Cooper Interaction Design: Don't get burned by bad mapping. You may be surprised to learn that your digital products may suffer from the same fundamental problem that makes these stoves annoying and counterintuitive. The problem with these stoves is poor or unnatural mapping. [Tomalak's Realm]

Mark Hurst: Managing Incoming E-mail: What Every User Needs to Know “Incoming e-mail, if not managed properly, can become a significant drain on productivity. As users become distracted by messages piling up, they are more likely to lose track of important messages and fall further behind in their work. An inbox full of dozens or… Continue reading Managing Incoming E-mail: What Every User Needs to Know

Co-Creation is the future. Though not strictly ia-related, this is a pretty important concept that successful IA can't do without. Strategy+Business magazine has an article explaining in depth the principles behind consumer-created value, and how the Internet has rendered obsolete the old corporate mentality of not having to deal with the consumer. “Consumers appreciate and… Continue reading Co-Creation is the future

Use the blog, Luke. “The collective future of blogs lies not in dethroning the New York Times — but in becoming a force that can make sense of the Web's infinity of links.” [Salon.com] Although I've already referenced it a couple of times, I finally had a chance to sit down and really read through… Continue reading Use the blog, Luke

BBC.  Sharon loses crucial party vote.  The Likud party votes against any Palestinian state.  This is insane.  [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Strategies for Categorizing Categories. According to this User Interface Engineering study: ” the number of pages that a user visited before they put something into their cart was inversely proportional to purchasing. The more pages they visited, the less they bought. The study was based on 5 e-commerce sites where 44 users shopped for a… Continue reading Strategies for Categorizing Categories

BBC News | UK | Stopping the book thieves. As well as combining a security tag and virtual barcode in one piece of technology, this makes it possible for a book to “remember” each transaction, from publisher to wholesaler, retailer to customer and (if the book is sold second-hand) beyond. Similarly, books borrowed from libraries… Continue reading Stopping the book thieves

Emerging judicial blogspace. There is momentum here, an emerging judicial blogspace, in part because lawyers are naturals at a basic weblogging skill: taking an “information feed” and finding the category where that information will best fit.  I agree with Ernie, we need more courts and judges and public offices to deploy XML/RSS feeds.  We can… Continue reading Emerging judicial blogspace

Texas Judges Corral Some Technology…. “Judges in Collin County Texas have pooled their resources to buy a domain (texasjudge.com) where they can maintain Web pages for their individual courtrooms. [via Law.com] By the links on Judge Curt Henderson's site, it looks like eleven of them have taken the plunge.  Henderson's Web site, www.texasjudge.com/henderson, provides docket… Continue reading Texas Judges Corral Some Technology…

Open Source Icons. There’s lots of free code out there—lots of code that you can learn from or contribute to or adapt for your own apps. It’s totally cool. I myself have even released some. Maybe I’m thick, but what I can’t find is open source icons. These days OS X apps are supposed to… Continue reading Open Source Icons