Shuan Lo — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:39 GMT

Thank you for the interesting article. I’m new to the field, and these are new concepts to me.

After reading this article, I’m wondering if it is possible to classify information seeking behavior according to two facets: 1) precise-vague, 2) aware-unaware.

Specific meaning the user knows exactly what he or she wants to look for; such as tomorrow’s weather in Taipei. An example of vague could be “how is it like to live in Taipei”.

In terms of design parameters, maybe the precise-vague axis maps crudely to a search-browse axis.

I’m not sure what the aware-unaware axis can map to. Maybe a passive-active axis? A passive feature would be like my browser’s record of my history and Google’s Desktop Search. Passive in the sense that the user initiates the use of these to seek for information. An active feature would be like showing related news headlines beside a news article. Active in the sense that information is being pushed to the user.

Perhaps an active-search feature could be my Firefox’s Google Suggest extension, and an active-browse feature could be a list of “most viewed”?

I’m not sure if these make any sense.

Shuan Lo — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 05:54:17 GMT

Excellent read. I got to share this article with my team.

You mentioned about finding out what your company’s goals are and align your UX goals accordingly. I would like to act a little bit more on that. I attended a panel session last year. One of the panelists, a senior user experience specialist from Ciscio, said this:

If you ask a designer in a company what he or she wants to achieve, he probably would say something like “I want to design wonderful and usable products that satisfy the users”. If you ask the top management why he wants to employ the designer, he probably would say something like “I want him to help me make more money for the company”.

It is not uncommon for the user experience professional’s goals to be misaligned with respect to the corporate goals; we should aware and be cautious. Sometimes wonderful and usable products may or may not be enough to help the company to increase its profits. If we keep this in mind, we may become less frustrated, happier, and more readily accepted by our business clients.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Shuan Lo