“For years, artists have been using the color wheel to choose colors that go well together. The color wheel is a visual representation of color theory: with a simple color wheel printed on cardstock or plastic, you can quickly create a good color scheme. However, a printed color wheel has one big disadvantage: it cannot SHOW you how your color scheme will look on real artwork — that is, on a logo, website, or banner you’re working on. Color Wheel Pro allows you to preview color schemes on real-world examples. This is the key difference between Color Wheel Pro and other similar tools. The preview is real-time: when adjusting the color scheme, you see the changes immediately.”

We were traveling this year and were unable to participate in Link and Think.

Neat-o Flash art.

“Sadly, tools for conceptually laying out sites have remained fairly rudimentary. Sure, you’ve got programs such as Visio, Inspiration, and the very fine OmniGraffle to work with. And yes, all have been extended over the years to incorporate many Web-friendly features as a nod to information architects who use them. But they still seem a bit stilted, more suited to org-chart makers and programmers than creative folks who want to be able to take what’s in their head, play with it a little, then lay it out on the page to guide a development effort. A good IA tool should work like your brain. Is there one? Yes. It’s called Tinderbox.”

“One can’t work for too terribly long in the broader user-experience community without hearing the words ‘Experience Design.’ It’s a rubric I as an information architect have a tough time swallowing, despite my near-boundless respect for the people who have identified themselves as members of that community. Why is this so, when I think we’re after the same, or a highly similar, thing — the consistent evocation of pleasurable, meaningful human experiences when confronted with complex artifacts? I thought it might have something to do with a certain professional inclination to distrust engineered ‘experiences,’ and a corresponding belief that users might prefer to be offered information with which they could then build their own. Over the summer, I emailed Nathan Shedroff — probably the single human being most identified with the term Experience Design — and asked him if he wouldn’t mind participating in a debate exploring this idea; happily, he agreed.”

“Pay no heed to the enemy propaganda. Things are not as bleak as they may seem. Never surrender, especially not now! Believe it or not, we are winning the war for a more usable universe of products, software and systems. Over the past decade, we’ve seen huge usability improvements, from cell phones to accounting software to web sites. But don’t even think about relaxing. Now is the time to advance. And, as we roll into hostile lands, it has never been more crucial to know thy enemy.”