Thursday March 29, 2007 / 5 Comments

The Conversation Gets Interesting: Creating the Adaptive Interface

Description
With the proliferation of rich Internet applications and interactions more closely aligned with how people think, we face some interesting challenges:

• Do we design for one common audience and common tasks, or tailor applications around specific audiences and their unique activities?
• How do we resolve the tension between creating simple applications that ‘do less’ and the demand for new features that some people really do need?
• As we move beyond usability to create desirable interfaces, how do we handle a subjective domain like emotions?

These types of challenges could all be addressed by creating a truly ‘adaptive’ interface. More than removing unused menu options or collaborative filtering, this would include functionality that is revealed over time as well as interface elements that change based on usage. Imagine the web-based email client that begins offering three forms fields for attachments instead of the default one, because it ‘noticed’ that you frequently upload more than one file. Or the navigation menu that disappears because it is not relevant to the task at hand. Sound scary? Look at the world of game design, where inconsistency has never been an issue and where users learn new functions over time, as needed. In the same ways that ads are becoming more targeted around context and behavior, we can also create interfaces that respond, suggest, or change based on actual usage data.

While much of this is still speculative, we’ll explore some concrete examples of how such ideas have already been used, and other instances where they could be used. We’ll also take a brief look at what technologies might support these interactions, as well as some of the rules engines that might make this possible. And, to ground this in the past, we’ll at some existing navigational theories and research that might support this argument for an interface that is truly conversational and context aware.

Wednesday September 6, 2006

My copy of Dan Brown’s Communicating Design arrived I the mail today! I’ve been excited about this book since I saw the advance notice/promotional postcard at the IA Summit. If you’ve never seen any of the deliverables Dan has produced, check them out – now. Visuals such as his credit card site map or the passover infographic influenced the highly visual deliverables I am so fond of producing.

Anyway, Dan invited me to submit any site map or wireframe artifacts I might have to help round out the remaining chapters. Long story short, I am honored to have some of my work (albeit from 2003!) included in his new book.

If you haven’t heard about Communicating Design, you should certainly check it out. This books fills a niche not explicity covered by any other book—how to create the 10 deliverables/artifacts most commonly used by information architects and user experience groups. I’ve found that ‘seeing’ the documentation other people are producing is in many ways much more useful than another text on methodologies. This is a great book to have at your fingertips.

Wednesday August 30, 2006

Could “Information Architecture” go in the blanks below?

Leave off the second sentence, and Information Architecture might fit nicely into the blanks. But, this is actually from an intro to Cognitive Psychology text (fill in the blanks with ‘Cognitive Psychology’).

What struck me just how similar this might appear, at first glance, to some other descriptions of Information Architecture:

“The art and science of structuring, organizing and labeling information to help people find and manage information.” -Louis Rosenfeld

Or this more ‘expansive’ view of Information Architecture from Peter Merholz

”...we are providing an architecture—a space, a platform through which and upon which people move, contribute, and change.” (where “architecture” can apply to all shared information environments—not just virtual spaces)

I think the key distinction here is the focus on the environment (virtual or otherwise) versus a focus on the person. But even this distinction is one I see shifting over time, as the field of Information Architecture matures and best practices and conventions leave us with less to discover about the environments we are designing. While mental models and personas are certainly part of the IA toolbox, I believe that more of these types of tools—psychological tools that focus on cognition, emotion, social interactions, etc. — will work their way into everyday practice for information architects.

Which makes me wonder… Are we backing into an established profession (Cognitive Psychology), by way of a more marketable niche profession (Information Architecture)?

Currently, I spend a good deal of time fixing rather obvious UI errors, recommending best practices to common challenges, creating consistent labeling and understandable language, determining and describing task flows—mostly explicit things that can be documented or referenced elsewhere. But, when most systems work reasonably well and follow established UI conventions, what then will make one system work better than another? I think it is at this point that understanding—and designing for—the variety of human nuances (especially emotional ones) will be a critical differentiator in product applications. And it is at this point that that the distinction between Information Architecture and Cognitive Psychology gets really blurry…

Sunday July 30, 2006 / 2 Comments

Lately I’ve wondered if what passes for a basic company web site couldn’t be dramatically improved. I think this little musing started when, after writing about my frustration with the Geniant web site, I began asking myself “what kind of public (content) site could I be passionate about?” That question, paired with some other ideas I’ve been mulling over, led to some interesting possibilities…

A ‘Web2.0’ content site?
First off, how could a simple content site benefit from richer interactions. Specifically, how could some of the richer ‘Web2.0’ interactions benefiting applications also (when combined with what we know about cognition and emotion) raise the bar for the humble content site?

I think of it this way: What the submit button at the bottom of a forms page is to rich interactions (like Google maps or delicious), hyperlinked content pages are to… what? What does a web2.0 content site look like?

One off the cuff idea… (solely for illustration purposes!)
You’ve seen this page from amazon.com, right? What if traditional navigation for a professional services company was replaced by a series of sliders, where you could adjust the content based on things like tone of voice, interest in facts or stories or abstractions, and industry-specific content. Think of it as the ability to ‘tailor a message around your interest and preferred style of interaction’. Isn’t this what we do in social situations?

