Susan's Normal Form (SNF)

The NCSU Libraries Search Experience: Usability Testing Tabbed Search Interfaces for Academic Libraries

teaguese — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:47:55 +0000

Our article on search testing at NCSU Libraries is finally out! Check it out at http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/jwl/forthcoming.aspx#FiveOne.

New Encyclopedia of Interaction Design

teaguese — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:07:40 +0000

Interaction-Design.org just unveiled a new encyclopedia of interaction design. In it, you’ll find some excellent chapters on HCI, User Experience Design and Visual Representation by experts in the field including, Alan Blackwell, Stuart Card, Whitney Hess and Ben Shneiderman among others. Check it out!

Just have to brag a bit…

teaguese — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:43:33 +0000

Our recent redesign, for which I was the project manager – just won ALA’s cutting edge service award. Congrats to our team!

A Good Deliverable

teaguese — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:13:48 +0000

As I embark on a software project on the side with my husband, I’ve been thinking about deliverables. I’ve been in many situations where deliverables are presented out of context – where there is not a story that connects the deliverables. In his article: What Makes a Good Deliverable, Dan Brown gives us some pointers on how to tell a story in its entirety. He points out that great deliverables should convey all of the following (excerpted from Dan’s article):

The current state of the project.

How the current design decisions relate to previous activities and how they set up the next set of activities.

The overall theme of the design project.

What the most important design decisions are, and how they relate to the overall theme.

The major issues facing the design project.

Like Dan, I believe that without a theme or overarching goals for the project, the deliverables could fall short in conveying the story. Continuing to reiterate those goals and themes throughout the project, not just at the beginning, and throughout all the deliverables is, in my opinion, key to a successful product/project.

Happy New Year!

teaguese — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:17:06 +0000

Wow, it’s been a year. A year ago, I was living in North Carolina – we had just moved there. I was starting my job at NC State Libraries, beginning their web site redesign project. This January, I’m living in Denver, CO, working remotely for NCSU and the web site redesign is complete! I’ve updated SNF a bit with my recent presentations and publications and resume. Have a look around and happy new year!

Bookmarks 1/10/2010

teaguese — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:03:23 +0000

It’s a new year and I have user experience on the mind. I’ve been thinking about all sorts of ux related items as I get ready to launch into my new gig at NC State Libraries. Here’s a few tools and articles I’ve bookmarked over the past few days:
25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time – Smashing Magazine

35 Excellent Wireframing Resources – Smashing Magazine

Balsamiq Studios, makers of plugins for Web Office applications | Balsamiq

28 Rich Data Visualization Tools – InsideRIA

10 HTML Tag Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit

10 Usability Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit

Designing & Selecting Components for UIs | UX Magazine

The user experience is made up of all the interactions a person has with your brand, company, or organization. This may include interactions with your software, your web site, your call center, an advertisement, with a sticker on someone else’s computer, with a mobile application, with your Twitter account, with you over email, maybe even face-to-face. The sum total of these interactions over time is the user experience. –http://52weeksofux.com/

Bookmarks 12/15/2009

teaguese — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:36:41 +0000

I’ve had personas and navigation on my mind lately…I’ve been particularly interested in libraries that use personas (and according to the literature, there aren’t a lot!)

Jesse James Garrett: Visual Vocabulary for Information Architecture

Navigation models for web sites – Web Designers London

Information Architecture models: Guide to web site navigation patterns – Web Designers London

Using Personas to Understand the Needs and Goals of Institutional Repository Users

UW Libraries | Personas Development

Audience personas for the Macquarie University Library website » Step Two Designs, Patrick Kennedy

Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. – Charles Eames

UX/IA Tools

teaguese — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:24:35 +0000

I’ve been accumulating links to cool (often free) UX/IA tools over the past couple of days. Let me know if you have others that you really like!

Creately – Online collaborative diagramming tool. Offers templates for UML diagrams, wireframes, and more. Free for 1 project. Small monthly cost for larger projects
EightShapes Unify – Suite of IA deliverables templates
Mockingbird – Free online wireframing tool
IxEdit – Tool to build Jquery interactions without coding
Protoscript – New scripting language for building interactive prototypes for the web
Naview – Navigation prototyping tool
FluidIA – Agile IA collaborative prototyping
iPlotz – Online wireframing tool that is free for 1 project. Small monthly charge for unlimited projects

A journalist and an information architect face exactly the same problem – how to give shape to the pile of information in front of you in a way that will make it easy and natural for people to comprehend. – Jesse James Garrett

Bookmarks 11/23/09

teaguese — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:18:50 +0000

UX Treasure Map
User Experience Deliverables
Search Patterns
Ubiquity – The New Computing
The Book Cover Archive

[Users] make their credibility-based decisions about the people or organization behind the site based upon the site’s overall visual appeal. Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, 2002

The old computing is about what computers can do; the new computing is about what people can do. Ben Shneiderman, 2003

Text Analysis

teaguese — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:24:50 +0000

I am currently working on a project with a colleague to look at the frequency of user-generated subject terms in electronic theses and dissertations at the university. We’re just at the beginning stages, but it looks to be a fascinating project/paper. We’re seeking to answer a number of questions about the terms themselves, such as: how often are subject terms assigned by users on self-submission? how do those terms relate to the abstract of the thesis or dissertation? Since I’ve always had a limited understanding the inner workings of text analysis software, I’ve been doing my homework. Many of my bookmarks for today deal with text analysis, word clouds, and visualizing data. If anyone has experience in this area or knows about cool (and simple to use for this novice) text visualization tools, I’d be eager to hear from you.
Using Text Analysis Tools for Comparison: Mole & Chocolate Cake « Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
HyperPo :: Digital Text Reading Environment
Tag Cloud . Lots of Code . php, css and javascript
Wordle – etd_subject_terms (our subject terms for etds)
digitalresearchtools / Perform Qualitative Data Analysis

Heard this quote from a friend today – so appropriate!

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Albert Einstein