Design Matters

By Anne Rockley, with Pamela Kostur and Steve Manning

Reviewed by Jim Owens

If you think that designing information for reuse is simply a matter of writing “stand-alone” topics that can be understood in any context, you should read this book. Although its focus is how to manage information, Managing Enterprise Content contains many valuable lessons for information designers.

Information is a vital asset for any organization, but as Rockley points out, it is seldom managed effectively. More often, its development and distribution is left to individual departments working in “content silos.” In this way, the organization unknowingly creates and processes the same content in many places. One department is often unaware of the resources available in another department. Even when departments manage to share and trade information, they spend time and effort converting formats and performing “cut-and-paste” operations.

Organizations can make better use of their information assets by planning and managing how content is processed and developed. The first step is to perform a “content audit” to identify what is being created and where. With this information, the organization can pinpoint duplicated effort, and then develop a “unified content strategy” to plan for mutual content development and reuse.

The lesson for information designers is that successful reuse requires long-term, top-level planning. It isn’t enough to write a topic that can be understood in isolation. You need to know what will happen to that topic in its lifecycle: who will reuse or repurpose the topic; how it will be processed; where it will show up in the organization’s information products.  Also of particular interest to information designers is the section on “Design,” with chapters on information modeling, metadata, dynamic content, and workflow.

Besides offering practical advice on how to overcome content silos, conduct a content audit, and develop a unified content strategy, Rockley surveys the technologies available for effective content management. Not surprisingly, she recommends the use of XML throughout the organization. The book concludes with a classification and comparison of various authoring tools, content management systems, and options for workflow and delivery.

New Riders, 2003 ISBN 0-7357-1306-5

Jim Owens is a technical writer in Ottawa, Canada. His interests in information design topics include visual presentation, content organization, topic planning, and rhetorical approach. He also recommends Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug (reviewed in the previous post), How to Write a Usable User Manual by Edmond H. Weiss, The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams, Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery by JoAnn Hackos, and Single-Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation by Kurt Ament.

Reviewed by Jim Owens

In this short and entertaining book, Steve Krug draws us into the world of our own half-conscious thoughts as we navigate various actual web pages. These thoughts can slow us down, confuse and discourage us, and eventually cause us go somewhere else. Krug’s most important contribution is to help us notice these inarticulate reactions. He also offers design tips for avoiding these reactions, but ultimately, as the book’s subtitle suggests, the answer is just common sense.

The ample and well-designed illustrations are themselves a lesson in usability. With side-by-side screen shots, Krug shows us the crisp and handsome web page we think we’re designing, and the pared-down “eyeball” view of the user, with most of the page blurred out of direct consciousness. From the big headings above the screen shots (”What we design for” and “What users see”), the meaning of the illustration is transparent. Probably one could absorb most of the book’s lessons just by looking at the pictures. But Krug’s informal, friendly prose, dotted generously with humor, makes this book a pleasure to read.

For web design, Krug identifies and recommends some common practices that users now expect; for example, putting the company logo at top left and using it as a link to the home page. If you’re new to web design, this may save you from re-inventing the wheel (or inventing something that doesn’t work as well). As Krug points out, “Conventions are your friend.” He also provides advice for writing effectively, some of it refreshingly unorthodox (”Instructions must die!”). And as a bonus, he talks about why and how to conduct usability testing. But without a doubt, the real value of this book is the way it exposes our mental processing of information.

New Riders, 2000 ISBN 0-7897-2310-7

Jim Owens is a technical writer in Ottawa, Canada. His interests in information design topics include visual presentation, content organization, topic planning, and rhetorical approach. Other related books he recommends are Managing Enterprise Content by Ann Rockley, How to Write a Usable User Manual by Edmond H. Weiss, The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams, Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery by JoAnn Hackos, and Single-Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation by Kurt Ament. 

The following was emailed to all SIG members attending the Summit: 

Greetings members of the STC Information Design and Architecture SIG!

The 55^th annual conference is almost upon us and I wanted to inform you of our activities planned for Philadelphia. Many of these events we have highlighted at our website www.stc-on.org/id which we will continue to update throughout the conference. Also, you can post your conference experiences, session highlights etc there as well. If you are new to the SIG or just want a more organized opportunity to network, consider volunteering and/or attending:

• Welcome Reception SIG Table:
  Sunday Night, 7:00-8:15 PM – Exhibit Hall C

Spend 20-30 minutes at the SIG table, talking about the SIG and passing out buttons and pens promoting the SIG website. Good chance to meet other members!

