Boxes and Arrows: Stories by B&A Staff

Chicken Run: Summit Closing: Sunday

B&A Staff — Tue, 26 Mar 2002 05:21:35 GMT

ASIST IA Summit Summary Sunday, March 17 (St. Patrick's Day)

One of several chickens seen in the crowd. (photo Erin Malone)

Sunday morning found 240 tired IAs eagerly grabbing breakfast and pondering the chickens that had been set up in a little farm scene in the conference area of the hotel. All I can say is that a lot of pictures were taken of the chickens (and a few of them even "mysteriously" flew the coop). Panel Business Context of the Information Architecture in Content Management Systems Lisa Chan, moderator, Amy Warner, Samantha Bailey, Paula Thornton, Bob Boiko The panel began with brief intros and bios of the panelists by moderator Lisa Chan. Bob Boiko opened the panel discussion by talking about what IA and CMS have to do with each other. CM systems generate sites and the architecture for a CMS is at the enterprise level involving development of templates and structures that will then render individual sites and structures. If you can generalize and think at the abstract level, if you can map and think larger, then you can practice IA at the enterprise level. Paula Thornton followed and talked about the challenges of working with CM systems due to their immaturity in the marketplace. She illustrated the challenges of vendor selection and shared some strategies and vision for how to work around the vendor offerings. http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/thornton_cm.ppt

Samantha Bailey (photo Erin Malone)

Samantha Bailey presented her views on how a CM system can give more functionality and ease to the IA. She spoke of the challenges of selecting a CM system and the need to prioritize where your efforts go. She warned against letting a CMS solution that makes things easier for the end customer make things more difficult for the internal team that must use the CM system. She closed by stressing the need for synergies and collaboration across all members of the team that will select, implement and use the CMS solution. http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/bailey.cm.ppt Amy J. Warner closed the panel by discussing the importance of maximizing the investment in taxonomy and metadata and how leveraging those elements throughout the system will lead to a higher return on investment in the long run. She made the point that the more time spent at the input stage, appropriately tagging and applying content to the taxonomy, the better the retrieval experience at the output point. The audience then proceeded to ask general questions as well as asking about examples of taxonomies to look at for reference. Peter Merholz (the Bad Peter) polled the audience to see who uses a CMS (20-30) and who was happy with their CMS (4), which led to the panelists talking about the fact that CMS solutions generally are never adequate off the shelf, and must have a lot of customization done to fit the organizational needs.

Case Studies : Parallel Sessions

Jesse James Garrett talks about the IA of everyday things, including the architecture of the popular radio program, "All things Considered" (photos Erin Malone)

The Information Architecture of Everyday Things Jesse James Garrett Jesse James Garrett gave a very interesting presentation in which he dissected elements from the world around us. The premise: IA is all around us. IA is as old as communication and wherever there is information there is architecture. He was making a point, that an IA can reverse engineer just about anything and he used concepts from basic design principles to illustrate this point. He showed a series of slides that illustrated the types of communication and inference a viewer can have when two pieces of information are put together. These slides reminded me of the basic design exercises I had to do when I was in design school: composition, juxtaposition, scale etc. Jesse went on to say that humans are patternmakers and naturally desire to organize information. IA is the juxtaposition of individual pieces of information in order to convey meaning. He then illustrated these points with a series of reverse engineered examples: juxtaposition, implicit architecture, explicit architecture, random access, linear access, non-linear access. The examples were drawn from everyday life -a restaurant menu,the index in Harpers weekly, the program notes from NPR's "All things Considered" and the Land's End catalog. Jesse ended by challenging the audience to take these ideas and translate them to the web, but to beware of the pitfalls around constraints imposed by the medium. He noted that conventions are not necessarily best practices and that user behavior must always be kept in mind. Overall, the presentation was a goodintroduction to information architecture, but there was some concern among the audience - those who came from the design world - that these concepts only add to the fear that IAs must know everything instead of supporting the collaborative relationship with a designer to make an experience. Jesse was also asked by an audience member to spend some more time making examples from more vernacular samples, rather than examples of things that were professionally designed (e.g. The Land's End catalog, the Harper's weekly index). Several audience members recommended good books to check out and Jesse promised to add them to his reading list attached to this presentation. Choosing the Best Path: Techniques for Assessing and Improving Information Scent Jason Withrow Jason Withrow presented the concept/metaphor of information scent. The concept of information scent originated at Xerox Parc and is related to the concept of information foraging, which basically classifies people as infovores that are following the scent of information. Jason discussed how users will continue clicking or working their way through a site if they can still follow the scent of the information or if the scent gets stronger. The user relies on a semantic network of nodes of concepts and connection of terms. This places a strong reliance on a commonly understood vocabulary and synonyms to execute the integral labelling system that provides the scent. Jason points out that information scent tends to work best with focussed information. One example that has proven to help keep information scent existent on pages is the use of "also see" links. Facet Analysis Louise Gruenberg Louise has had a diverse set of experiences from instructional design to library and information science. In this discussion, she gave an overview of faceted classification development. Her talk was very informal and even provided an opportunity for exercises to explain how facets can be derived from a collection of things. These examples included a collection of fruit, science materials for a particular age of girls, and the process of selecting clothing from an online ecommerce site. Gruenberg explained the history of faceted classification - a technique from library and information science in which items can be categorized in more than one way. For example, a piece of fruit might be categorized by taste with "facets" for sweet, sour, etc. and also categorized by color, with "facets" of particular colors. Typically facets are:

are mutually exclusive, representing a characteristic not found in the other facets,
can't be further sub-divided - although this decision is made by the person doing the categorization and is based on how important further sub-division is,
and have non-hierarchical relationships with other facets

But while traditionally librarians have focused on creating mutually exclusive facets, Gruenberg argued that's no longer a critical factor, since database-driven sites make it easy to display information in more than one place - in contrast to the physical world where only one copy of a document might exist. Facets can be used to help information architects analyze the site's content and functionality by various topics or functions, or even by metaphors. For new sites, this is done via a top-down approach, while a bottom-up approach works better for overhauling existing sites, Gruenberg said.

Lou Rosenfeld and Erica Bruce lunch (photo Joe Sokohl)

Following the parallel sessions, another fun chicken lunch was served so slowly that many attendees were barely served before the hour was over. Despite the food, the level of conversation was more animated than the day before and it was obvious that old and new friends were enjoying the dissection of our craft and had a lot of things to say. Case Studies : Parallel Sessions New Roles in Information Architecture Peter Morville, Semantic Studios http://semanticstudios.com/events/ia2002/ Peter began the presentation by reviewing the distinction of the "good Peter" and the "bad Peter." Peter Morville claimed to be "good Peter" and Peter Merholz the "bad Peter." There is a long history of both of these Peters having different opinions on the definition of an information architect. But the central thought of his talk was the next generation of information architects and the titles and roles they will have in the coming years. There is a glut of information and IAs should begin taking an entrepreneurial role in applying what they have been doing for the web across the enterprise. Education and Information Architecture Andrew Dillon, Rong Tang, Karl Fast, David Robins, Louise Gruenberg Moderated by Andrew Dillon, the Education panel presented a diverse set of quick presentations around the current and future information architecture curriculum. David Robins presented the cross disciplinary program that has been developed at Kent State University. Rong Tong presented a survey of IA courses and certificates offered across the 54 ALA accredited LIS (Library and InformationSciences) schools in the country. She did not offer any assessment of IA courses offered through design schools. She also surveyed the course objectives and statements to gain an understanding of the type of content to be covered by these courses.

