Category: Information Architecture
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“Not Unpleasant” is Not Enough
An article in the New York Times the other day discusses a study that suggests that there are differences between men and women in how pleasant or unpleasant they find certain normal everyday activities. Apparently, for example, men find spending time with their parents far more pleasant then women do, while men disproportionally dislike home…
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The Big IDEA (Conference 2007)
I want to go to the IDEA Conference, which starts in two weeks here in New York. Conferences generally come in two categories. Conferences to meet people who do exactly what you do, and where you learn about how to do what you do better. Conferences to meet people you can do business with, and…
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42 Drawers (+12)
I just bought a pair of chests of tiny drawers — 54 in all. Believe me, I have enough stuff to put in these drawers. But here’s my question: How shall I organize them?
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You vs. I
In the responses to my previous proposal to use the second-person perspective in interaction design documentation and literature, Oleh Kovalchuke brought up an excellent concern: Using the word “you” in documentation can risk implying, if only subconsciously, that the reader — who is a developer, designer, etc — is the same person who will actually…
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User vs. You
There’s a huge debate going on in the UX community about the use of the word “user”. Some argue that the word demeans the people we are trying to help, that it distances us from them, and that it makes us unable to truly empathize with their wants and needs. Words like “people” and “humans”…
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My First Podcast
A few months ago during an intermission at the 2007 IA Summit, Christina Wodtke and Bill Wetherell accosted me in the hallway of the Las Vegas Flamingo hotel. The next thing I knew, Christina was interviewing me for a new series of Boxes and Arrows podcasts. The 16-minute interview has just been published, and I’ve…