Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user brownorama on 2005-02-28
Several years ago, I wrote a review of Jef Raskin’s Human Interface. Despite my critique of how Raskin applied his ideas on interface design, his ideas stuck with me nonetheless. Of all the books I’ve read on interface design, Raskin’s is the only one I refer to time and again. Here are some of the concepts that I use frequently in my job:
Mental Ergonomics & Locus of Attention
At the foundation of Raskin’s thinking is the fundamental limitations of human cognition. Although we do user research to determine what makes our audiences unique for a particular application, there exist limits to human mental abilities that we more or less all share. For example, we can pay attention to only one thing at a time. The humming of flourescent lights is omnipresent (especially if you work in a government job) but we don’t notice them until we’re asked to pay attention to them. There is further evidence that our brains have limited perceptual and cognitive capabilities, yet so many interface designs attempt to defy those limitations.
Gestures
The idea of a gesture is very appealing to me. It’s the smallest unit of measure in human behavior: typing a word, holding down a key combinatino, dragging a mouse, scrolling. Gestures are molecular (not atomic) in that they have a certain amount of complexity, but they’re more basic (in Lakoff’s sense of the word) than the minor muscle movements required to perform them. Raskin suggests that gestures should have one-to-one relationships with commands. Thus the gesture of pushing CTRL + S on your keyboard should ALWAYS mean save. When a gesture in one application means something different in a different application, the interface is MODAL — different modes change the meaning of a gesture. Unless the current mode is in the user’s locus of attention, he or she may be confused about the meaning of the gesture.
Habits and The Humane Interface
What I took away from Raskin’s book is the idea of removing the burden from the user. Raskin describes three principles of interface design, but at the heart of all them is that the user should not be burdened with unnecessary mental activities. Raskin might even argue that unnecessary mental activities are impossible mental activities — we do not process everything because we are physically incapable of it. By the same token, habit-forming is a fundamental cognitive skill that more often creates problems in the interface. We designers rarely take advantage of our brain’s capability of forming habits.
Raskin’s ideas were perhaps not new — perhaps they were simply a new way of saying the same old things — but he articulated them in a unified way that made sense to me. His impact on user experience design will be remembered.
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user brownorama on 2005-02-27
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user brownorama on 2005-02-25
A colleague asked me this afternoon about the questions I use when interviewing IA candidates. I thought my response might be useful to the IA community at-large. So here it is:
I don’t have a list of questions I run through. I try to keep things conversational, though I do tend to put a bit of pressure on people to see how they fare in stressful discussions. Conversations with the client are not always light, and maintaining cool and professionalism is the single most important skill a consultant can have.
Your questions should be motivated by the information you need to make a decision about a candidate’s suitability.
I try to ask questions in several areas, about particular projects on their resume:
1. Thought process: how did you get to this concept?
2. Deliverables: why did you present things the way you did?
3. Client relations: how do you deal with difficult clients?
4. Knowledge of IA: how formal is your knowledge of the field? (do they know the difference between a thesaurus and a taxonomy? controlled vocabulary and facet analysis? searching and browsing?)
5. Team interaction: how well do you play with others?
My standard ice-breaker questions are:
1. What was the project you are most proud of?
2. What was your most difficult project?
3. What do you do to keep up with the IA field?
4. Why are you leaving your current job?
5. What about the job description appealed to you?
Red flags:
1. People who have never held the title IA
2. People who list deliverables on their resume that they can’t describe
3. People who show up without a portfolio
Other tips:
1. Never give away too much about the project — this gives candidates the opportunity to latch onto keywords and skirt their own experience.
2. Never look at your watch while the candidate is talking. Wait until it’s your turn to ask a question.
3. Always be thinking about your next question. Avoid long pauses between questions.
4. Interrupt if you’re not getting the information you need to make a decision about the interview’s suitability.
5. Draw out your questions. This gives the candidate time to think about an answer. Ask the same question in several different ways. Interviews are artificial situations and candidates deserve a chance to answer a question thoughtfully. Candidates should be challenged by the content of the question, not by the time in which they have to respond.
You, too, can be the bad cop of IA interviews.
As I’m trying to soak up as much cognitive science these days, I was pleased to see the one hundred most influential works in cognitive science from the 20th century. As I scanned the list, however, I noticed that none of the books I’ve been reading — Lakoff, Faucconier, Johnson, Pinker — made the list.
Then I stumbled across the nominations, and they’re all there. Seems my guys didnt make the cut to the short list…
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user brownorama on 2005-02-24
I frequently find myself agreeing with Gerry McGovern’s message, but disagreeing with his argument. Take his latest post — IT is from Mars; web content is from Venus. In this article, he vilifies IT professionals, suggesting they typically have a stronger focus on technology. According to McGovern, techies treat information as a stream of data to be manipulated. They are attracted to technology for technology’s sake.
These are messages we’ve heard before (Cooper’s Inmates is perhaps the canonical work on the subject) but I wonder if McGovern’s solution is appropriate. He suggests having the marketing department “own” the public Web site. Experience shows that marketers are equally likely to be attracted to “cool” technologies without considering the end-user. The lure of technology is not reserved for technologists alone.
Likewise, technologists are not completely irrational people, forsaking successful products in favor of gizmophilia. Good technologists (and good marketers) balance all inputs — business goals, portfolio management, user needs — into the decisions they make. McGovern writes:
The managing editor who is in charge of the website must be responsible for everything—the content and the applications. They must ultimately decide whether new content should be published, or whether new applications should be developed. Their decisions must be based on a deep understanding of their staff, their customers, or whoever else their website is targeted at.
But I think this approach does not take into account the multi-disciplinary decisions required for a Web site. Like it or not, whether users need an application is only useful input when considered along side budgetary and other concerns. It also doesn’t account for internal support — are there business processes in place to support the application — or adoption — will our customers use the application or service.
Ultimately, current organizational models are not equipped to handle the nuances of the Web. The communications medium offers significantly different challenges than the ones that came before, and our organization and management approaches grew up around those other media. New media call for new approaches to management — ones that neither depend on nor reinforce the antiquated siloed approach.
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user brownorama on 2005-02-23
I’m posting draft versions of my posters for the IA Summit in the hopes of getting some feedback from the community. Please take a look and let me know what you think by dropping a line to brownorama [by way of] gmail [dot] com.
The first poster shows how the field of information architecture extends to non-Web applications. Specifically, network digital audio devices, which allow users to distribute digital audio to stereos in other rooms of the house.
The second poster explores the impact of using different kinds of sample data in wireframes. It offers suggestions for how to employ sample data effectively. It also shows how the wrong sample data can misrepresent the behavior or layout of a Web page.
Both posters are still unfinished. The axes in the middle of the music poster need some work. There are a few callouts missing from the wireframes poster.
Doing kottke.org as a full-time job (kottke.org)
Kottke is going to be a full-time blogger. He’s exploring different business models. Can the masses be a collective patron? Good luck, Jason, from the jealous rest of us.
The closest cafe to my house now is no longer Starbucks. Mayorga Coffee, a local coffee company, has just opened its fifth location four blocks from my house. Mayorga’s coffee is better than Starbucks (though not less expensive), the cafe is more comfortable, they offer free wi-fi, and they have live music Thursday through Saturday. Can’t think of a reason I wouldn’t go.
