I think it is silly to limit the focus and scope of accessibility to just the more extreme ends of disability. Many users have some form of ‘disability’ even it is just simple eyesight problems or some slight colour blindness or even a lower reading age. By limitiing scope it means organisation’s are unlikely to take accessibility on board which then means we need to legislate on web design which can seem over the top to some. If we can ‘generalise’ accessibility it means it is more likely we can help the more disabled users as well. I am a firm believer that the web should be able to reach all.

So it’s best to promote accessibility as just plain common and good business sense rather than a huge hassle and compliance issue which in many cases it turns out to be.

I also think the technical limitations area is still valid. Many countries do not have good internet connections not even considering the lack of broadband. With many people also using mobile devices this too has an impact. Technical limitations are not just old technology but also new technology. It’s why having standards based design and devlopment is important.

But again you’re right that accessibility always seems to be a compromise which is why it is important to have people that advocate for full accessibility. It means that the compromise position of ‘middle ground’ isn’t too far to the other side.

Again great article.

Nick Besseling — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:39:20 GMT

Great article John. Especlally aorund user needs. many times with too much focus on getting technology to work we forget about the importance of delivering usefulness.

The use of meta tags for search engines is a little out-dated.

Most algorythmic search technologies (such as Google) place little value in the use of standard (or non-standard meta tags).

This is actually very positive and valid as content value is actually indexed on what the content ‘actually says’ (and references /links to etc) rather than what the author ‘says it says’.

I still work with content managers that think a well-stuffed meta keywords list will help their ‘searchability’ when in many cases it does nothing or actually works against them.

Indeed Google doesn’t use meta keywords at all anymore and the description tag is used only for result displays only.

Organisations would get far more value out of search by good valid mark-up code (as you’ve suggested) and well structured and organised user-focused content (i.e. using the language the users use for search terms), rather than relying on meta tags.

Generally meta tags are more useful for reference and overall orgsnaistion purposes for content authors rather than search engines and even then with the lack of a defined taxonomy (or even with one) this can quickly fall apart given that many organisations have widely distributed publishing with varying levels of meta-editorial or information structure concern.

In the end we need to consider content/site quality and the people processes that manage this content as much as the structures around the content as increasingly that is where search technologies are looking.

Nick Besseling — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:21:34 GMT

Hi Karl/
I tend agree with Cennydd and Steve.

While your in-depth analysis does really well to point out the limitations of analytics I think the idea that one would replace analytics with a usability expert or vice-vera is a wrong. They both serve different purposes and both have their faults and I really can’t see how they are directly interchangeable.

I also think a lot of the analyitcs software around these days adds a lot more value and are ‘smarter’ than what it used to be.

I see analytics as another tool that adds weight to certain directions and provides valuable trend and user system data.

In the IA/Usability field I tend to feel there is far too many idelogical skews for and against certain approaches (I have been/am guilty of it myself) and feel that collecting all the information (both qualatative and quantative) possible that time/cost allows will be far more helpful in coming up with a suitable direction and solution.

Striking out the only available source of full scale system/user qualatative data (despite the limitations) seems a little strong.

Flexibility and a broad perspective is always the best approach and that nothing should be ruled out (unless it really is stretching the boundries of usefulness).

But depsite these points the article is a useful one as it does point out a log of specific analytic limitations I wasn’t fully aware of.

Cheers.