“The whole point of weblogs is to share knowledge, ideas, and some small amount of self promotion (or exhibitionism, depending on the blog). If you design your weblog so that a disabled user has a hard time reading your ideas and thoughts you are losing part of your audience and you are missing an opportunity to share your ideas with a wider circle. And it’s just not fair.”

“Can we talk about web design? Let’s. Since I put up that CSS Box Lesson back in March I’ve been buried with email questions. A root confusion seems to be how we’re approaching the web; what we think a web page is, and how this affects our layout choices. A lot of people paint themselves into a corner, quite innocently, and then get very frustrated that their layout won’t ‘work’. Here’s my thoughts on approach. I don’t mean to be dictatorial. I’m just putting down my viewpoint to give people who want it some groundwork to build from.”

“In the same way that a great concept is the foundation of a great logo, information architecture is the foundation of a useful Web site. Whether it’s in your face, or barely noticeable, an architecture needs to be clear and understandable and it needs to communicate. Architecture, navigation and interface design combined with visual branding, determine the overall user experience and influence the audience’s brand perception. The architecture is the foundation that supports a site’s navigation and interface design. As the foundation, it needs to fit the content and communicate the appropriate message.”

“This is the archive for the SIGIA-L@asis.org mailing list.”

“Concept maps have long provided visual languages widely used in many different disciplines and application domains. This article reports experience in taking an existing open architecture concept mapping tool and making it available on the Web in a number of ways: as a client helper downloading and uploading concept maps; as an active controller of the browser, indexing multimedia material through URLs embedded in concept maps; as a concept map creator controlled by the browser, generating concept maps through the browsing process; and as an auxiliary HTTP server making concept maps available as clickable maps for users who do not have the client helper or want to use active concept maps embedded in documents.”

“Can we talk about web design? Let’s. Since I put up that CSS Box Lesson back in March I’ve been buried with email questions. A root confusion seems to be how we’re approaching the web; what we think a web page is, and how this affects our layout choices. A lot of people paint themselves into a corner, quite innocently, and then get very frustrated that their layout won’t ‘work’. Here’s my thoughts on approach. I don’t mean to be dictatorial. I’m just putting down my viewpoint to give people who want it some groundwork to build from.”

“Our mission is to create an outlet where artists can expose their name and work to people who would otherwise not see it. We believe that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable. What better way to do this, than with a heavy cold steel machine?”

“This year, the Ziff Davis Smart Business Labs teamed up with eyeTracking.com to find out which sites make it easiest and fastest to find what you’re looking for, get questions answered, and complete and track your order. We chose two leading companies in the hottest e-commerce categories and pitted them against one another in our exhaustive tests.”

“Here’s a longish post that starts with a statement from the Department of Dangerous Oversimplification: information architecture is basically a two-part exercise. 1. First choose the most useful tools and techniques (e.g., card sorting, contextual inquiry) to learn about users’ information needs, the characteristics of content, and organizational context and constraints. 2. With that knowledge in hand, design an information architecture using the subset of all possible architectural components (e.g., site index, search engine) that will provide high value to users while minimizing development and maintenance costs.”

“Unfortunately, but understandably, audio is often under-utilized. When dealing with Web based media, audio can be a data hog and is traditionally known as a usability killer. On top of that, you can’t rely on every end user to have their speakers turned on. These are legitimate concerns and they shouldn’t be ignored. At the same time I think we need to keep looking forward and that involves thinking of sound design as an integral part of interactive media. If we begin to make media experiences enriching enough, eventually users will want to have their speakers on.”

“We read everywhere, including on ClickZ, that advertisers need to remember we are visual beings. True, we are bombarded with more visual marketing stimuli than ever before. But to say that because we’re being buried in visual stuff we’re visual beings is like saying because we periodically fill ourselves up with air we’re balloons. We aren’t nearly as visual as a lot of people like, perhaps need, to assume. The premise that ‘going visual’ is the cure-all for advertising ills is a path to advertising doom.”

“This year, the Ziff Davis Smart Business Labs teamed up with eyeTracking.com to find out which sites make it easiest and fastest to find what you’re looking for, get questions answered, and complete and track your order. We chose two leading companies in the hottest e-commerce categories and pitted them against one another in our exhaustive tests.”

“The way we handle information on our computers is called the ‘desktop metaphor.’ But there is nothing metaphorical about the way we point-and-click our way through icons, folders and files. A number of companies are experimenting with software and services that allow users to better navigate around, through and over the mountain of data that comes pouring through our home and work computers every day, in the shape of e-mail, faxes, Web pages and spreadsheets. If the new systems ever catch on — and some skeptics say our old system is too ingrained to make way for the new — it could change the whole concept of how we relate to our machines.”

“Much to the chagrin of Hormel Foods, maker of the canned ‘Shoulder Pork and hAM’ luncheon meat, the term ’spam’ has today come to mean network abuse, particularly junk E-mail and massive junk postings to USENET. How did the term get this meaning? I went on a mission of etymological research…”

“I have written about the problem of spam in the past, most notably about how some Web sites and content management systems do not do an adequate job of protecting their users’ email addresses from spam harvesting robots (spambots). There are also people out there who just want to cause trouble by using your email address as the return address for thousands of pieces of spam, as Dave Winer has recently found out…”