Karl Fast talks about his experience at LIS school. (photo Erin Malone)

Karl Fast shared his current experience with the LIS program in which he's enrolled and warned about the perspective from which the courses are being taught. The LIS program has not pulled itself out of the old world of Libraries and physical books and card catalogs. The curriculum needs to be taught with a richer perspective as to how and where the skills can be applied. Louise Gruenberg offered the audience a series of questions and asked for small groups to discuss them. The groups were asked to share their answer to one of the questions with everyone. It was interesting to see that each group ended up taking a different question and everyone felt that schools need to be multidisciplinary in their teaching approach and that practitioners need to be part of the faculty. The floor was then opened up for questions.

Steve Mulder, Nam-Ho Park and Louise Gruenberg are a few who took advantage of Five Minute Madness and spoke their mind. (photos Erin Malone)

Five Minute Madness Gary Marchianini, moderator Five minute madness is the opportunity for all summit attendees, excluding presenters, to have five minutes to speak. The speaker could give a presentation-and in this case we saw two, Rashmi Sinha presented a brief overview of the faceted classification system designed for Flamenco, and Matt Jones (who broke the "no presenter" rule) gave a brief presentation. Or they could just take the microphone and speak their mind, offer insights or ask questions of the audience. There were 17 people brave enough to get up and speak and the topics covered everything from Brad Lauster thanking the people he had met to Jeff Lash putting an invitation out on the table for IAs involved in intranets to join the Yahoo group of intranet IAs, to Tony Bull, a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill feeling wishful that he could take the title IA, but he didn't see it yet because of the uneven acceptance of IA as a title to David Austen reminding everyone that the SIGIA-L list has a website to Thomas Pole, an engineer, challenging us (IAs) to not let engineers get away with it when they say they can't make something to Don Kraft thanking us for letting him learn about information architecture. It was a diverse set of people who spoke on a wide range of offerings. It was also one of the neatest things about this conference. Wrap Up Andrew Dillon Andrew Dillon closed the summit with some thoughts about where we started on Saturday morning. He felt we have a community, which was exhibited by all who attended and included an international presence. We are beyond definition. There is evidence of progress, shown by the case studies which were not all rosy and perfect, shown by the discussions around IA in education and IA in business relationships and by the types of topics discussed over the weekend - Metadata to metaphors, ROI and ethic, usability and facet analysis. He concluded by saying that there would be an IA summit in 2003 and that Christina Wodtke would lead the planning efforts. Dillon also reminded us of other community initiatives-Boxes and Arrows, SIGIA-L, the info-arch.org group, the special ASIS Journal coming out in August that will be devoted solely to IA and all the books and new editions being worked on by many of the attendees. The committee for 2002 was thanked again and the 2002 IA Summit drew to a close.

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Most of of the observations in this piece were written by Erin Malone. Since chickens can't write and one person can't attend three parallel sessions, other portions were written by Lisa Chan, George Olsen, Thomas Vander Wal and Christina Wodtke.

Summit Beginnings: Saturday

B&A Staff — Tue, 26 Mar 2002 05:23:22 GMT

ASIST IA Summit Summary Baltimore Maryland 15-17 March, 2002 The 2002 Summit in Baltimore has come and gone. Boxes and Arrows was in attendance covering the events, the social mixing and the controversies. Throughout the summit we made some new friends and took a lot of pictures. We hope that those who attended will share their stories as well.

Izumi Oku, Matt Jones and Brad Lauster demonstrate the international IA gang sign. (photo Christina Wodtke)

Friday, March 15 The summit kicked off with the traditional Friday evening cocktail hour. Tentative attendees came together, introduced themselves, had a drink or two and as easily as they flew into town, became fast friends. The evening was marked by continuous exchanges of exclamations as badges were read and email correspondents from the SIGIA-L list met in person for the first time. Large groups of people peeled off together for dinner and more socializing. The summit had officially begun. Saturday, March 16 Saturday's events began much too early for many but most of us managed to be there on time. After a brief breakfast there was a short intro by Richard Hill, - who took a moment to introduce the inter-organizational (ASIST, CHI, AIGA and STC) group formed to address the cross organizational issues and needs of the IA community. Then Andrew Dillon took the stage and began with an overview of the summit's history. He introduced and thanked the committee members for their work in planning the summit and described some of the challenges they faced as a committee. He gave a brief explanation about this year's theme "Refining our Craft" and laid out the format–full group presentations, parallel sessions of case studies and poster presentations–which all support the learning and refinement of what we do. Andrew then introduced the keynote speaker Steve Krug. The Keynote: Confessions of a SIGIA-L Lurker: A Pinhead's View of Information Architecture Steve Krug Steve Krug, author of "Don't Make Me Think: The Common Sense Guide to Usability," was simultaneously serious, analytical and irreverent as a speaker. His corporate motto, "It's not rocket surgery," illustrates this unique combination of qualities. In his presentation he attempted to squeeze the entire field of IA through the wringer; to note the difference between IA and usability and to dissect the top five things IAs talk about on the SIGIA list.

Steve Krug chats with Don Kraft following his keynote address. (photo Erin Malone)

A self-confessed lurker on the list, Steve stated "I am not an IA, I don't even play one on TV." He talked about his professional background–moving through his career from typesetting to computing to tech writing to usability consulting. There was an interesting comparison of the "Lou and Peter" (Rosenfeld and Morville) version of IA –"IAs organize information to make it more understandable" –to the Richard Saul Wurman version of IA–IA's organize information to make it more accessible. He noted Boxes and Arrows and paraphrased some of his observations from the Nathan Shedroff article about claiming the name and the turf and the angst of many practitioners over names. He then shared that his insights have been gained through experience and observation. Throughout his talk he made fun of himself, his background - as far as being an expert on IA-and his presentation, which only added to his funny and approachable style. The top five things that he thought we spent time talking about on the SIGIA list were:

Tools
Lots of discussion about who uses what, what's best or better than this or that
Defining things
He noted that we like to frequently define who and what we are a lot. He illustrated this point by showing the cover from the Richard Scarry book "What do people do all day" as well as Jesse James Garrett's "Elements of Experience diagram" and Challis Hodge's "Experience Design Roles" model. He noted that it looked like a putting green and he wasn't sure what it meant in terms of the relationship of one role to another. But he liked it.
Big IA versus Little IA
Mr. Krug stated he always forgets the difference between the two, which got a big laugh.
Research
He felt that research had very little practical application to the practicing profession. He said, " if you can prove it, then it's probably obvious," and then stressed that we need to make sense to people and apply principles and best practices to specific cases. He cited Jakob Nielsen's closing talk at the Usability Professionals' Association conference last year in support of this.
ROI (Return on Investment)
From what he observed while lurking on the list, we seem to have a tough time with ROI because most people who need IA can't afford to even rent one. Our best bet is to educate and generate best practices. We need to stop grabbing for turf and give intelligent explanations of what we do.

Overall, Krug's keynote was irreverent, self-effacing and designed to spark debate around several points. He turned the mirror on us, through his observations of the list and the topics we discuss, and offered friendly "outsider" advice on how we can improve ourselves and the profession.

Information Architecture and Usability: Responding to the Keynote Lou Rosenfeld, moderator, Keith Instone, Christina Wodtke, Andrew Dillon and Steve Krug Following the keynote, the panel responded to the keynote and questions posed by Lou and the audience.

