Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Kate Walser

Kate Walser — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:01:37 GMT

Joe, very helpful – thanks for the template! Couple suggestions for demystifying the “magic” very beginning step with the “super raw” data and also putting the cards in an easier-to-handle-and-tote electronic format.
1. Create a new tab (super_raw) and enter each user’s cards in a column. Use yellow to highlight suggested level 1 topic categories (and blue for level 2 if you go that deep, purple for orphans, etc.). (You can set up macros to automatically make the cell yellow, for faster entry)
2. Optional: Create another tab (super_raw_lookup) that’s a copy of the super_raw tab, and in place of the actual card, use a lookup (=LOOKUP) to reference the actual card’s label, for easy reference.
3. Create a copy of the super_raw tab and call it User_Categories. Get rid of all the non-yellow cells (I created a macro for this step – wasn’t coding worthy of an A+, but got the job done), and all you have left are the users’ suggested Level 1 categories.
4. Sort the cells in each column alphabetically and patterns start to emerge a bit.
5. Start moving around related cells and you can see even more trends.
... Once you get your categories set, you can copy/cut & paste the super raw data for each category and stick in the ‘Raw Data’ tab under the appropriate headings.

It may sound like a lot of work, but that initial up-front time to enter the data (especially if you can have someone else do some of that data entry while you jot down your qualitative observations) is well worth it as you sift through the electronic stacks later.

If you’re interested in presenting the different categories where cards appeared, you can do more on that front too and concatenate the category names and have them appear in your summary tab.

Hope the additions help!

Cheers, Kate

Kate Walser — Thu, 31 May 2007 01:34:19 GMT

This would be interesting! Especially from what I hear about MOSS and how it could become much more pervasive than the old SharePoint or other portal products ever were. Any insight you gleaned from how MOSS ties into the user’s desktop environment (if applicable here) as well would be great too.

Kate Walser — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:47:07 GMT

Think this has been great. Were the colors chosen for links driven by the CMS? If not, recommend we consider changing for the following reasons:

1. Link colors vary and in some cases (see 1A, 1B, 1C) B&A now uses a color that in some cases is for a link and in others is for static text. Seems like we now violate an important tenet of consistency and affordances:
A. orange used to highlight reputation points (not a link), but orange also used for links (author name at top of some articles, post comment, advertise event, etc.)
B. gray links in some cases
C. Black links for items such as Most Commented Stories (granted, position and context helps clarify that they may be links)

2. Link colors like #663300/brown make links difficult for both users without visual impairments, but even moreso for those with visual impairments, to spot.

3. A run-through with JuicyStudio’s Colour Contrast Analyzer shows some failures with respect to providing sufficient contrast between foreground and background colors –
A. Orange (#ff9f27) on white for links / hover colors has luminosity contrast ratio (LCR) = 2.74 vs. 5.0 recommended by WCAG – http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-20060427/guidelines.h…
B. different shades of gray on white for some links –
gray (#999999) on white LCR = 2.85
gray (#7f7f7f) on white LCR = 4
gray (#666666) on white LCR = 5.74 (passes WCAG AA 5.0 ratio but falls short of AAA 10.0 ratio, and fails on difference in color)

Kate Walser — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:29:08 GMT

Alexa,

Sounds like a cool idea. I run into the same problem with proprietary apps. How about taking a small pre-existing task or application that many of us are familiar with – e.g., Google / Yahoo Beta mail, YouTube, etc. as your case study? Might save some time instead of having to actually design out a whole application as most of us will probably be more interested in prepping wireframes and moving into Flash.

Kate Walser — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:13:26 GMT

Absolutely. Would be interesting and fun!

Kate Walser — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:07:57 GMT

We could do both in pieces – was originally thinking of starting with software tools, but realize that in surveying that, we often discover the techniques at the same time.

Kate Walser — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:09:42 GMT

When you say Content Strategist, are you thinking more along the lines of the person who inventories and organizes content for a Web site / Intranet, or the person who does that and also develops the total enterprise content management (ECM) policies, guidelines, etc.? (I suppose your article would answer this question! :) )

If the former, what would you think about a follow-on that delves into “Ok, now you’re the content strategist, what else should you consider / know when thrown into the larger ECM equation?” (I’d be interested in covering that angle if you’re not doing much in that arena and are interested.)

If you were thinking the latter, some other topics that might be useful are:
- What corporate / government policies impact me as a content strategist? (e.g., in commercial world, you might have SEC or other compliance type issues to consider if you’re looking at larger ECM; in government arena, you run into NARA and other topics)
- How do these policies impact the overall content solution? (in both commercial and government worlds, there are some more aspects to consider)

Kate Walser — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:56:08 GMT

Interesting. It seems that most small businesses looking for help are looking for the whole package – someone(s) who can do the IA and the supporting design, including graphics and branding elements, as well as the site build-out, potentially. Some folks who call themselves IAs offer the whole kit and kaboodle. Others focus on the IA piece and don’t offer the design/build-out capabilities. From a small business’s perspective, when they hear “IA” vs. Web site design, etc., they’re likely to say “uh-oh, I just want someone who will build a site for me.” Small businesses can’t necessarily afford to pay for the labor or the start-up/management time of separate contractors – e.g., finding, hiring, and managing an IA firm, a design firm, and a development firm. Might be interesting to compare small business to large business IA efforts and use that to develop the pros/cons list of a small business using different persons/firms for the different pieces vs. looking for a one-stop shop approach. Relative costs (or “cooking the books” if that’s what you meant by it) would be interesting also. Also, might be helpful to define “small business” here as opposed to a medium or large business. Is “small” based on number of employees or sales/revenues?

Kate Walser — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:21:48 GMT

Brendan, thanks for the feedback and article URL!

Kate Walser — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:42:54 GMT

To add some additional details – this would also discuss how Google’s search results format and design impact user’s expectations about other search engine results pages. Areas to the top and right may be ignored depending on what you’re putting there and how you’re styling it, just because users are familiar with Google’s sponsored ads. That’s bad news for any valuable features such as “narrow your search” and other elements that may go in those spots.

Search behavior, in terms of how users structured their search queries, is fodder as well.

Add to it the interesting wrench that Google has patented their search results format…

This article would include discussion of what we learned through user interviews and usability testing of a site that did NOT use the Google search engine.