brightly colored food

“Where the Action Is” draws on recent research trends in interactive systems to explore the foundations of a new model of using and experiencing computer systems — what I call “embodied interaction.”

Another one to add to the booklist - the promo website has mentions from Don Norman, Phil Agre, and Terry Winograd…
From Usability News

Nice compilation by Scott Berkun of useful threads from the CHI-Web list.

From Serious Instructional Technology

Subtitled “The Selling Points of Hard and Soft ROI (Return on Investment)”. Solid overview article by Alex Wright on justifying design proposals in terms that make sense to your client: revenue and savings.

Like others, I’m guilty of not justifying my team’s results in terms ROI often enough, but this will be one of the most important skills that any user-experience practitioner can learn, and it sadly isn’t emphasized or taught. The roots of our community of practice still remain firmly enough in academia and the arts to make talking in dollars largely a novel approach.

As Christina posted at info-arch.org, there’s a group of us at work on something, hopefully something grand and fine (and usable and practical too). If you’re interested in getting involved, there’s an email link on the home page; drop us a note, we’d love to hear from you.

From Peter Morville, based on a speech he gave at ASIS Summit 2000. His points about layers of Information Architecture are little golden nuggets, and he references the oft-cited wine.com for pointing out how faceted classification can and will be used to navigate through taxonomies. I especially like the analogy of layers of information architecture to layers in society in relation to how fast each layer changes - “slow layers provide stability, fast layers drive innovation”.

Opera is a web browser for those who want more control when web browsing, or who don’t want to rely on Microsoft or AOL for their software. I’ve only toyed with the new beta a bit so far, but I’ve really enjoyed the overall experience: easy and clear installation, really nice use of contextual help, tons of customization options. Oh, and it’s really fast. Check out their My Opera pages: acessibility guidelines, browsing options for those with disabilities - exciting stuff.

Now that Internet Explorer and Netscape have all but stopped improving the web browsing experience, it’s clear that it’s going to be these other web browsers who push for new innovations (like using gestures with the mouse to control the browser) that makes browsing easier and more powerful. It isn’t free ($40 - or use a version with an ad placed in the control bar), but think about how much time you spend on the web - I use a web browser more than any other application. It isn’t perfect - bookmark management isn’t the greatest, and occasionally it chokes on function-rich pages (the blogger entry screen is a mess), but if you spend an hour or more a day surfing, it’s probably worth the extra options and the time investment to learn how to use them.

From LucDesk

Wouldn’t it be great to find out what users (and marketing) want before you start coding? Paper prototyping lets you do just that. While it may seem counterintuitive to test an interface without using a computer, paper prototyping lets you get maximum feedback for minimum effort. After a few usability tests with a paper prototype, you’ll have confidence that you’re implementing the right thing.

Good article by Carlolyn Snyder on paper prototyping - considers the pros and cons and shows some shots of prototypes.

I must say that IBM is publishing some pretty good articles these days, and even the undercooked ones (a previous one on modal dialogues didn’t do much for me — this discussion has been ongoing since the days of Larry Tesler at Apple, and it was a rather cursory/anecdotal article) still have nice formatting: note the contents sidebar, introductory summary, resources at the end, subheads, conclusion, use of images, and overall writing style. Someone publishing articles online could learn a bit from their presentation….

From LucDesk

Web designers have been involved with the Internet for a long time, at least in Internet years. We begin to take the users for granted and expect them to know all the tricks of surfing Web pages.

Terrible name for the article, but a good reminder to see the web through the eyes of those less indocrinated with our interface oddities and internet-jargon.

I bring this up because I love my mother. She’s great - just what you’d expect from a mom. And being my mom, I was given the honor last night of explaining the difference between an email address and a web address. They both end in “.com”, so what’s the difference? She does her email and web-browsing in the same application, so why shouldn’t she expect to put her son’s email into that input box that’s labeled “Address” and send him an email? Her explanation made perfect sense to me.

We get so used to this stuff that we forget how idiosyncratic it is, how much of it is learned culturally, tips and clarifications between friends and relatives, things that aren’t so easy to figure out the first time. Now might be a good time for everyone to post a picture of their mother right next to your monitor, with the words “you are not your user” below, just as a friendly reminder.

I once hung out with a man whose hair defied gravity. That man was Todd Wilkens (aka tpodd). He moved from SF to UNC last year for grad school, but his weblog is still chugging along and better than ever. It’s a good look at someone doing academic research who’s also done his fair share of real work.

Louis Rosenfeld has started a new blog aimed at starting some dialogue and eventually some planning towards building a community infrastructure for IAs (and hopefully those who do IA-type activities — most everyone who does web design — but who don’t call themselves IAs). I appreciate his efforts at going out and asking what others want, building a community through dialogue and involvement — makes me feel all warm inside. Go put in your 2c worth….