The Archives
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07.23.07
TakingMaking it easyLast Friday, Alli, Hannah and I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with friends. But that's not what this post is about. What this post is about is several related things to do with user experience. Before the film, we went into the very excellent Borders bookstore here in Canberra. We all found things we wanted to read, and I suggested we go sit in the Gloria Jeans coffee shop inside the store. Alli was a little concerned, coffee on expensive books and all. The store assistant that happened to be ... -
06.24.07Getting clients interestedWhat tools do you use as an IA or UX practitioner to build client interest in the projects you're doing for them? If you're onsite, one of the most effective is to have a project wall - a place where you can put up large-format prints of various outputs you've generated for the project. Take a look at the pictures below for some examples. The first two images are the opposite walls of a corridor near to the test facility at the office of one of my clients. The third is a close-up of some user personas being used to ...
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06.22.07Elements and forces in IAAs information architects, we've all seen Jesse James Garrett's seminal Elements of User Experience diagram. It's the classic tool used to contextualise the material and environment IAs are working with when assisting in the development of projects designed for web-based delivery. And, it covers the full range of needs, from the very high overall business and user goals, right through the end delivery of the system. On the other hand, not so many of us will have seen this. Now, this is interesting! Not that I'm saying Jesse's original diagram isn't, but Richard Dalton's Forces of User Experience re-imagining of Jesse's original is ...
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05.22.07Meet Stephen CollinsStephen Collins is the Founder and Chief Troublemaker at acidlabs. Recognised as one of Australia's leading proponents of participatory culture, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and social networking, he is driven by a need to help people and organisations effect change in their capacity to retain, distribute and share knowledge. He has extensive consulting experience for a diverse client base across government and private enterprise and has expertise in social media and networking, knowledge management, web strategy, information architecture and user experience. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="160" caption="Image credit - Ruth Ellison"][/caption] He is a member of Social Media Today and Social Media Club, industry ...
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04.23.07IA and UX jobs - what makes the cut?Apparently it's pretty hard to pin down, as this job ad at Read/Write Web and posted by OddCast shows. On reading, to me this looks like a marketing/product management role and has very little to do with IA or UX. On the other hand, this role at Getty Images is plum, although very much at the management end of the spectrum and probably fairly divorced from the day-to-day work. Many people in the IA and UX fields work across both information architecture and user experience/user centered design (ah, the U*D acronym!), despite the skill sets being quite different. My head is ...
