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Peter Morville on “Ambient Findability and The Future of Search”

The recent presentation “Ambient Findability and The Future of Search” by Peter Morville, widely recognised as a founding father of information architecture, at Google TechTalks, is truly excellent.

At the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the Internet, the user experience is out of control, and findability is the real story. Access changes the game. We can select our sources and choose our news. We can find who and what we need, when and where we want. Search is the new interface of culture and commerce. As society shifts from push to pull, findability shapes who we trust, how we learn, where we go, and what we buy. In this cyberspace safari, Peter Morville explores the future present in mobile devices, search algorithms, ontologies, folksonomies, findable objects, digital librarianship, and the long tail of the sociosemantic web. Peter challenges us to think differently about the power of search - and findability - to redefine our sources of authority and inspiration in an increasingly digitized and networked information environment.

Peter Morville co-authored the best-selling book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, and has consulted with such organizations as Harvard, IBM, the International Monetary Fund, Microsoft, the National Cancer Institute, and Yahoo! Peter is president of Semantic Studios, co-founder of the Information Architecture Institute, and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. His work has been featured in many publications including Business Week, The Economist, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal. Peter’s latest book, Ambient Findability, was published in 2005. He blogs at findability.org.

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Donald Norman on the next UI breakthroughs

Donald Norman thinks that the next UI breakthroughs are a return to fundamentals (with improvements):

Command line languages
We navigate the Internet by typing phrases into our browsers and invoking our favorite search engine. But more and more, we type in commands, not search items. All the major search engines now allow typed commands, bypassing any intermediate Web pages to directly yield answers. […]
These modern command languages have some major virtues over the ones in the past. They are tolerant of variations, robust, and exhibit slight touches of natural language flexibility.

Physicality
The return to physical devices, where we control things by physical movement; turning, moving, and manipulating appropriate mechanical devices.
Physical devices have immediate design virtues, but they require new rules of engagement that differ from what we are used to with the typical mouse movements and clicks of the traditional keyboard and mouse interface. Designers have to learn how to translate the mechanical actions and directness into control of the task.

[Reposted from Putting People First]

(via Pasta and Vinegar)

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UXnet advisory board member publishes book on writing for the web

Ginny Redish, member of the UXnet Advisory Board, has just published a book entitled “Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works“.

Summary
On the web, whether on the job or at home, we usually want to grab information and use it quickly. We go to the web to get answers to questions or to complete tasks – to gather information, reading only what we need. We are all too busy to read much on the web.
Ginny Redish’s Letting Go of the Words helps you write successfully for web users. It offers strategy, process, and tactics for creating or revising content for the web. It helps you plan, organize, write, and design web content that will make web users come back again and again to your site.

• Book announcement page
• Book blog
• Buy book on Elsevier | Amazon

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UXnet Advisor Don Norman receives prestigious award

Professor Don Norman, a member of the UXnet Advisory Board, recently received the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. Since the medal’s inception more than 15 years ago, only two other people have been similarly titled Laureate: George A. Miller and Douglas C. Engelbart. Norman’s citation reads:

The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer & Cognitive Science is awarded to Donald Norman for the development of the field of user-centered design, which utilizes our understanding of how people think to develop technologies designed to be easily usable.

Don’s announcement of the award includes some links to a video and and information on the symposium that was part of the ceremony.

Congratulations to Professor Norman on a well-deserved addition to his impressive legacy.

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Bridging the chasm between the cultures of business and design

UXnet Advisory Board member Patrick Whitney is the focus of the June 19, 2006 BusinessWeek article “Design Visionary”. The article describes Whitney’s efforts at the IIT Institute of Design to combine design and business education, enabling graduates to utilize user experience methods to spur innovation.

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Dave Heller and Arnie Lund join UXnet

The UXnet Executive Council has added two new members - Dave Heller and Arnie Lund - to help us move forward, especially with our Organization Collaboration initiative.

Dave is one of the founders of the Interaction Design Group. Arnie is a member of the Executive Council of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

• Read more about Dave and Arnie (and the other Executive Council members)

Please join us in welcoming Dave and Arnie to UXnet.

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