Incidentally...

A complex stream containing numerous clusters of value satisfactions
The Whole Whole Product is essentially about customer experience: 'The core focus has shifted from “how good can we make our product?” to “how happy can we make our customers?” Two very different questions, looking at the marketplace from two very different perspectives.' But it's from a marketing perspective, so you get different terminology: 'A product is, to the potential buyer, a complex stream containing numerous clusters of value satisfactions.' The design and marketing fields may be on orthogonal paths, speaking about the same thing but rarely interacting. Some bridge material would be helpful.

Also, it's interesting that Gerry McGovern is writing for the same publication.
March 30, 2004

Tools for Women
I saw the Barbara K tools for women in Bed, Bath & Beyond this weekend and they're very nice, the handles are all curvy and feel great. After owning hammers whose head would slide off the handle I now own a solid, heavy hammer I love, but my wife thinks it's too heavy. In a world of big, burly tools these are so smart.
March 29, 2004

The IA goods, en español
The AIfIA Translation Initiative translated several new pieces from me and several others into Spanish.
March 28, 2004

Tyco Jury Sent Home to Calm Down
"This is not a hung jury based upon a lack of unanimity," the note continued. "This is a jury that has ceased to be able to conduct respectful, open-minded, good-faith deliberations."

I was on a criminal court jury last summer, deliberating a case that could have put someone in jail for a long time. I spent a week and a half sitting silently next to a randomly selected group of eleven other New Yorkers, and then moved into a room with them to discuss the defendent's fate. I was singularly impressed with the seriousness and intelligence every person brought to the situation. Now, I ride the subway looking at strangers knowing what they are capable of, but also that I might have been lucky.
March 26, 2004

Shut Up 'N Draw Yer Wireframe
We're posting our wireframe templates over on the Asilomar site.

Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
From Michael McDonough, I'm still learning these lessons.
March 25, 2004

How topic maps and ontologies compare to taxonomies and thesauri
Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps! Making sense of it all from Lars Marius Garshol, on my to-read list.
March 24, 2004

Handling error messages
Julie Stanford and Todd R.Warfel offer a good guidelines for handling error messages.
March 23, 2004

Interface Politics
I'm not sure if Christina coined the term, Interface Politics, but it so nicely sums up what it describes I need to steal it.
March 21, 2004

Otwell on Berlin's Tacheles
'...entire neighborhoods were made up of the retail equivalent of personal websites...'
March 10, 2004

BCG Publications
BCG Publications (Ivory tower consulting firm), free.
March 09, 2004

Neat Charts
Brand attributes

That'll keep me off McDonald's for a while
This boy has no neck.
March 08, 2004

Compare Products
A quick comparison of 'compare products' functions, I'm particularly interested in the use of screen space and comparing several products. Yahoo shopping will let you compare a seemingly unlimited number of products in its columnar layout, so the visual scanning is done by horizontally scrolling. Same deal at NexTag and EspressoPeople. Dealtime also lets you select many items but paginates the results, five per page. Bizrate uses a pop-up alert when you try to select more than three items. MySimon compares prices, not features, and uses rows instead of columns. Canon UK offers three pull-down menus displayed horizontally and each column is populated dynamically (neat, if limited). Turbo Tourney just displays their three products, no interaction needed.

Holy crap, check out the Yahoo Shopping SmartSort. The interaction design - especially the most/least important radio buttons - is a little confusing, but it's fast and useful. Neatest of all is the copy for each of the items, which changes dynamically, so it can say things a person would say, like

Toshiba Portege 2010 is a subcompact notebook. It is ranked first because it has the best Screen Size compared to the others in your top 10 results. This Notebook Computer is cheaper than Toshiba Portege R100 which is displayed next.

Toshiba Portege 2010 is a [productType]. It is ranked [rank] because it has the best [strongestFeatureByUserWeight] compared to the others in your top [resultSetAmount] results. This Notebook Computer is cheaper than [nameOfNextItem] which is displayed next.

One Economy
One Economy is an American non-profit organization working to help low-income people access technology, like high-speed Internet access.
March 06, 2004

Radio Vox Populi
Oh. Oh yes. Someone plugged a radio into the Internet. Don't think, just listen. Thank you Anne.
March 05, 2004

IA Summit Presentations
The downloads are starting to appear on the IA Summit site (thanks Javier). Even after having attended, there's so much I didn't get to see, it's like a shopping spree in a candy store.

Project Management Reality
Usually a project manager will drop into MS Project and later emerge with the project plan. I saw a nice counter example today where someone acknowledged the uncertainty of a dynamic project situation. 'We can go off and build what we think you want for the lowest price in the shortest time and plan time to revise it. Or we can do a more conventional project and we'll place the end date in a four-week time span.' Not a hard launch date, but a span of time when they'd probably be finished. Nice.
March 04, 2004

The Modified Librarian
Here we will discuss the concept and practice of body modification as it relates to librarians as persons and professionals. Those crazy college kids.

Every Brett Edifying
Brett - one smart IA - just launched his blog: every breath death defying. We'll be reading closely.
March 03, 2004

IA Summit Stuff
When inhaling becomes an option I'll report a bit on the IA Summit. In the meantime here's some misc. photos and my presentation, Incorporating Navigation Research into a Design Method PDF (800K), PPT (2MB). You'll want to view the powerpoint version in Notes View to get the story and pictures at the same time. And thanks to Lane Becker for the just-in-time equipment loan at the Summit.
March 01, 2004