Pat’s Point of View

On Friday I presented with my colleague Alun Machin at the first day of Oz-IA 2009, the 4th Australian Information Architecture conference. It was a great day, with good company to keep us talking and some interesting stuff to keep us thinking. The venue was quite good too, my first time at Star City Convention Centre as it happens.

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it for the second day of the conference due to family commitments, which is a shame since the programme looked even better for the Saturday!

Our presentation on our new SuperRacing site (not yet live at the time of writing thissite is now live) went down well considering we had to cram everything we wanted to talk about into 25 minutes. The slides are shown below.

After two conference presentations in one week, it’ll be a while before I make another appearance, not to mention that I’ll be pretty brain dead for a while after the new baby arrives.

Today I gave a talk entitled Prioritising user experience at Ark Group’s Information Architecture – Designing and managing information structures for improved web access and usability conference.

I tried to make the topic a bit more interesting (read controversial) and I think it went quite well.

I covered two main topics, firstly I outlined why I think user experience (UX) should be prioritised over information architecture (IA), and then I discussed prioritising UX within the organisation.
(more…)

At this year’s Oz-IA conference I’ll be presenting a short session entitled Bringing them online: using design research to identify online opportunities with my colleague Alun Machin.

It’s all very hush hush at the moment because we’re operating under an embargo, but the general gist of it is how user research can inform the design process for a product (in this case a website) that pertains to an activity that is normally an offline experience.

We’ll talk about how we identified the audience’s “information ecosystem” and found an opportunity for our website to fit in with that in a useful way.

We’ll also talk about the very different groups within that audience and how we catered for each.

Alun will then talk about the transition into design and go through the process we followed.

And if all goes to plan we’ll be able to unveil the new website resulting from all this work!

All this in 25 minutes, including questions :)

Update: if you promise to come along and watch our preso you can use this discount code: PK0265. Use it to get $100 off when you register for OZ-IA.

Last week I took part in Full Code Press, in which the team I was part of had to design and built a website for a not-for-profit client in the space of just 24 hours, competing against a similar team from New Zealand.

It was an intriguing prospect that didn’t fail to deliver some eventful moments, as well as a lot of frenzied activity. We didn’t win but that doesn’t matter I don’t think any of us were doing it for that reason.
(more…)

I spent today at Ark Group’s Strategically Managing Intranet Developments conference, which I blogged about before.

There were some good things being said, and by real people who have done the hard yards. They’re not “industry luminaries”, but people out there in the trenches working out how to create effective intranets. Grounded and real are two words I would apply to the conference.

Then there was my presentation, a tad more abstract, but I felt it went well. Slides below.

I felt compelled to steer my presentation towards audience participation, if only because of the collective knowledge in the room; about half the room were presenting at the conference so I was learning as much, if not more, than I was dishing out. That’s the downside of being a consultant, you rarely get that rich experience that in-house staff have. Some great examples were offered by the audience, complementing my own examples.

There were one or two people twittering, you can follow the conversation on #smid.

Happy to hear your comments on my slides, either here or on slidehsare.

In my recent IA tutorial for OZCHI08, I told my students about performing low-fi usability testing on a draft information architecture. I introduced them to a technique which Donna Spencer called Card Based Classification Evaluation (CBCE) and is known to other people as tree testing or task-based information architecture testing (which really doesn’t have the same ring to it).

(Incidentally, CBCE is an evolution of closed card sorting but crucially different. I quite like Donna’s explanation for the need for such a technique from about the time she coined the term: Categorising information and finding it are two entirely different tasks, with entirely different cognitive processes. The only way to test whether a classification will allow people to find information, is to ask them to find information…You don’t learn it by asking them to place information in the classification. Hence just using closed card sorting won’t do.)

As usual, some people quickly tired of my affection for fiddly index cards and asked if you can do this electronically or even online. It reminds me of that line in Star Wars where the dude says to Vader “your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes”…and you know what happened to that guy. Rather than crush their throats with my mastery of the Force, I explain that there are some advantages to good old cards:

• Cards are quick and easy to create and modify
• Cards remove the distractions associated with ‘using a computer’
• Cards allow a greater affinity between participant and facilitator
• Cards function consistently for all participants (whereas software may not)
• Cards can be made by anyone (eg don’t require special skills or software)
• Cards are cheap

However, I must admit there are situations when something more computery might be more useful, such as:

• You need to include remote participants (eg widely dispersed target audience)
• You intend to involve a large number of users in the testing (eg more than 20)
• You want to spend less time recording results into an electronic format (ok I’m reaching now)

You can use one of the many card sorting tools—either desktop software or online—but there are also a few dedicated tools. For example, Treejack which Sam Ng from Optimal Workshop showed at OZ-IA this year. It’s quite a nice tool and would do nicely for getting that all important user feedback on your design decisions early (and possibly later) in the IA design process.

