Methods
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Card sorting: a definitive guide
by Donna Spencer and Todd Warfel | [45 comments]
Card sorting is a simple user-centered technique for obtaining insight into the structure of a site. But is it really so simple? This definitive guide to card sorting includes detailed instructions on how to execute and analyze a sort, plus helpful hints to improve your sorts. It is the first in a series of articles about card sorting. more...
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Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design
by Luke Wroblewski | [19 comments]
The web is awash with sterile design solutions. IBM, Dell, Microsoft, and countless others are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Though one might say this makes browsing easier by virtue of a standardized interface, in reality such sites create mundane experiences for their users and fail to make a positive connection with their audience. more...
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The Lazy IA's Guide to Making Sitemaps
by Stephen Turbek | [66 comments]
The more automated our lives become, the less time we seem to have. And as an information architect, a lot of time is spent making sitemaps ... by hand. How valuable are sitemaps to a project team and to clients? Would your time be better spent doing other tasks than hand building sitemaps? What if we told you, "now you can." Find out how. more...
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Interactive Prototypes with PowerPoint
by Maureen Kelly | [27 comments]
Many designers use MS PowerPoint to conceptualize wireframes and get buy-in on project direction. Maureen Kelly shows us how to bring those same artifacts to life as an interactive prototype that allows you to validate the design at many levels. more...
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Icon Analysis
by Matt Queen | [31 comments]
Icons that are difficult to tell apart can lead to disastrous consequences. Queen shows us how studying the way the human visual system encodes information can lead to more effective icon design. more...
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Analyzing Card Sort Results with a Spreadsheet Template
by Joe Lamantia and Joe Lamantia | [24 comments]
This article explains how to quickly derive easily-read, quantitative results from a card-sort activity by entering data into a spreadsheet template that is adaptable to any set of cards and categories. more...
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Prototyping with XHTML
by Anders Ramsay and Leah Buley | [24 comments]
Looking for another way of realizing your design deliverables? XHTML are easy to code, can double as specifications, and create constraints that increase design effectiveness. more...
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Bringing User Centered Design to the Agile Environment
by Anthony Colfelt | [31 comments]
Anthony Colfelt is not anti-Agile, but he believes strongly about how user-centered design can operate in an Agile environment. Here he explains how he came to feel this way, the major pitfalls of Agile, and how he sees Agile and UCD fitting together in harmony. more...
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UX Design-Planning Not One-man Show
by Holger Maassen | [20 comments]
Holger Maassen posits his ideas about the process of planning and designing for User Experience Design-Planning (UXD-P) as Expectation Design. more...
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Dreamweaver Primer
by Julie Stanford | [5 comments]
So, you’ve read the article, “HTML Wireframes and Prototypes: All Gain and No Pain” and now want you want to make an HTML wireframe or prototype. This an easy and pain-free process, using Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.0. Follow this step-by-step guide and you'll be up and prototyping in a jiffy. more...
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Real Wireframes Get Real Results
by Stephen Turbek | [38 comments]
Information architects, afraid to step on designers' toes, may actually render wireframes unusable. Stephen Turbek talks about Verizon, the similarities between wireframes and iPods, and how to get real. more...
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Search Behavior Patterns
by John Ferrara | [6 comments]
People search for information online is often in idiosyncratic ways. It's rarely as straightforward as designers of search systems assume. John Ferrara gives us hope as he helps us think about a broader search ecology and identifies patterns in behavior that serve as the basis for good search design. more...
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Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience
by Fran Diamond | [16 comments]
As a specialist in the user, you gain knowledge through observation and direct questioning of individual users. Now, you can add to that insights gained from data pulled during their actions on the site. By looking at this information, you will get a fuller picture of user behavior, not in a lab, but in the true user environment. more...
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Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization
by Luke Wroblewski | [13 comments]
Visual designers working on the web need an understanding of the medium in which they work, so many have taken to code. Many have entered the usability lab. But what about the other side? Are developers and human factors professionals immersed in literature on gestalt and color theory? more...
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What Is A Controlled Vocabulary?
by Fred Leise and Karl Fast and Mike Steckel | [17 comments]
Finding the right words to communicate the message of your website can be one of the most difficult parts of developing it. Our authors guide you through the concepts behind a well-designed controlled vocabulary and discuss the pros and cons of its development. more...
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Content Analysis Heuristics
by Fred Leise | [11 comments]
Many Web professionals consider content inventories critical parts of most projects. Are there certain specific things to look for during a content inventory? Fred Leise definitely thinks so. He proposes a set of content analysis heuristics and discusses how to utilize each one. more...
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Sketchy Wireframes
by Aaron T. Travis | [33 comments]
Aaron Travis explores the importance of using sketchy wireframes early in the project
cycle. He then discusses the conversion of computer-based sketches into traditional wireframes and includes an analysis of "sketchy" capabilities of popular software tools.” more... -
5 Steps to Building Social Experiences
by Erin Malone | [14 comments]
"Social" is infiltrating not only consumer software, but also the enterprise. Designers must often add social capabilities with little guidance on what it means outside of Facebook or Twitter. Erin Malone gives us five steps to get started. more...
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Practical Applications: Visio or HTML for Wireframes
by Jeff Gothelf | [21 comments]
Design organizations inevitably run across the debate of Visio versus HTML wireframes. The decision for one over the other is never a clear-cut one since, as with all things IA-related, it depends. This article seeks to sort out the issues by describing the pros and cons of each and identifying situations where one may be more effective than the other. more...
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Creating a Controlled Vocabulary
by Fred Leise and Karl Fast and Mike Steckel | [3 comments]
You have probably heard IAs discussing the benefits of their latest taxonomy project and how you should be implementing one. But how, you might wonder, can you get started? In the next installment about Controlled Vocabularies, our authors go into detail about one methodology. more...