Christina Wodtke, Andrew Dillon, Keith Instone and Steve Krug respond to the keynote. (photo Erin Malone)

Starting the session, Lou mentioned that even though he was not present, Jakob Nielsen always seemed to dominate the conversation. Christina Wodtke made a brave statement and said she felt IA needed to be given away and taught to other people. She felt there would still be master craftspeople, but for the discipline to progress we had to be more open about giving away our knowledge. She supported this by giving an example from her company (CarbonIQ) conducting training workshops and getting more business as a result. Clients learn about information architecture and then decide they don't have time to do it themselves and hire an IA, because once they are educated they understand the value. Q. An audience member asked if there was an IA list of heuristics, akin to Nielsen's list of heuristics. A. Steve Krug - A body of best practices is better than a list. Christina admonished usability folks for not doing a better job of informing design. Usability fails because test reports wag the finger at us and do little to inform the design process. Q. Why are we so preoccupied with usability? A. Andrew Dillon - It is unhealthy when usability and IA are divided. All work of the IA should be concerned with the user, therefore usability is important. Q. Are we shying away from design and should we take more ownership of it? A. Andrew Dillon - Yes, we should step up to the plate and do it. Keith Instone - We should collaborate more. CW -We are designers. IAs architect. Architecture = Design. We have to engage in creative activities and need to be taken to task for what we create.

Christina Wodtke, Andrew Dillon, Keith Instone and Steve Krug answer questions (photo Erin Malone)

Q. What is the importance of ROI? A. SK - people need to educate people who spend money that usability and IA are worth spending money on. Case studies trying to prove ROI are not a good use of time. He recommended doing usability tests on the product and having the business / marketing people come and watch real people use their product. Then pitch for what you can do to make the product better. Christina Wodtke shocked us all by saying that ROI is a big lie. But we have to talk to the CEO about how their business will be improved - in dollars and sense. Q. What is the language that communicates the value of what we do? A. CW - Instead of inventing our own language, adopt the language of others. Talk business with the business people. Understand marketing terms and needs. KI - Learn the language of business to make the case. They are receptive to our messages. Audience comment - There is value that comes from being multidisciplinary and being able to educate other people in an organization. Q. John Zapolski, from the audience, asked the panel to comment: We haven't talked about the relationship between IA and design. There are many problems similar to those in IA that have been solved in the design space. A. CW - When the web came around we created new processes but we forgot that we can borrow from other disciplines. We have been scared of design by the "magic." We need to find the balance between the white coats of science (research) and design. Q. What is the role of IA and research? A. KI- There is frustration with being able to apply research. AD- Lots and lots of research had to be done before we got there - before "it's obvious" came out of the evidence. It's not just a series of outputs. The role of research is not to prove anything, it's to check things and disprove things. SK- Research may not be able to prove things, but people looking for research are looking to prove something and that is what's bad. Case Studies : Parallel Sessions E-Greetings Case Study Chris Farnum http://home.earthlink.net/~crfarnum/cfarnum.ppt

Chris Farnum talk about user testing the taxonomy for eGreetings. (photo Erin Malone)

Chris Farnum, a former Argonaut (member of Argus Associates), presented the work he did while at Argus to redesign the card collection organization, taxonomy and search at the eGreetings.com. He presented their methodology and processes and went into detail specifically about the card sorting, prototype testing and other methods they used to learn from users. Farnum detailed the process used to define the controlled vocabulary direction and then showed how that evolved to paper prototypes used to determine the final taxonomy direction and facet level. He showed samples from the toolkit used in their testing and talked about the findings, which surprised them because of the preconceived assumptions and how they shaped the design. The second part of the presentation showed their work done on search once the browse structure and taxonomy were defined. To Farnum's credit, he talked about how he and the client disagreed, therefore ending up in two competing prototypes to take through testing. In the end, the client design was preferred by users and Farnum was forthcoming about letting the audience know that although it was difficult, he listened to the users when making the final recommendation. Farnum ended his presentation with the bittersweet information that the search part of the project never launched because the company was sold, but that if you look at the site today, many elements of the classification scheme and homepage organization that they designed are still being used. Information Architecture for the Enterprise Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Merholz Peter had some brief thoughts on IA for the Enterprise. http://www.peterme.com/assets/enterprise_ia_peterme.ppt Some of this included an observation of the evolution in customer-centric practices despite decentralized customer relationships. There was a lack of coherence with interaction with customers. It didn't help that departments didn't talk to each other. Then the buzz of customer relationship management systems was seen to solve that decentralized customer relationship. In actuality, they bridged the operational side of managing relationship and did not allow for a holistic approach to customer interaction. All enterprises did with CRM was "put a single face on decentralized organization." The old way was to shove the message and brand perception to customers. The new way is to have interactions with other people and with many business units. Striking a balance between the new and the old allows for consistency and for innovation. Peter presented the five steps toward meaningful consistency.

Centralize web/IA efforts - treat them like an internal consultancy.
Build organizational awareness even with external justifications and quick wins.
Study Customers - understand their approaches, share IA on needs not company structure.
Develop a style guide beyond the visual. It should include content display, navigation systems, interaction elements, rules and should be extensible.
Implement a CMS (Content Management System) - a document system is not sufficient, make it easier to do the right thing than to do your own thing.

Lou Rosenfeld talked about the hyper-evolutionary model: Enterprise Information Architecture. http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000078.html Over the past couple years IAs have been focused on users and content for websites, but have not been applying what was learned to the entire company. It seems as though this context for IAs is being ignored Lou's presentation focused on the history of IA practices for the web and internet. He discussed how an IA's skills transition to benefit enterprise: ecommerce, reduced costs, clearer communications, shared expertise and reduced reorganizations. He later dissected some of the "sins" of that prevent enterprise IA from working: Business Units Five Deadly Sins

Greed
Ignorance
Slothfulness
Fear
Loathing

IA Five Deadly Sins

Overreaching
Haste
Overextending
Presumptuousness
Naivete

He did offer some suggestions for how enterprise IA can succeed (aka: Lou's Pipe Dream):

Structure
Offerings
Economic Model
Marketing
Staffing
Timing

MetaData and Taxonomies For a More Flexible Information Architecture Amy J. Warner You go to the doctor when you feel ill. You go to Dr. Warner when you feel information overload. Amy J. Warner PhD Gave an insightful and clarifying talk. Many "don't give me any of that librarian stuff" IA's were held fixed to the edge of their seats by her explanation of the continuum of controlled vocabularies and taxonomies, from synonym rings to full blow thesauri. First she walked us through the building blocks of "taxonomies" (a word she and other LIS educated folks are slowly and cautiously beginning to adopt in order to clearly communicate with businesses). All classification efforts start with metadata. Metadata falls into five categories: administrative, descriptive, prescriptive, technical and use. It is descriptive metadata that we most often use in controlled vocabulary creation efforts. So once the descriptive metadata is harvested through indexing efforts, the classification can begin. To begin the process, she presented the levels of potential complexity in controlled vocabularies, from the simple equivalence-based synonym rings, through the hierarchal classification schemas/taxonomies into the rich and full blown thesauri (the Cadillac of controlled vocabularies) that include associative relationships as well as equivalence and hierarchal. Which to go with? Depends how much time for creation and maintenance you need, and what you are trying to do with your controlled vocabulary. After all why get a Caddy when a Hyundai might do? Next, she dove right into the importance of business context for creating controlled vocabularies. We saw this throughout the conference: people are figuring out how to talk IA to business. Dr. Warner made complex ideas clear and more importantly relevant to solving the problems we all face today in our information situated lives. Next time you get a chance to visit this doctor, be sure to go!