Of course, one can use something like PowerPoint or Dreamweaver if one likes, it all depends on the resources at your disposal and the capabilities of your test participants—you might be a FileMaker whizz but there’s no point sending out a test app built in it if your users can’t open it.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any other suggestions.

Having struggled to find the time to conduct an in-depth analysis of my IA for Agencies survey results, I have decided to do it in pieces. This installment, of which many more will follow, I’ve charted the geographic location of survey respondents.

(Sample size is 206)

It was a surprise to see the US ranked number one on the list, I was expecting Australia to be the highest with possibly the UK as second runner up. Was probably my post to several US-centric mailing lists that produced this result.

By the way, I gave up on the rubbish charts created by Excel pretty quickly, and went looking for a better option. I’ve used Widgenie.com for this chart and it seems to meet my needs quite well. Although I’d prefer not have to insert script into my posts.

This is a mere snippet, I know. As and when I get the time to release a bit more I will do so.

UPDATE: the Widgenie charts use Javascript so if you’re reading this in an RSS reader, you’ll probably have to click through to my website to view it.

My IA for Agencies survey is now closed. Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill in the survey, all 206 of you from across the globe.

I’ve also selected the winner of the prize, a copy of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug. Congratulations!

Now comes the task of analysing the submissions and compiling the results into a useful format. I’m also compiling a list of lessons learned from the process, as there have been a few. I’ll make all of this available in due course (read as when I get some time to spend on it!).

Thanks again to everyone who filled in the survey, those who helped me with it, those who offered encouraging words and constructive feedback, and thank you even to those who felt the need to leave negative comments.

While not everyone agreed with the manner in which I conducted the survey, it’s all been very educational.

I’m pleased to announce I’ll be running another pre-conference workshop, this time it’s Demystifying Information Architecture at OZCHI 2008 in sunny Cairns on the afternoon of December 9th.

There has been much confusion and misinformation regarding information architecture (IA) and its relationship with the longer established areas of user-centred design (UCD). Many experienced HCI people don’t feel well-equipped to take on the practical side of UCD in relation to web design. Likewise, web designers and developers are often in the dark regarding the principles behind what some “usability guy” tells them to do.

In this half-day tutorial, Patrick Kennedy will present the fundamentals of IA, which in essence is focussed on ensuring that information systems are structured in a way that makes sense to users. Specifically, the tutorial will be conducted in the context of organising and designing information systems such as websites, intranets and software applications.

This tutorial will introduce IA, explain the fundamental principles and teach some simple techniques. The aim is to give participants a heads-up on the subject and point them in the right direction so they can integrate IA into their own work or just better collaborate with those already practicing IA.

It will be short, sharp and focussed on just the essential bits of IA. So if you’re up that way in December, check it out.

The conference itself starts a few days later on the 10th of December. OZCHI is Australia’s leading forum for work in all areas of Human-Computer Interaction and CHISIG’s (www.chisig.org) annual non-profit conference. OZCHI attracts an international community of practitioners, researchers, academics and students from a wide range of disciplines including user experience designers, information architects, software engineers, human factors experts, information systems analysts, social scientists and managers. While OZCHI’08 represents aspects of the Australian Interaction Design community that have not been emphasized in recent conferences our organizing team is committed to serving the range of interests.

I’m happy to announce I’ll be running a half-day workshop entitled Research methods for information architecture at this year’s OZ-IA conference (actually the workshop is on Thursday the 18th of September).

This is an important part of successful IA, and I intend to give practical insight into some key techniques that will allow IA practitioners, or other disciplines doing some IA, to gain valuable insight into their audience. Here’s my blurb:

Information architecture (IA) is a form of user-centred design (UCD) which requires an understanding of users and their needs and designing with those needs in mind – balanced by factors such as business objectives and available or necessary content. Without a solid understanding of these inputs into the process, design is blind.

Design research is the process of uncovering and understanding those needs, whether it be direct user research or other means of gathering requirements.

Yet, many experienced web designers, developers and IA practitioners don’t feel well-equipped to take on design research in their projects.

In this half-day workshop, Patrick Kennedy will present the fundamentals of design research from the perspective of IA. Specifically, the workshop will be conducted in the context of organising and designing information systems such as websites, intranets and software applications.

This workshop will introduce design research, explain the fundamental principles and teach some simple techniques. The aim is to give the audience a heads-up on the subject and point them in the right direction so they can integrate research into their own work or just better collaborate with design researchers.

You can register for the conference at www.oz-ia.org/2008/register.shtml and don’t forget to quote the discount code PK0265!