“In his opening keynote at XML Europe 2001 in Berlin, Tim Bray explained how XML could make the Web more interesting — specifically, the Web’s user interface. Bray recounted that many members of the original team that created XML envisaged its application in web-enabled client document rendering systems, providing flexible user interfaces for exploring content. Instead XML seems to have found its immediate application in the backroom, connecting databases and disparate server systems. One of the most well-known uses of XML in this scenario is the SOAP protocol, which allows message passing between applications using XML and HTTP.”

“We are, as a species, hardwired not only for language but for narrative. A story is, you might say, an evolutionary mechanism designed to focus the attention of a group. Sometimes the point is to entertain, sometimes to teach, often both. The power of narrative, whatever its purpose, flows from a deep human need to identify with a group, and above all to find out what happens next.”

“The finest set of recommendations will be rejected if the form in which they are received is seen as hostile or belligerent. I recently received a copy of an unsolicited report sent to a firm that seemed unimpressed with the writer’s efforts. The reasons why are instructive to us all.”

“The goal of universal usability is to enable the widest range of users to benefit from web services. This website contains recommendations and information resources for web developers who wish to accommodate users with slow modems, small screens, text-only, and wireless devices. It deals with content design issues such as translation to other languages, plus access for novice, low educated and low motivated users, children and elders. The website also covers design guidance for blind, deaf, cognitively impaired, and physically disabled users.”

“The choice of font used in e-mails and type-written letters could say more about an individual’s personality than their creative writing skills. Graphology — the art of studying handwriting — has been used for centuries to try to analyse people’s characters, but since the demise of personal handwriting, the experts have moved on to typefaces to look for clues to our identities.”

“The Adaptive Systems & Interaction group (ASI) pursues research on automated reasoning, adaptation, and human-computer interaction. Interests of the group include principles and applications of decision making and learning, computation in the face of complexity, techniques for information management and search, and the development and evaluation of innovative designs for visualization and interaction.”

“Welcome to IDblog, the weblog of the STC Information Design SIG! I’ll be inviting some of my friends from the ID SIG to contribute to this site. We hope that the IDblog will become a worthy counterpart to other valuable ID resources, such as Peter Bogaard’s InfoDesign site, InformationDesign.org, and the fabulous InfoDesign lists.”

“Static images may have once been worth a thousand words, but it seems as though their value has plummeted as of late. Sure, you can animate them so they dance around, and yeah, some big, fat images have millions of colors, but even the best of them just sit on a page and look pretty. Images generated on the fly, on the other hand, have all kinds of potential. Imagine how impressed your users would be if a new, unexpected image loaded every time they hit your page. The images could be simple, eye-candy baubles with no purpose other than sprucing up a dull page with interesting color changes.”

“This is a forum to discuss the user experience of interactive entertainment. Interactive entertainment is becoming an increasingly important feature of the wired and wireless world. Entertaining content offers the kind of engagement and stickiness that creates devoted and frequent users. This group is interested in how end users can be involved in the design and evaluation of interactive entertainment such as games, gambling, interactive advertising, and electronic toys. It is a ‘platform independent’ forum, discussing user experiences across (and between) Web, mobile, interactive TV, and dedicated appliances.”

“Det er dermed muligt at se eller gense taler og debatter med internetguruer som Douglas Rushkoff, Justin Hall, Dave Winer, Dave Gray, Mark Hurst. Reboot er en årligt tilbagevendende fest for kommunikations og internetbranchen. Ca. 1500 mennesker var mødt op til arrangementet, som foruden taler og debatter også bød på en storstilet prisuddeling styret af Michael Bertelsen og Oliver Zahle.” (Her’s a Slideshow.)

“Welcome to IDblog, the weblog of the STC Information Design SIG! I’ll be inviting some of my friends from the ID SIG to contribute to this site. We hope that the IDblog will become a worthy counterpart to other valuable ID resources, such as Peter Bogaard’s InfoDesign site, InformationDesign.org, and the fabulous InfoDesign lists.”

“This is a forum to discuss the user experience of interactive entertainment. Interactive entertainment is becoming an increasingly important feature of the wired and wireless world. Entertaining content offers the kind of engagement and stickiness that creates devoted and frequent users. This group is interested in how end users can be involved in the design and evaluation of interactive entertainment such as games, gambling, interactive advertising, and electronic toys. It is a ‘platform independent’ forum, discussing user experiences across (and between) Web, mobile, interactive TV, and dedicated appliances.”

“At the heart of any good user-centred design process is the practice of prototyping. By creating and testing interfaces in rough format, designers are able to feed through improvements and feedback from users quickly and easily. This in turn helps to ensure a final product that is an evolved solution, in the sense that it has been through a number of iterations and emerged as fit for the job in question.”

“The Best Designs was created as a resource for designers to view the best designs on the net, to read articles written by other designers, and to be guided to the most helpful web design resources on the Internet.”

“Most corporate intranets are born around a conference room table, with a bevy of expectations heaped upon them from the moment of conception. The human resource department wants employee self-service and document distribution; sales and marketing requires a portal environment for accessing customer information, sales presentations, and up-to-date product information; upper-level management envisions a communications and data conduit linking global operations and partners — while the members of the IT department find themselves cracking open another package of Tums as hundreds, or even thousands, of Web pages flash before their eyes.”