• Old City Social Activity:
  Late Dinner @ Continental Restaurant
  Monday, June 2, 7:30 PM. (After the business meeting)

Meet outside Convention Center room 114 – Quick Subway ride to historic Old City Philadelphia for dinner and discussion - Come meet members of the SIG leadership team and hear more about our activities planned for the coming year.

• SIG Business Meeting: Tuesday, June 3

7:30 AM - Marriott Hotel Room 306
The SIG needs member input to shape the direction of our activities in the year ahead. Webinars and other options for furthering the practices of information architects and designers will be the main focus.

• SIG Luncheon: Tuesday, June 3
  Volunteers to sit at the ID/A SIG table…stir discussion…talk about information architecture and design topics

Hope to meet as many of you as possible in Philadelphia. Travel safe.
David Caruso
ID/A SIG Conference Manager
dcaruso@cdc.gov

PS - This email may have been sent to others who were not members and may have shown emails. These were mistakes and I am sorry.

Calling all ID/A SIG members to participate at the 2008 STC Summit in Philadelphia. 

I hope to see many members of the ID/A SIG at the upcoming conference. Don’t forget to stop by the table at the opening reception and pick up your SIG button and Pen (handy writing tool to use during the rest of the conference). Speaking of the opening reception, why not volunteer and meet your fellow SIG members while helping to distribute the above mentioned tchokies! Half-hour time slots will be available from set-up at 6:45-7:15, 7:15-7:45, 7:45-8:15. Please email David Caruso with your availability. 

 Also at the conference, the SIG will be represented at the Networking lunches all 3 days of the conference. If you choose to sit at our SIGs table (and we hope that every member would) please let David know if you would like to be a moderator/discussion starter. This calls for an extrovert who can mingle and get the networking going. Nothing cast in stone, but it is always easier if there is someone identified to start the conversation. That person could be you! 

OK, that’s it for my pitch to recruit volunteers. I really hope everyone who is going to the conference also takes the opportunity to explore Philadelphia. It really is the city where this country started and some of the most important documents ever written were conceived and when quill was put to parchment, a nation was born. There will be a social event as in years past but the details are as yet undetermined. Look to this page for details as they emerge. 

DC 

David L. Caruso, ID/A SIG Conference Manager 

I just saw this post over at Boxes and Arrows, looks very interesting:

A Podcast from Vizthink ‘08 by Jeff Parks on 2008/03/04 http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/using-design-visuals

Reviewed by David Dick

Once upon a time, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were found only in operating systems for PCs. Today, we confront GUIs when using self-service checkout counters, when paying bills online, and when using mobile phones, to name a few examples.

Whether we can complete our transactions or accomplish our tasks depends on GUIs that are easy to use and understand. No doubt you have seen people confused with the touch-screen menu at the self-service checkout, or abandon an online shopping cart because the form is confusing. You may well have chosen a competitor’s brand of income tax preparation software that is easier to use. Frustrated users mean lost profit and products that fail in the marketplace. When GUIs fail, companies call a UI designer such as Jeff Johnson to change poor design to great design.

The first edition of GUI Bloopers heralded Johnson’s first work as a book author. GUI Bloopers was intended for software developers who often double as UI designers, development managers, and new UI designers. But GUI Bloopers also gained popularity among teachers and technical writers who wanted to understand the rules of good user interface design. Readers’ feedback, new software products and Web applications on the market inspired Johnson to write an updated version—GUI Bloopers 2.0.

GUI Bloopers 2.0 describes common user-interface mistakes found in today’s software products and services, and provides design rules and guidelines to avoid them. Johnson describes the design decisions that lead to misuse of controls, poor navigation, prose-riddled labels, bad design and layout, faulty interaction, and poor responsiveness. GUI Bloopers 2.0 is well illustrated with hundreds of examples from real products and online services, and stories from his own experience.

To compare and contrast good and bad design, Johnson gives a “thumbs up” for good design and a “thumbs down” for a blooper. GUI Bloopers 2.0 earns my “two thumbs up.” The book is well written, well researched, and is an essential resource for anyone developing software products and web applications.

424 pages ISBN: 978-0123706430 September 2007

Chapter-by-Chapter

Johnson provides examples of real world UI development, his insights on common bloopers, and principles for how to avoid them.

Chapter 1, First Principles, describes nine principles of product design: focus on the users and their tasks, not on the technology; consider function first and presentation later; conform to the users’ view of the task; design for the common case; don’t complicate the users’ task; facilitate learning; deliver information and not just data; design for responsiveness; and try it out on users and then fix it. Too often, the rush to deliver products means ignoring one or more of these principles. Johnson could have omitted this chapter and jumped right into describing GUI bloopers, but it provides an informational foundation for the discussion of bloopers.