George Olsen and Liz Danzico lunch (photo Christina Wodtke)

After the first set of case studies, we all gathered for a lunch of rubbery hotel chicken and more socializing. Another set of parallel case study sessions followed lunch. Case Studies : Parallel Sessions BBCi Search - Why Search Isn't Just a Technology Problem Matt Jones, BBCi Search http://www.blackbeltjones.com/presentations/asist2002/asist.ppt Matt's presentation focused on the research and development of a taxonomy process and supporting tool at the BBC. In addition he gave some insights on evaluating the effectiveness of search user interfaces/interaction designs on websites. Through user research and testing, Matt was able to put together an internal team and supporting software to tag some of the BBC's web materials and provide strategic content programming for search results. Some future thoughts on search for the BBCi:

Development of an answer engine.
Distribute the building of the taxonomy to the editorial staff.
Develop facets.
Provide a suite of search interfaces that other business units can repurpose.
Context andconversation: profiling the users, building a community.
Drive search experience with facets.

Some of the features that Matt described in his presentation will not be available until around April 20. References to other materials associated with Matt's presentation: http://www128.pair.com/louis/home/bloug_archive/000039.html http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000040.html http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000075.html Reflections on H2G2 - Collaborative effort of peer-reviewed knowledge base(brainchild of Douglas Adams) Peoplesoft.com Chiara Fox, Peoplesoft and Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/peoplesoft_case_study.FINAL.ppt Chiara Fox of Peoplesoft and Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path presented their work from the design of the Peoplesoft site. They detailed the team, the methodologies and techniques used to learn about the content and their users. They then discussed the specific processes for content analysis and mapping and showed various artifacts from their work. Audi Razorfish James Kalbach, Razorfish, Germany Jim Kalbach from Razorfish Germany presented three major highlights from their year long work on the design of the Audi Germany website. The Tool

Jim Kahlbach presents the Audi germany site case study. (photo Erin Malone)

The group used Adobe GoLive as both their site mapping tool and wireframing tool, allowing for instant HTML prototypes and collaborative working and updating. The goal was to find a better tool for version controlling, efficient updates and changes to the site as it progressed. While it met most of their expectations, ultimately it was the wrong tool for the job because not everyone on the team adopted it and the project pushed the limits of what the product was capable of. Jumping Boxes Jim showed how the team solved the problem of variable browser sizes by implementing a solution they called "Jumping Boxes'. Following Audi's motto of "Better design through technology," Razorfish used technology to adjust the page layout based on the screen size. It detects the browser size and serves the page design that best fits the size of the browser. He demonstrated how the page moves modules of content down and over, while at the same time several modules of content are anchored in place. The design rendered first, depended on browser size. The exact technology was not detailed but Jim speculated that it involved client-side Javascript and CSS. All this work was done to support a strict grid design - three different designs were implemented- and to maintain the right navigation scheme. It was an interesting problem and solution, although Jim commented that it was an overly complex solution to a simple problem. Right-hand Navigation versus Left-hand Navigation The bulk of Jim's presentation covered this component of the project and he detailed the extensive user testing the team did to find out if their solution would be usable, learnable and accepted by users and the client. The Razorfish team was challenged to create a site that was competitively different and the right-hand navigation was a key element in their solution. Their studies- with 64 people in usability tests, eye movement analysis and interviews - surprised them in that their hypotheses were very conservative and the results more than showed that the site was learnable and quite usable with a right-hand navigation scheme. They plan to publish their research, so I won't spoil it by attempting to quote the presentation. The final results of the tests satisfied the team and the client and the site was launched with a right-hand navigation system. Panel: The Art of Deliverables Noel Franus, moderator, Jesse James Garrett, Dan Brown, Erin Malone, John Zapolski The panel opened with brief intros and bios of the panelists by moderator Noel Franus. Overall the panel was a great show and tell of different philosophies surrounding deliverables that IAs produce. The panel represented both internal and consulting IAs.

The Art of Deliverables panelists, from l. Noel Franus, Jesse James Garrett, Dan Brown, Erin Malone, John Zapolski (photo Joe Sokohl)

Jesse James Garrett walked through his "visual vocabulary" for diagramming information structures and interaction flows. Garrett said he intentionally designed his system to work with the lowest common denominator - PowerPoint - in an effort to make the diagrams as widely accessible as possible (although the visual vocabulary templates are available for a variety of software programs.. Jesse went into some high level discourse about visual vocabulary and how it could be used. One example that he shared was the reverse IA engineering of Yahoo! Mail which is currently available at on Boxes and Arrows. In contrast to the other panelists, who often presented poster-sized diagrams, Garrett argued that diagrams should be made to fit (or tiled) onto letter-sized paper so that they can easily be printed by a wide variety of people Dan Brown stressed deliverables should have three essential components. Coherence - done by making sure you're working with as complete a set of information as possible, identifying the dimensions of the information to be presented and the overall message the diagram should convey. Context - created by including references to previous work that forms the basis for a particular deliverable. Relevance - done by making the deliverables self-referential. http://www.greenonions.com/dan/portfolio/ Erin Malone discussed some of the process and organization behavior (acceptance) that revolves around the production of deliverables as a collaborative (share the map & use it) tool for business owners and engineering. The deliverables are used as a communication tool and not the end product of her group's work. She included techniques for annotation, the need to iterate, and parallel work on developing the functional specifications. http://www.emdezine.com/designwritings/files/UsingFlowmaps.ppt John Zapolski explored the Zen-like aspects of producing deliverables. Design is not just an activity of making things, but also of making sense. He provided his own definition of IA: an area of design concerned with classifying, organizing, and structuring information so that it becomes meaningful. He believes that we need time to think so that we can make things well. He described a good model of being able to analyze a concrete situation and understand it at an abstract level but then being able to apply the abstract again to something concrete. He drew a distinction between deliverables intended for "problem seeking" and "problem solving" parts of a project. Problem seeking deliverables include such things as explanations of user goals, concept maps, content audits and inventories and systems analysis. Problem solving deliverables include such things as conceptual models (of the proposed solution), flow maps and user interface specifications. http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/john_zapolski_IAsummit02.pdf

One of Mike Lee's three dimensional IA artifacts (photo Matt Jones)

Dinner and Posters Following the deliverables panel, the attendees were invited to grab a buffet dinner, socialize and meet the poster presenters. During the day the foyer of the hotel conference area was transformed as people put up their presentations and posters. The dinner hour allowed people to interact with the authors and ask questions about the project. One of the most interesting posters was that of Mike Lee. Lee spent time analyzing the site map deliverables IAs make and wondered if their meaning/understanding would be enhanced by taking them into the 3d realm. He had 3d models of various site maps and charts converted into these three-dimensional explorations. He also demonstrated how to take one of these. Lee specifically noted on his poster that he didn't know, yet, how this concept in presentation would apply in practice, but it was nice to see innovative thinking in how we visualize our solutions. The Posters Where the Wireframes Are: The Use and Abuse of Page Layouts in Information Architecture Practices Dan Brown http://www.greenonions.com/dan/portfolio/wireframes_poster.pdf Modeling Access Control Vicky Buser and Michael Sullivan A Living Archeology: Excavating The Past - Mapping The Future Serena Fenton Information Flow Diagram Dennis Huston http://www.seaempty.com/SEImages/informationtheory.html Location, Path & Attribute Breadcrumbs Keith Instone http://keith.instone.org/breadcrumbs/ Dimensional Deliverables: Exploring the Realm Between Paper and Screen Mike Lee http://www.visuallee.com/ia

Kimberly Peters explains her poster (photo Joe Sokohl)

Discrepancies Between Business Requirements, Use Cases, Design Documents, and Actual Development Richard M. Oppedisano Sample Personae, Process Flow Document, and Wireframes for an Interactive Television Project Kimberly Peters

Claude Steinberg discusses his poster (photo Joe Sokohl)

Auditory Context Diagrams, Representations for Organizing Information Presented Vocally Claude Steinberg Information Architecture's 'Dirty Little Secret' and the IT Project Iceberg Lee Sachs Vision Based Requirements Unifying User-Centric Interaction Design With Requirements Analysis Methodologies Laura Scheirer

DCIAs gathering (photo Joe Sokohl)

Following dinner and posters, the local DCIA local group invited everyone to attend their monthly event, which they scheduled in the bar of the hotel. From the looks of the bar, a large portion of us took them up on their offer and conversations about IA took place late into the night.

