Simian Design

Theresa Neil has an excellent article up on 12 standard design patterns.  These concepts are central to enterprise application and web productivity application design.

The image shown here is just a high-level overview of what those patterns are, and she delves into what each of these patterns are and what encompasses them.

Quick quote in regards to the Master/Detail pattern:

Master/Detail screen pattern can be vertical or horizontal. Ideal for creating an efficient user experience by allowing the user to stay in the same screen while navigating between items. Horizontal layout is a good choice when the user needs to see more information in the master list than just a few identifiers- or when the master view is comprised of a set of items that each have additional details.

A very useful article.    Lots of really good info.

* [Brett's Robot.txt Blog][1] might be the most innovative blog I’ve seen in a long, long time. The design is just so smart. I LOVE it.
* [The Making of Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer][2] is a fun read on a TV classic.
* [Babies in water][3]. [Some][3c] [great][3a], [great][3b] [photos][3d].
* I, for one, welcome our new [Alien Overlord Masters][4]
* The [John Singer Sargent] Gallery has some [very][5a] [nice][5c] [pieces][5b].

[1]: http://www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt
[2]: http://www.tvparty.com/xmasrudolph.html
[3]: http://www.urchinrock.com/
[3a]: http://www.urchinrock.com/gallery_pages/image59.php
[3b]: http://www.urchinrock.com/gallery_pages/image19.php
[3c]: http://www.urchinrock.com/gallery_pages/image30.php
[3d]: http://www.urchinrock.com/gallery_pages/image64.php
[4]: http://ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html
[5]: http://www.jssgallery.org/index.htm
[5a]: http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/10195.html
[5b]: http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/10140.html
[5c]: http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/10195.html
[6]: http://ian-albert.com/misc/gamemaps.php
[6b]: http://ian-albert.com/dont_hotlink.php/0/misc/hw-zelda3-2.jpg
[7]: http://positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/
[8]: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=327735
[9]: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sensibleforms
[10]: http://24ways.org/advent/naughty-or-nice-css-background-images
[11]: http://www.nickfinck.com/stencils.html
[11b]: http://www.garrettdimon.com/resources/templates-stencils-for-visio-omnigraffle
[12]: http://www.cocomment.com/
[13]: http://www.muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2006/02/7/CSS_Drop_Column_Layout.php
read more »

This article, on the [Gestalt principle of form perception][1], is fantastic. [Mads Soegaard] takes a close look at the “gestalt laws of perceptual organization”, and even uses them in this article nicely. (In particular he uses the Law of Promiximity very well.)

Basically what this article is about is how people parse information. Jeff Veen touches on this with his ['blink' phenomenon][3]. It all revolves around how people perceives parts of an object and form whole objects, or out ability to parse meaning out of the ‘vapor of nuance’.

The laws are thus: The Law of Proximity, The Law of Similarity, The Law of Prägnanz (figure-ground), The Law of Symmetry and The Law of Closure. I find the Law of Proximity, Similarity the ones most applicable to online design. But they all have their uses, and are really good tools to have in your toolkit.

I really dig this article, and I really encourage you to go and read it. Especially if you design anything for online consumption.

[1]: http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/gestalt_principles_of_form_perception.html
[2]: http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/mads_soegaard.html
[3]: http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000707.html

Nick has made available his [Visio Stencils for the Information Architect][iURL1]. Nice, thanks Nick.

Other stencils that I’ve found usefull over the years:

* [Wireframe Stencil][iURL2], from urygreyhot.com.
* [IA Deliverable Stencils][iURL3] has a large list of good stencils.
* [jjg's stencils and Visual Vocabulary][iURL4]. Seriously, he ought to collect royalties from everyone who uses IA Stencils.
* [AIfIA tools section][iURL5] has a good listing of Visio stencils as well. Also lists some good Omnigraffle Stencils.
* [How to use Visio for rapid prototyping][iURL6] is an excellent article, and has a good set of prototyping tools for Visio. From GUUUI.
* [Peter Van Dijck's Visio Shapes][iURL7] is also worthwhile.

This should keep you Visio folks happy. I don’t have a quick list of OmniGraffle Stencils, other than what is listed at [AIfIA][iURL5].

[iURL1]: http://www.digital-web.com/news/2004/12/visio_stencils_for_iinformation_architects/
[iURL2]: http://urlgreyhot.com/resources/visio_wireframe_stencil.php
[iURL3]: http://www.iabook.com/template.htm
[iURL4]: http://www.jjg.net/ia/visvocab/
[iURL5]: http://www.aifia.org/tools/
[iURL6]: http://www.guuui.com/issues/02_03_02.php
[iURL7]: http://poorbuthappy.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$51

GUUUI has a found an interesting report by Microsoft that studies the [optimal layout of search result pages][url1].

Seven different layouts were tested, and found that categorized search results were faster than non-categorized, and page titles and summaries were good.

It’s an interesting study. And know we know that when building our search result page, that we should categorize the results so that the user can easily focus in on their relevant areas.

[url1]: http://www.guuui.com/posting.php?id=1585
[via]: http://www.clagnut.com/blogmarks/

Lou Rosenfeld has come up with a set of IA Heuristics for Search Engines that are just wonderful.

I think that the first 5 steps (locating, scoping, entry, retrieval and refinement) are just brilliant statements that focus in on the majority of systems today. However, I think that steps 6 and 7 are marks of truly good search engines.

Also found in the comments in this article is a great checklist for searching better practices by the Australian Government. Nice.

The latest from Boxes and Arrows is Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space, by Jason Withrow.

Let me say, wow. This is a great article. It’s very clear, very concise, and just terrific for all experience levels. Yeah, even for those who’ve been doing Site Diagrams for ages, for you too.

This subsite, by Lars Marius Garshol, covers the standard techniques that are in an Information Architects toolkit. The main areas it covers is metadata, classification, topic maps and comparison techniques. The examples and exmplanations are good, and has excellent examples, definitions and real world use.

And, when I went up to the main site I was pleasently surprised to find a whole wealth of information. Want to learn about the Tao of Topic Maps? They can help. Boy can they help. Their resource page lists out all of their articles and informational pieces. Especially if you’re interested in Topic Maps. If you like Topic Maps, then you’ll love this site.

This is a company that is trying to sell you their product. But the information they provide in these articles/subsites seem real fairly unbiased, and very informative. Worth digging around.

Michael Angeles, of urlgreyhot.com, has an excellent article on How to apply for IA jobs. It’s really, really helpful if you’re trying to land an IA Job.

What I really enjoyed was going through the portfolio examples given. Well, given in a roundabout way through the IAWiki link. Particularly the following two.

Bobulate has excellent presentation for each portfolio piece, with nice supporting text. I also like the site itself. Very IA-ish.

I LOVE the hand sketches that Joe Lamantia put up in his portfolio. They are most excellent, and really present a good sense of ‘real’ work. I like his navigation and banner bar a fair amount as well. Simple and under-stated.

Just a great article, full of informative goodness. Well worth your time. (via Digital Web)

The latest from Boxes and Arrows is about The Information Architecture of Email, or how Gmail has changed how Dan Brown looks at email.

It’s quite the interesting read. I have used Gmail sporadically, and I really do like it. It does many things very nicely. His points about adoption rates are interesting, and I really don’t know if people are willing to ‘re-learn’ something as basic as email.