Chapter 2, GUI Control Bloopers, is the first of six chapters dedicated to GUI design details. It describes the most common misuses of controls (that is, checkboxes, tabs, input fields and buttons) and how to avoid them.

Chapter 3, Navigation Bloopers, emphasizes the importance of cues to let people know where they are, where they have been, and where they can go. This chapter describes the most common navigation mistakes and how to design effective navigation cues.

Chapter 4, Textual Bloopers, describes how users can be confused by inconsistent and unclear terminology, poor writing, jargon, and misleading text. The typical GUI contains a lot of text, and if it’s poorly written, users can easily get lost. Peer reviews of the user interface by developers do not uncover these errors if they cannot recognize them as confusing. For example, an error message that describes a script error is informative to a developer but meaningless to users. Johnson offers suggestions for educating development teams about good writing and acceptable terminology, and how to conduct reviews to identify textual bloopers. Once the GUI controls have been added, properly labeled and any supplemental text has been written, it is time to decide on presentation: layout, colors, and text fonts.

Chapter 5, Graphic Design and Layout Bloopers, presents guidelines on layout and window placement, colors, and text fonts. You will learn valuable presentation guidelines that will make user interface easier to read and understand. Unfortunately, Johnson was unable to provide examples of bloopers showing poor use of color because the book is printed in black and white. However, he covers color bloopers in a Web Appendix at http://www.gui-bloopers.com
Chapter 6, Interaction Bloopers, is the first of two chapters that describe the mechanics that underlie the user interface. In this chapter, Johnson presents the user interface design principles that affect human perception, reading, information processing, and problem solving. The chapter clarifies why violating these principles results in software products that are hard to learn and frustrating to use. Some of the design mistakes covered in this chapter are driven by business rules and processes mandated by clients and corporate policy. If those business rules and processes do not contribute to usability, this chapter will educate you on how to make an argument for improving interaction.

Chapter 7, Responsiveness Bloopers, describes the reasons for poor responsiveness and the design principles for improving responsiveness. Before I read this chapter, I assumed that sticky buttons, frozen cursors, and lagging scrollbars (to name a few) meant that my PC was too slow. After reading this chapter, I learned not to confuse responsiveness with performance.

Chapter 8, Management Bloopers, describes management misconceptions and mistakes that lead to poor product usability. Other authors have dedicated whole books to management-level problems that affect usability. Johnson could have easily omitted this chapter and listed those books as references. However, he does not just rant about why poor management leads to poor usability; he provides strategies and suggestions to educate management about usability.

Website

GUI Bloopers 2.0 also has a supplemental site, http://www.gui-bloopers.com with a bloopers checklist to check before product releases and bloopers about poor color use (the book is not printed in color).

About the Reviewer

David is an Associate Fellow, member of the Washington, D.C. chapter, and Editor of Usability Interface (newsletter for the Usability and User Experience Community).

The most recent issue of TechniScribe, newsletter of the Orange County chapter of STC, has an article of interest in EduNotes, where Bill Darnall explains the complementary processes of information architecture design and information design. The issue is available at http://www.ocstc.org/pdf/ts102007.pdf.

The Information Design and Architecture SIG would like to announce a call for those interested in participating in a progression at the 2008 STC Summit in Philadelphia. Last year in Minneapolis we had great attendance for a group of fantastic speakers on a wide array of topics related to the ID/A community. I would encourage everyone to review the official Call for Proposals posted on the STC site. If you think you have a topic or would like to present a case study from your experience, please contact David Caruso directly with all your information no later than October 5, 2007 (next Friday – sorry for the minimal notice).

Information Architecture Summit (9th). Miami, Florida. April 12-14 2008, pre-conference sessions April 10-11 2008.

The committee is now calling for submissions for presentations, panels, research papers, pre-conference workshops, posters and management track content. The 2008 theme is “Experiencing Information.” For more information, details about submission procedures and deadlines please see the summit website, http://www.iasummit.org

First annual Interaction Design Association conference. Savannah, Georgia. February 8-10, 2008.

Keynotes from Alan Cooper, Bill Buxton, Sigi Moeslinger, and Malcolm McCullough, and talks from Jared Spool, Dan Brown, Régine Debatty, Matt Jones, Aza Raskin, Jenny Lam, Sarah Allen, and Molly Wright Steenson. Workshops led by Marc Rettig, Darja Isaksson, Todd Warfel, and Jeff Patton.

More on the conference: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Register here: http://www.regonline.com/ixda_interaction08  Submit a Lightning Session topic here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Jx8Syhywkw_2bumLuV1KJZGQ_3d_3d