Our Favorite Books: Recommendations from the Staff of Boxes and Arrows

B&A Staff — Tue, 03 Dec 2002 20:16:46 GMT

“I'm not a full-time usability analyst, information architect, interaction designer or user experience designer. I'm a web developer, the one who divides his time by managing projects, creating sitemaps and wireframes, writing HTML and client-side coding. These are the books that have I've learned from, the books that I'm inspired by, and the books I turn to when I'm stuck with a usability problem.”
—Joshua KaufmanTo welcome in December and the holiday season, the staff at Boxes and Arrows has put together a list of their favorite books. These are the tried and true, the books we loan out again and again, recommend endlessly or buy for fellow colleagues so they won't keep taking our copies. These are the books we can't live without or have learned great lessons from over the years. We have gathered them together just in time for holiday gift giving. (Note: recently released books do not appear in this list due to being so new.) We hope you sample some of these and invite you to share your favorites with all of us in the comments area. Books about Information Architecture or for IAs “Content Management Bible” Bob Boiko There's a reason why this book is called a bible. This book has been fundamental in helping me understand some gaps I had about content management. Lots of great practical approaches about the life-cycle of content management processes and systems. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” (Second Edition) Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville The latest edition of the landmark book on information architecture from a library science perspective. If you need to do some heavy-duty structuring of content, you need this book. George Olsen “Information Anxiety 2” Richard Saul Wurman This second version will appeal to the conceptual in you as much as it does the practical. Wurman, who coined the phrase “information architect” almost 30 years ago, gives us historical context, as well as a map for what may come next. Complete with a cameo bit of writing from Nathan Shedroff, the book will leave you with tools to make sense of overwhelming amounts of information, no matter what the media. Liz Danzico “The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization” Elaine Svenonius Great introduction to various areas of information management, organization, access, and retrieval. Touches on academic and practical issues. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “Mapping Web Sites” Paul Kahn and Krzysztof Lenk From the founders of Dynamic Diagrams, this book is a richly illustrated exploration into the process of creating maps and other artifacts for communication. Beginning with the definition of classic maps, the authors cite parallels to information maps used to plot out and communicate a website. Contained in the book are several case studies that show luscious samples of maps, informational diagrams, planning diagrams, process diagrams and topic map diagrams for several websites. The pair also spends a considerable amount of time defining sitemaps with lots of examples that define the breadth of possibilities. Erin Malone “Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace” (Fifth Edition) Joseph M. Williams If inconsistent link labels make you cringe and jargon makes you angry, you need to get this book. It provides you with ten elegant strategies for refining and iterating the written word so that it makes sense for your audience. As you read, substitute the words “information architecture” for “writing” and watch the book transform into persuasive strategies to use in everyday IA work. Liz Danzico “Thesaurus Construction and Use” Jean Aitchison, Alan Gilchrist and David Bawden Need I say more? Very practical information on how to get started on building a thesaurus. Fundamental information in getting started with the standards associated with construction and some considerations for how a thesaurus is applied. I believe it's a great introduction, but anyone new to this LIS stuff should be cautioned that it may be quite overwhelming. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “The Tipping Point” Malcolm Gladwell A book for anyone interested in the stickiness of information. A look into what makes information resonate, and what motivates people to pass information on. Gladwell's examples can be applied to information architecture, design, fashion, cooking, friendships... any situation where social epidemics can have influence. Liz Danzico “Unlocking Knowledge Assets” Susan Conway and Char Sligar Great case study on building a knowledge management organization system at Microsoft. So maybe the whole book isn't relevant to you but there is definitely lots to think about on such topics as taxonomy management, search or information retrieval, and building a community of practice. It has definitely given me more thoughts to reflect on for user research from the perspective of search logs and such. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan

Books on Interaction Design and HCI “About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design” Alan Cooper My first practical introduction to software application and interface design. If anything this book is a really good introduction to the basics of application UIs. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan This book was one of the first books I got on interface design. Filled with practical advice for a variety of problems encountered in application design. Despite its age (1995) it is still a handy reference if you design software applications. Erin Malone “The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design” Brenda Laurel Definitely a fundamental collection of articles on HCI before the web. I still recommend it especially for some of the foundation research on HCI. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “The Art of Interactive Design: A Euphonious and Illuminating Guide to Building Successful Software” Chris Crawford While this renamed second edition isn't out yet, I've been a fan of Crawford's writings for years, since his seminal classic, “The Art of Computer Game Design.” He's devoted years to pondering interactive storytelling, with ideas that have been well ahead of their time. In the meantime you can see his past essays at http://www.erasmatazz.com/Library.html George Olsen “Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques” Kevin Mullett and Darrell Sano This is one of my favorite books. I have a copy for home and a copy at work. The authors equate the problem solving process for interaction design to the problem solving process of information and graphic design. Unlike the other HCI/Interface books written by software developers for other software developers, this is one of the few books, that as a trained graphic desiger, I could relate to. Erin Malone One of the few books on user interface design that explicitly draws on the visual design principles that artists and graphic designers have spent centuries beta testing. While its UI examples are all traditional software (other examples range from currency design to the famous map of the London Underground), it's a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the principles behind good UI design. George Olsen “Human-Computer Interaction” (Second Edition) Alan Dix, Janet Finelay, Gregory Abowd & Russell Beale Great textbook introduction to HCI. One of the important textbooks for my own introduction to HCI. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “Mind Over Media - Creative Thinking Skills for Electronic Media” Mark von Wodtke While at first glance, this book may seem a little dated—the web isn't even mentioned—it is a book I return to over and over again. This book is filled with various techniques and how-to's for thinking about creativity, interactivity, hypertext, data models, information design, and perception. There are discussions of how to present and visualize information and ideas—concept mapping, diagramming, metaphor—as well as how to plan the process of creativity in the context of a practical problem to solve. Each chapter builds on the previous and several chapters have a series of exercises at the end to test your learning of the various techniques. This is one of the best books in my library for an interaction designer. Erin Malone “Reinventing the Wheel” Jessica Helfand Reinventing the wheel brings together an amazing collection of paper wheel charts. On the surface this sounds strange, but these wheels pack in layers of complex information into an easy-to-use compact circular format. The collection ranges from wheels created in the early 1900's to circular information design from as late as 2001. Each wheel is presented on its own page with a brief description of its history and how the information works. Anyone interested in information design and interaction will treasure this book. Erin Malone

