The Success of GOV.UK
Take a few minutes to peruse GOV.UK. Where the design consistency of most large bureaucratic websites falls apart within a couple of clicks from the homepage, GOV.UK remains remarkably consistent.
Read MoreKJ Technique
I had a recent project where I needed to work with a larger than normal group to reach some quick consensus on where we should be focusing our time trying to improve their website. In the recesses of my brain, I knew that the KJ Technique was a good way to handle this. What I found in my googling was that no one does a really good job of explaining it succinctly.
Read MoreFaceted Search: a Real World Example
Faceted search allows a user to narrow their choices down when searching for something online. This type of search is easy to understand if we look at a real world equivalent. Let's use the example of a car purchase I made in 2012
Read MoreOf Librarians and Architects
The librarian and the information architect are more similar than they are different. They both practice their craft with the intent of efficiently connecting people with the information that they seek. But only one is going to shush you for talking too loudly in the stacks.
Read MoreSingle Labels for Diverse Content: an Impossible Task
In website redesign projects that I've led, I've often encountered the problems associated with ambiguous organization schemes. While there are other organization schemes, it's almost impossible to rely on a single solution. A combination of approaches is often best.
Read MoreDatabases in the Wild
I keep backyard chickens so I thought that an interesting real world example of entity relationships would be the chicken keeping process.
Read MoreInformation Management, Information Strategy
Implementing an information strategy is what lets most business concerns survive. Given the torrent of information that floods businesses every day, a formal strategy is what lets them cope with the volume.
Read MorePoor Structure by Design
When does a vendor not want a customer to immediately find the content they want? When they want them to accidentally find other stuff that they didn’t even know they wanted when they began their search.
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