Creating Passionate Users
Second, consider some of Kathy Sierra’s comments around creating passionate users, namely… “how do we make the visitor the hero of the story?” In face to face sales calls we figure out a person’s priorities and how to make them look good—how can we do this online? The gaming industry has refined this idea again and again through multiple levels, rewards, and ever increasing challenges. With a website, what is the ‘prize’ someone is seeking in your content? What are the ‘things’ they can collect along the way? Of course narrative experiences are different for different people, which would introduce consistency issues, but is that really such a problem?

Creating flow
On a similar note, instead of religiously trying to dumb down a site, why not make a web site just challenging enough to be interesting but easy enough so as not to be boring. This is a central idea of creating flow), which has recently made its way into application development why not content site development?

Telling a good story
I’ve been reading Annette Simmons’ The Story Factor which describes the value of stories to inspire, influence, and persuade. Isn’t that the purpose of a corporate site for a services company (or any sales medium for that matter) to inspire, influence, and persuade? How could we draw people in through a site using narration or finely crafted stories?

What happens to content after it has been published?
Thomas Vander Wal has made some great comments about content use and reuse, commenting that people live within the real world and that information found online is often carried over into real world contexts. Take for example the contact information or directions found online—people typically print these directions or paste them into a mapping application; why not design for this activity? Things like vCards or Live Clipboard are early examples of this type of thinking.

Beyond adherence to microformats or other standards, how are we structuring content for reuse? Are we considering what happens to content after it is published on the web site? And how could we present content in such a way as to facilitate (or even suggest) reuse?

Emotional interfaces
Imagine interfaces designed not only for knowing and doing, but for feeling as well; interfaces that adapt to people based on personality, history, activity – whatever variable you define. In his presentation Emotion, Arousal, Attention and Flow: Chaining Emotional States to Improve Human-Computer Interaction, Trevor Van Gorp presents two (functionally) identical mobile phone interfaces, styled differently to represent dominant versus submissive personality traits. This is true of product designs (contrast the Dodge Ram with the VW Beetle), but how about changing the desired emotion state to accomplish a particular objective? What if things like style switching, language, and other subjective qualities of an interface changed based on usage?

Random encounters…
I’ve seen other elements of what I think I’m imagining, like seamlessly integrating video interviews with employees, or this web site with a save feature. This last addition makes sense considering many visitors to a site are only interested in specific pages offered by a company, and to that end they collect bookmarks or print out the relevant pages. Imagine being able to collect, organize and save a set of pages—case studies, service descriptions, selected leadership bios—creating a ‘personalized’ version of some company’s web site matched to your specific needs.

Hasn’t Flash done all this before?
Yes and No. There’s a parade of really great flash sites that offer rich interactive experiences, but there is a vital difference between these and what I’m imagining (aside from the fact that content is typically an afterthought!). These kinds of interactive experiences—usually created by ad agencies—are strategically designed to create a brand impression. Impressions are best created by appealing to emotions, for which motion, sound, visuals, narrative, exploration—entertainment—are all far more effective than dry text. This is why Burger King’s ‘Subserviant Chicken’ was a success—not because it did or didn’t sell more chicken sandwiches, but because it (along with other similar ideas) contributes to longer term organic growth by positioning BK for a new generation of buyers.

More to the point, checkout Tazo tea. I love this little site. As far as written content goes, it doesn’t allow for cutting and pasting, printing, searching, crawling, or forwarding of content—all things you could do with any XHTML page. But, while it is lacking as a content site, it is quite successful at creating an overall brand impression.

Or for a less extreme example, checkout Emerald Nuts It’s a great little site promoting, well, Emerald Nuts. I’ll stop there. Who goes to this site for any written content? But, the impression left by the interaction and animation is more important than any content being served up. This is entertainment that successfully shapes our impression of the product brand.

In these instances, the immersive experience is more important than the content. For more on how these ‘immersive experiences’ differ from content sites or applications, check out George Olsen’s expanded version of Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience as well as this model from Challis Hodge.

So what am I describing?
What I am trying to imagine is a (service-oriented) company site where the content is served up in a richer, more emotional way, without content taking a backseat to the experience.

Ready for some homework…? Take any professional services company, with less than 50 pages on their website. How could the site be improved by applying any of the ideas described above? Looking for an extra challenge…?

• How could AllRecipes.com provide recipes in a more emotional way?

• How could the ADA web site offer more personalized interactions?

• How could Engadget be more engaging?

• How could a conference site be altered using any of the ideas listed above?

One last thought…
Another interesting facet to all this is that the boundary between content site and application starts to blur. Boiled down to their essential functions, most web based applications simply offer different ways to interact with different kinds of information. Search engines, photo sites, spreadsheets, online banking, eCommerce, social bookmarking—these are all about information retrieval. And the ability to display, sort or filter that information in a way that is personally relevant. So why treat ‘static content’ sites any differently? Written content is just a different type of information. And the interface is a great way to serve up information in a more dynamic way than is available with ink on paper.