Books on User Centered Design “Contextual Design” Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt After you've interviewed users, Beyer and Holtzblatt show you how to turn the information into useful models to analyze the problems and come up with solutions. However, the techniques are geared toward large-scale business process re-engineering projects and typically need to be scaled back for most other projects. Also Beyer and Holtzblatt are a bit weak on the process of coming up with a design. George Olsen “Customer-Centric Product Definition” Sheila Mello An extremely useful book from the product development field, which has been popularized as the “Voice of the Customer.” Mello provides a detailed method you can use to not only understand user needs, but also prioritize what things to focus on. I particularly like her use of survey research techniques as a way of reality-checking proposed feature sets developed by qualitative user-centered design techniques. George Olsen “The Design of Everyday Things” Donald Norman This book is about awareness—awareness that your frustration and grief in using a product may be the fault of the design itself. You are then free to question your interaction with products with objectivity and purpose. If you already know these concepts, Norman's book empowers you, leaving you a vocabulary to express yourself. If you are still learning, be prepared that you'll never look at every day objects the same way again. Liz Danzico Formerly published as “The Psychology of Everyday Things”, This is the book that everyone calls the “essential text” for designers of any type. The ideas Norman discusses can be applied to so many different fields because it uses examples that everyone encounters in everyday life. If you're a usability professional and you want your web-illiterate grandmother to understand what you do, read her an excerpt from this book. She might not understand the technical details of your work, but she'll better understand the everyday concepts of user-centered design. Joshua Kaufman “Designing from Both Sides of the Screen” Ellen Issacs and Alan Walendowski Co-written by an interaction designer and a software engineer, this book offers the first look at how front-end user experience and back-end technology issues intersect—something we too often ignore. Besides offering some useful guidelines, the authors detail the creation of the instant messaging application and the give-and-take between the front-end and back-end needs during development. George Olsen “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum” Alan Cooper A extremely good overview about why most high-tech products are so frustrating to use and the value of paying attention to user experience. It's perhaps best at dissecting the issues of corporate politics that user experience architects have to contend with. Cooper gives an overview of his extremely useful personas and scenarios technique but it's not covered in as much depth as it could be. George Olsen “Mastering the Requirements Process” Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson One of the most comprehensive books on developing requirements. While it's written from a software engineering perspective, it goes far beyond technical requirements to consider issues of visual presentation, legal concerns and corporate politics (although it doesn't cover content at all, due to the authors' background). It's quite readable and never pedantic. The bare bones version of the authors' approach is available online , but the book explains the thinking behind it in more detail and provides examples and a case study. Another good book is “Exploring Requirements” by Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg. George Olsen “The Media Equation” Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass There isn't an experience design professional who doesn't advocate for the user. We consider social constructs and human experience of our target audience with unflappable resolve. With this book, Reeves and Nass challenge our notion of social constructs. They reveal that there are social relationships not only occurring among people, but between our users and the interfaces they encounter. Find out what happens when an aggressive interface confronts an aggressive human personality. Liz Danzico “Software for Use” Larry L. Constantine and Lucy A. D. Lockwood Often times densely-written with some really confusing terminology, but packed with ideas that make it well worth wading through. Constantine and Lockwood have some powerful ways of modeling use cases and offer useful specific steps for moving from high-level design down to the design of individual screens. George Olsen “User and Task Analysis for Interface Design” JoAnn T. Hackos and Janice C. Redish The key to starting the process of good user experience design is understanding the target audience and what they're trying to accomplish. This book's strong points are how think about breaking activities into specific tasks and how to go about observing and interviewing users, although the last section offers a good survey of techniques for moving from analysis design. It also has a good chapter on the all-too-often overlooked issue of how to provide documentation and training for users. George Olsen

Books on Design “Design Writing Research” Ellen Lupton and Abbot Miller This collection of essays, divided into three sections, Theory, Media, and History, cover over ten years of critical writing about graphic design, media and design history. The essays range from a look at “Modern Heiroglyphs,” —an essay that accompanied the exhibition Global Signage:Semiotics and the Language of International Pictures at the Cooper Union—, to “Laws of the Letter,” —a look at the history and theory of typography, —to “McPaper,” —an analysis of USA today and the infographics contained therein. The essays are smart, easy to read (they are essays) and cover a wide range of subjects. Erin Malone “The Design of Sites” Douglas K. Van Duyne, James A. Landay and Jason I. Hong Don't try to read this cover to cover, it's not meant to be used that way. Instead the authors present a collection of design issues and potential solutions, similar to the approach Christopher Alexander's “A Pattern Language” took for architecture. You may not use their advice, but it's good for crystallizing a nagging issue and jump-starting your thinking about solutions. George Olsen “The Elements of Typographic Style” Robert Bringhurst This small book is a must have if you spend any time thinking about page design and typography. Despite being geared toward graphic designers and traditional print work, it is also a useful resource for the screen designer. The chapter “Shaping the Page” covers the concept of the Golden Section and the mechanics of creating a well-proportioned page. This information is as applicable on screen as well as in print. New media designers will find this book interesting for it's historical perspective as well as its practical application. Erin Malone “Pentagram: The Compendium” The Pentagram Partners A 300-page showcase of one of the worlds best design studios. Published in 1993, you won't find cutting-edge design, but you will find a stellar collection of graphic, architectural and product design (but no UI design). There are numerous annotations explaining the thinking behind the designs, ranging from brief notes to lengthy essays. While it touches on many graphic design principles, don't expect an organized textbook on design. Rather it excels at giving you a right-brain gestalt of what design is about. George Olsen “The Non-Designers Web Book” Robin Williams For having no design background, I really value Williams' book. She also has other titles related to design in general. Very approachable and full of great examples. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan

Books on Usability “Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability” Steve Krug Usability without dogma. Witty and to the point, Krug offers useful guidelines for using “advanced common sense” when designing and practical advice for usability testing. It's also a good book to give to managers or others outside the user experience field to give them an overview of the issues involved. George Olsen This is my favorite web usability book. Straightforward and humorous, this book will tell you in a few hours what would take days to find by digging through all of the user research. If Nielsen is the guru of web usability, Krug is the Yoda of web usability; he's very wise in the ways of the users. My favorite aspects of “Don't Make Me Think” are the excellent screenshots, examples and illustrations Krug uses to explain his ideas and how easy it is to implement web usability. Joshua Kaufman “Don't Make Me Think” is one of the few usability books that I have read cover to cover, rather than skimmed for reference. This is the book to keep around and offer to folks who don't get it. Humorous yet pragmatic, Krug offers advice that anyone, no matter the budget, can follow. Erin Malone “design by people for people: Essays on Usability” Edited by Russell J. Branaghan http://www.upassoc.org/store/usability_essays.html Whenever I need to dig into my personal usability library for advice, this is the first book I pick up. It's a collection of the best essays published in the Usability Professionals' Association's former newsletter, Common Ground. The book is a composite of 27 essays on topics ranging from experience design to consulting, usability methods to conceptual modeling. UPA members get a $10 discount when purchased from the UPA site. Brenda Janish “Designing Web Usability” Jakob Nielsen According to B & A's Christina Wodtke, a guru is a critic who prescribes rigid, oversimplified rules of website design. There is no better way to describe Jakob Nielsen, who uses “guru” four times on his biography page (http://www.useit.com/jakob/). “Designing Web Usability” is full of oversimplified rules, but those rules are backed up by years of research and a solid discussion. Joshua Kaufman In this book, Mr. Nielsen transcended the rigid guru role and became the teacher the web so desperately needed in 1999. He moves from observation to principal with clarity, bringing empathy to website design—and most of his insights are as valid now as ever. His earlier works are too academic, later works are too didactic, but this book—like the little bear's goods in goldilocks—is just right. Mr. Nielsen's finest hour in print. Christina Wodtke “E-commerce User Experience” Nielsen Norman Group “That's just your opinion. Show us some research to back that up.” We've all heard that at some point when suggesting an interface change to improve usability. Well, these guys did the research so you don't have to. The Nielsen Norman Group performed usability studies on a number of e-commerce sites, in a variety of industries, and published their findings in this amazingly easy-to-use (and heavy!) hardcover version of the “E-commerce User Experience” series of reports sold on their site. As a practicing IA, the 207 guidelines proposed aren't surprising (although they do provide a nice structure for the book), but this is the book I reach for when a teammate, client or manager needs convincing of an interface change that might be hard for them to swallow (the Executive Summary in each chapter makes that task even easier). This book is well worth the hefty price tag, and will quickly become one of those books you store under lock and key with the label “secret weapon.” Brenda Janish “The Usability Engineering Lifecycle” Deborah J. Mayhew If you get only one hard-core book on user experience design, this is the one. Despite the title, it actually covers most of user experience design. While it trades breadth for depth, its one of the few books that acknowledges that not everyone has time to do things the “right” way, so it also covers how to scale-down methods from it's “heavyweight” approach, as well as how to substitute quick-and-dirty alternatives. Mayhew is actually willing to put some time estimates on how long particular steps may take. The main weakness is its failure to address issues of content, information architecture, and visual design (the author does traditional software development), although at least the book acknowledges these may be important if you're doing web-related projects. George Olsen “Usability for the Web” Tom Brinck, et al Most usability books simply discuss the rules and guidelines of web usability. “Usability for the Web” not only discusses the rules and guidelines, it also shows you how to integrate them into the web design process. According to the authors, every stage in the design, from requirements gathering to post-launch is an opportunity to affect a site's overall usability. To help you realize these opportunities, the authors have filled these pages with forms and checklists that enable you to easily incorporate their techniques into your current projects. This is a great book for web designers and project managers alike. Joshua Kaufman “Web Site Usability Handbook” Mark Pearrow Pearrow's “Usability Handbook” is my how-to book of web usability. It covers many web usability topics including the usability toolbox, design guidelines, heuristic evaluation and usability testing. The Handbook is different than the aforementioned usability books because it reads more like a textbook, offering chapter summaries, hands-on exercises and discussion topics, which all help to make the book more of an exploration than straight read. If you've already read the rules and guidelines, and you're looking for usability in practice, “Web Site Usability Handbook” is recommended. Joshua Kaufman

Books for Writing Well “Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace” Joseph M. Williams If inconsistent link labels make you cringe and jargon makes you angry, you need to get this book. It provides you with ten elegant strategies for refining and iterating the written word so that it makes sense for your audience. As you read, substitute the words “information architecture” for “writing” and watch the book transform into persuasive strategies to use in everyday IA work. Liz Danzico “Untechnical Writing: How to Write About Technical Subjects and Products So Anyone Can Understand” Michael Bremer While this short book is written primarily for technical documentors—peoplewho write instruction manuals and guide books for software—IAs and the like will find it full of valuable tips, tools, and methods for organizing your thoughts, clarifying ideas and processes, and communicating them to users. Bremer also offers useful techniques and guidelines for more mechanical matters like collaborating with developers, creating effective page layouts, editing, even designing interfaces. A former Director of Creative Services at video game pioneer Maxis, Bremer writes in a casual, straight forward style, and intersperses his text with insightful, often humorous quotes from a variety ofnotable authors and pundits. If your job requires communicating complex ideas to normal people, read this book. Ryan Olshavsky “The Web Content Style Guide” Gerry McGovern, Rob Norton & Catherine O'Dowd When planning Boxes and Arrows, I found it nearly impossible to find a good style guide focused on online usage to resolve questions like “email” vs. “e-mail,” or defining “GSM.” WCSG filled that void. George Olsen Get it out of necessity; continue to use it out of love. While it's not the Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press Stylebook, it doesn't pretend to be. Current examples, techniques, and references make this book worth reading cover to cover. Liz Danzico

Learning from Others “Crossing the Chasm” “Inside the Tornado” Geoffrey Moore If you want to be ahead of the technology curve, learning more about Moore's thoughts on the product lifecycle could be your lifeline to product and company success. Many of the practical ideas presented provide a good strategic edge for those wanting to learn more about product marketing and management and introducing high-tech products to the general public. Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan “From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games” Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins Surprisingly easy to read for an academic publication, this collection of essays examines how assumptions about gender affect the design, development and marketing of computer games, and proposes approaches for avoiding the gender stereotyping prevalent in game designs today. Essential reading for video game programmers and designers, and helpful for anyone designing websites, e-learning, or interactive entertainment for children. Brenda Janish “Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing” Henry Petroski Bring a pencil and a can of soda with you when you read this book. Petroski outlines how some of the most common inventions came to be through iterative product development. While we've been advocating for learning by example, competitive research, and iterative usability testing, engineers have been doing this for years to develop such wonders as pencils, aluminum cans, and paper clips. Liz Danzico “Making Movies Work” Jon Boorstin Re-titled and re-released after being long out of print, Boorstin offers a masterful analysis of how movies move us —from the “voyeur's eye” for detail, logic and plausibility, to the “vicarious eye” attuned to emotional truth, to the “visceral eye” that takes in the gut reactions of the lizard brain. While written for filmmakers, with specifics from camera angles to film scoring, it's still thought-provoking reading when thinking about the “experience” side of user experience. George Olsen “Orality & Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word” Walter J. Ong Imagine what the world was like with no dictionaries, reference books, libraries, no Internet. A culture where words mean what they do relevant to individual situations. This kind of direct semantic ratification is still used in oral cultures today and is the foundation for all communication we are now familiar with. This book explains how each act of discourse, no matter what the modality, calls for our consciousness of the cultural implications affecting the exchange, as well as an awareness of our own cultural biases upon interpreting it. Liz Danzico “Radio: An Illustrated Guide” Ira Glass and Jessica Abel http://www.thislife.org/pages/trax/comic/comic_base.html This 32-page black-and-white comic book, co-authored by NPR's Ira Glass and cartoonist Jessica Abel, provides an inside look at how “This American Life” radio stories are researched, written and produced. Offered ostensibly as a primer for people who want to submit stories to the show, its unsung value is as a uniquely insightful analysis of what makes narrative compelling. A nice look at the elements of the “radio user experience” that can be applied to the medium of online storytelling as well. This belongs on your bookshelf next to Scott McCloud's “Understanding Comics.” Brenda Janish “Understanding Comics” Scott McCloud Who would think that a book called “Understanding Comics” would have anything to do what we do? Well, lose your cynicism and dive into Scott McCloud's visual world. Learn some of the most important aspects of conveying information from a comic book artist. This terribly accessible book can be read in one or two sittings, and the knowledge gained makes it a must-read for any comic book enthusiast or anyone responsible for telling stories with pictures. Liz Danzico

Books on Brand “Building Brand Identity” Lynn B. Upshaw While Aaker gives you the big picture when it comes to brand strategy, Upshaw provides a more hands-on treatment that's a good complement to “Building Strong Brands”. Like Aaker, Upshaw does take something of a top-down approach to brand strategy, although he emphasizes the importance understanding a brand through customers' eyes. George Olsen “Building Strong Brands” David A. Aaker Like information architecture, branding has had difficulties clearly defining itself. However, it's far more than just a catchy name and cool logo, branding is sum total of your customer's experience with your company. Needless to say, user experience is an important part of that equation, so user experience architects should be familiar with how they fit into the larger issue of branding. Aaker offers a good introduction for novices and experts alike. George Olsen

Books on Marketing “Counter-Intuitive Marketing” Kevin J. Clancy and Peter C. Kreig Want to know why some many companies launch products that fail or pursue strategies that go nowhere? The authors offer an acid criticism of marketing as it's too often practiced. Unfortunately, their solutions aren't that practical except for the largest companies. They're hard-core quantitative marketing research guys, so their answer to everything involves six months and six figures. Still they offer a compelling vision of how market research done well can complement user-centered design techniques. George Olsen “Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing” Harry Beckwith We're often in the position of having to sell clients or colleagues on the intangible benefits of our skills. While Beckwith's book is aimed at marketing, much of the advice is highly applicable to these situations. George Olsen “Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning” Jon Steel A fun read about what's known as “account planning” by the man behind the “Got Milk?“ ads and other memorable ad campaigns. Account planners at ad agencies play a role that's quite similar to user researchers and user experience strategists. They seek to deeply understand customers needs, wants and desires in order to prepare the creative brief. Not much in the way of practical details, but enjoyable and quite useful if you're dealing with people from an ad agency background. George Olsen

Books on Business “Business and Finance for IT People” Michael Blackstaff Like sales, accounting is one of those things most user experience professionals probably avoided in school. Yet it's critical to understanding business managers' concerns about the bottom line. Blackstaff walks you painlessly (okay, relatively painlessly) through the subject in plain language, using good analogies of how business balance sheets compare to your own finances and explaining the specifics of ROI calculations. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover “managerial accounting,” the kind of recordkeeping used to track operations—which is probably even more valuable to know. If you get satellite TV, the “Accounting in Action” telecourse on the PBS You channel includes an approachable introduction to managerial accounting. George Olsen “Designing Business: Multiple Media, Multiple Disciplines” Clement Mok In his chapter on Information Design, Mok reveals the subtleties of design disciplines—distinguishing information arts, information design, and information architecture from one another through a visually rich comparison to traditional offline examples. Whether you're a practicing experience design professional or a colleague of one, this book gives you a common vocabulary to discuss design strategy. Liz Danzico “Design Management Institute Journal” While this isn't a book, I highly recommend subscribing to the DMI quarterly journal. You can subscribe without becoming a member. This group focuses not only on the design manager but also on the role of design in business. This is the big design—industrial, product, interactive, etc. If you are interested in how the work you do affects business —and vice versa—this journal is a must-read. Erin Malone “The Harvard Business Review” A valuable collection of thoughtful and well-written white papers, with a surprising number of articles that are applicable to user experience (even if they're not labeled as such). But more importantly, HBR offers a good way to keep up on current trends in business thinking—helpful if you've got to sell user experience to bosses or clients—as well as a good way to learn more about management skills and general business skills. No it's not cheap, but it's definitely worthwhile. George Olsen

Books for Consultants “Flawless Consulting - A guide to getting your expertise used” Peter Block Ever worked with a client and offered your expert advice, only to find out later that they totally ignored it? This book offers advice on how to get others to take that advice and respect your expertise. Although I don't freelance much any more, this advice can be as useful in-house as with external clients. Erin Malone “Graphic Artist's Guild Pricing & Ethical Guidelines” Graphic Artist's Guild This book is put out every year by the Graphic Artist's Guild. The book defines every role and discipline you could imagine in the design world and the new media world—designer, illustrator, web designer, art director, creative director, HTML production, etc. The book includes salary information collected from national surveys as well as pricing information for various types of projects in different size markets. I have found this to be a godsend when having to estimate projects for new clients. It also contains great contracts and other documents that you can use in your freelance business. If you freelance or work for yourself, you MUST own this book. Erin Malone “Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully” Gerald M. Weinberg and Virgina Satir Invaluable advice for those in the business of providing advice. While the focus is on independent consultants, much of it is equally applicable for those working in-house. Witty and memorable anecdotes illustrate how to figure out what the real problems are and how to carefully give and receive advice. George Olsen “SPIN Selling” Neil Rackham Forget the plaid polyester suits, Rackham observed 35,000 sales calls and proved that the sales techniques commonly taught are usually counter-productive for high-value purchases—like hiring consultants. Instead Rackman focuses on consultative sales approach, focused on understanding the needs of your customer. If you're a consultant, the advice is invaluable to making a living. If you're not, Rackman's approach dovetails nicely with user-centered design and gives you a way to make allies out of your sales staff. George Olsen

Books about Management or for Managers “Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams” Jessica Burdman When it comes to the nitty-gritty details of web design, like scoping projects, setting up workflow, and managing team dynamics, this book by Jessica Burdman is an invaluable reference. Not only does it thoroughly cover essential management aspects of the design and development process, but Ms. Burdman has also graciously included a CD-ROM of templates of the deliverables she mentions in the book. Great reference if you're just setting up shop, or are looking for documentation to support an existing process. Brenda Janish “Managing for the Short Term” Chuck Martin I just started reading this, so my review is based on the first chapter. Needless to say, these days bosses and clients are looking for clear and immediate results. This book looks like it gives you a good picture of the pressures they're facing. George Olsen “Quality Software Management: Anticipating Change” Gerald M. Weinberg User experience professionals often act as change agents whether they want to or not. One of the wisest consultants I know shows how to deal with organizational change in this book, the last of a four-volume series that pulls together his decades of experience. If you like this, I highly recommend the other books in the series, as well as “Becoming a Technical Leader,” which despite its title is applicable for anyone seeking to improve their people skills. Don't be put off by the titles, they were purposely “geeked up“ to make these human-focused books appeal to the software engineering market. George Olsen “What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business” Joan Magretta Written by a former editor of the “Harvard Business Review,” it provides a quite readable primer on what management is all about. Consequently it's a must-read for user experience professionals, so they can understand how user experience fits into the bigger picture of business. Rather than getting bogged down in the how, the book focuses on the “what” and the “why” of the core principles of management. It also gives good attention to the management of non-profits. George Olsen

Managing Your Career “How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job” Dale Carnegie From the man who brought you “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, this sappy, sentimental, often times over the top with positive enthusiasm, book will remind you that you can have it all. Common sense advice—that we often forget—on handling difficult people and situations that will go a long way to keeping you happy in your life and career. Erin Malone “Managing Transitions - Making the Most of Change” William Bridges In today's fast moving, ever changing economy, this book is just the ticket to help understand how you react to constant change—most specifically in the workplace. The author offers various tools and techniques for helping people carry out change. This is an excellent book if you have employees, but it is just as useful if you are the employee who not only has to accept change, but implement it as well. Erin Malone “Orbiting the Giant Hairball - A corporate fool's guide to surviving with grace” Gordon MacKenzie Whimsical and irreverant, this book is full of advice your boss will never tell you. The author, a former creative director at Hallmark, offers advice for how folks within the corporate world can unleash their creativity despite the bureaucracy of the corporation. MacKenzie shares personal experiences and advice for inspiring corporate colleargues to find their lost child self. It is full of funny illustrations and a quick read. Get it for yourself, a coworker or even your boss. Erin Malone