In 1934, years before Vannevar Bush dreamed of the memex, decades before Ted Nelson coined the term “hypertext,” Paul Otlet envisioned a new kind of scholar’s workstation: a mechanical desk that would let users search, read, and write their way through a vast database stored on millions of 3×5 index cards.
Continue reading“Observe your users” — a maxim most user experience professionals subscribe to. But how do you “observe?” When testing websites, generating hypotheses about user behavior can help inform the observation process, structure data collection and analysis, and organize findings.
Continue readingIn part 4 of the continuing series on controlled vocabularies and faceted classification, the authors present a glossary of terms to help cut through through the verbiage often found in this field. And this glossary is more than just a list of terms. The glossary is itself a controlled vocabulary.
Continue readingDesigning web-based enterprise software involves creating complex artifacts like architecture wireframes, object models, screen flows, and clickable prototypes in order to articulate aspects of the online experience for product stakeholders. But what does “craft” mean for interaction designers?
Continue readingJust what are the design practices on the web that have the highest frequency? And are there design practices that all (or nearly all) sites employ?
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