Recently, while working with an E&P company on a reporting application, I encountered a curious situation. Their one line ‘summary reports’ had become very dense with 15 lines of ‘summary’ information, due to the fact that one report had to provide information to multiple audiences, each focused on a different piece of information. While a compact, dense report like this makes sense in the physical world, in a virtual environment, each audience could benefit from a summary report that only serves up information relevant to their interests. Instead of scanning a report looking for specific information, make the information come to individuals as needed, based on set criteria. This is the unique advantage of an interactive medium. It is a shift from ‘let me find it’ to ‘bring it to me when and if I need to know’.

As an information architect, I talk a lot about what people want to know (content) and what they want to do (tasks). If we begin to treat content web sites like applications, the question changes from what do people want to know (a focus on content) to how do people find out information, and how can we tailor that information per individual. This goes beyond hyperlinked paths to information and into more exploratory territory. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that changes the interface from a hyperlinked textbook to a dynamic and shifting interaction.

So…
There you go. It’s a random buffet of thoughts, I know. But I wanted to share (and capture) some ideas I had for how a future version of the Geniant.com site could take shape… We’ll see.

Wednesday April 5, 2006 / 3 Comments

So, I was looking over my last post, wondering if there was a better way to communicate how the ‘Digital IAs’ (someone got a better label? Please!) have a broader, if less specialized, set of skills— doing both content IA and application IA only at a smaller scale. This is the resulting visual:

The scale of the project goes up and down (from a small business/startup to the large Enterprise) and the focus moves left to right from structuring content to structuring applications (which has more to do with interaction design).

Tuesday April 4, 2006 / 9 Comments

Hot on the heels of Classifying Experiences, I thought I’d tackle a less challenging but possibly more volatile subject: Information Architects.

Yes. There are many different types of IAs doing a wide range of things. At the IA Summit, I was amazed by just how many similar, but completely different types of projects are being worked on:

• People specializing in nothing but Search
• Developing controlled vocabularies for enterprise knowledge management systems
• Integrating various knowledge management systems, post acquisition
• IA in the real world, designing for experiences
• IA for legal systems, where documentation is more important than the system being documented
• IA for large complex applications
• And yes, IA for small web apps

But, this is about classifying IAs (not the projects).

Attending SXSW and IA Summit back to back confirmed what I’ve observed online.

Peter Merholz referenced (a part of) this in his closing pleniary: there are the classic ‘fuddy duddy’, Library and Information Sciences Content IAs, and there are the West Coast, ‘hipster’ Application IAs. There’s also a newer breed of (mostly application-oriented) IAs growing out of the web design world. So, three pockets of people. Why is this worth mentioning? Except for the group in the middle, those at the extremes are unaware of each other, or what each group has to offer the other. Let me explain, by way of anecdote.

In 2002, Dan Brown wrote about Page Description Diagrams. At the time, we (Bright Corner) thought it was a great idea. We tried it on a project, with fair results. Another tool in the toolbox. Fast forward to SXSW 2005. As Information Architect on the Design Eye for the Idea Guy panel, D. Keith Robinson uses PDDs as a deliverable. Within weeks, the web design and development community is buzzing about PDDs. Suddenly they are exceedingly popular—something everyone wants to know more about. Many of these people give credit to Robinson for such a great idea. Few of them now using or talking about PDDS have ever heard of Dan Brown.

Let’s swing to the other end of the spectrum. At the IA Summit, I spoke with several very talented LIS / Content IAs who know very little about what the Web2.0 meme really entails, why Ruby on Rails is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or what great sites like TechCrunch and Ajaxian have to offer us.

And yes, there are plenty of people in the middle. Obviously Keith was reading Dan, and I saw a lot of faces at both conferences—Kevin Cheng, Thomas Vander Wal, Luke Wroblewsky, the Adaptive Path folks. But, I’d like to see more awareness/communication – more people crossing over, not necessarily in practice, but certainly in knowledge sharing.

So, here it is:

(By the way, for this model, I’m aiming for the middle, say 85% of us, and I’ve exempted the roles of Enterprise IA and Technical IA – those are very different.)

Thoughts?

Friday November 11, 2005

A special thanks to everyone who came out to the first Refresh Dallas meeting last night! We didn’t know what to expect in terms of turnout, and were pleasantly surprised.

As promised, here are the notes and the presentations from last night, as well as a few other (contextually) related goodies:

• The presentation (9M zipped pdf file)

• The notes we handed out (pdf)

• A personal IA notes page I maintain in Backpack. In addition to some of my own thoughts on Information Architecture, this page links to deeper information from people much more qualified to speak about IA…

• And A Practical Introduction to Information Architecture (this is a presentation I gave two years ago that focuses more on IA deliverables and how they fit into a process)

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to post them here or contact me directly at stephen [at] poetpainter.com.

Oh yeah, my garage is looking a lot better: