From today's class:
New Text:
Krug, S. (2005). Don't make me think: a common sense approach to web usability. 2nd edition. New Riders Press.
isbn: 0321344758
New Tech Sites:
camptasia: screen recording software.
google docs: online document sharing.
microsoft surface: the desk computer with touch screen usability.
gliffy: a free diagramming (wire framming) online tool.
zoho: free online web applications (i.e. word processor, presentation tools, document management, etc.)
duvaga: media management system.
New terms:
mashup: the combination of new technologies into new services.
web service: info that's created elsewhere and brought into a web application (like a site that displays local weather via a widget they don't manage in house).
waterfall (project management): the "one step to the next" approach; leaves the majority of testing until the end.
agile (project management): the "all at once" approach; testing and communication are contsant and back and forth
cowboy (project management): the "my way, or the highway" approach; one person dominates, thinks they know everything, and demands things happen their way
streaming (video & audio): streaming media is being constantly received by the user, as opposed to a download that must be completely downloaded to the user before viewing.
metadata: quite literally data about data. For example, consider a collection of books as data; the metadata would be the things in the catalog (like titles, authors, isbns, number of words, etc.). For a group of people, metadata could be names, ages, heights, etc. For a collection of online sites, metadata could be number of visits per day, number of links, average frequency of update, etc.
It occurs to me that these lists of texts, sites, and terms should probably be compiled into single pages; I'm going to try to establish some static pages to display this information. (Or, if you happen to be currently enrolled in my class, find the online glossary of terms on Blackboard.)
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Why I picked Blogger
Someone asked me a question today about blogs, and why I use Blogger...
One of the primary differences between Blogger and Wordpress is the use of pages and widgets. In Wordpress, you can create static pages easily; in Blogger, you cannot--you need to do some backend legwork to get static pages going. However, Blogger makes it easier to install widgets (like the tag cloud at the top of this page, the count down on the right, or The Impossible Quiz at the bottom) because you have more access to your HTML; this requires more legwork in Wordpress.
The reason I choose Blogger is that I am very attached to my widgets and layouts. I like to mess with my site code and install a new toy every so often. It's my dogma that a personal webpage should be like one's home: decorated to suit one's personality.
For me, new blogs are like your first college apartment. At first, the walls are all white and you feel a little lonely and lost. As time goes on, you meet a few people who have done things to spice up their bland college caves with lava lamps and posters, and you start to do the same. Soon you're taping posters over posters, you've got a batik sarong tent around your bed, and you've figured out how to cook a can of beans on the heater in the corner. It's bright and filled with color, and it's become a space you're comfortable being. Because you've made it your own, other people like being there, too, and you're not so lost anymore. :)
These are some of my favorite sites for decorating around a blog in addition to some of my own tricks:
pyzam -- this is a great place for finding Blogger layouts to inspire you.
widgetbox -- a great place for finding games and other little add-ons for your site.
free flash toys -- I like this one mostly for the counters you can make there, but the full page pets are fun too.
phydeaux3 -- This is the best place I've ever found for a good blogger tag cloud; weeding through the HTML can be intimidating at first, but don't be scared. You can always revert back to a basic template if you muddle things this first time around. Your blog layout is for playing with--don't be afraid to do so!
I apologize for the popups generated by any of these sites, but dealing with advertisements is the way you get things for free online. Also, most of these sites are aimed at Blogger. To expand my own horizons I'm going to experiment with Wordpress some time this week and see what it's about since the latest updates.
P.S. If anyone in my class stumbles on this post, and is still feeling lost, I'd be happy to help you put up some posters so you're happier being in your new online home. :)
One of the primary differences between Blogger and Wordpress is the use of pages and widgets. In Wordpress, you can create static pages easily; in Blogger, you cannot--you need to do some backend legwork to get static pages going. However, Blogger makes it easier to install widgets (like the tag cloud at the top of this page, the count down on the right, or The Impossible Quiz at the bottom) because you have more access to your HTML; this requires more legwork in Wordpress.
The reason I choose Blogger is that I am very attached to my widgets and layouts. I like to mess with my site code and install a new toy every so often. It's my dogma that a personal webpage should be like one's home: decorated to suit one's personality.
For me, new blogs are like your first college apartment. At first, the walls are all white and you feel a little lonely and lost. As time goes on, you meet a few people who have done things to spice up their bland college caves with lava lamps and posters, and you start to do the same. Soon you're taping posters over posters, you've got a batik sarong tent around your bed, and you've figured out how to cook a can of beans on the heater in the corner. It's bright and filled with color, and it's become a space you're comfortable being. Because you've made it your own, other people like being there, too, and you're not so lost anymore. :)
These are some of my favorite sites for decorating around a blog in addition to some of my own tricks:
pyzam -- this is a great place for finding Blogger layouts to inspire you.
widgetbox -- a great place for finding games and other little add-ons for your site.
free flash toys -- I like this one mostly for the counters you can make there, but the full page pets are fun too.
phydeaux3 -- This is the best place I've ever found for a good blogger tag cloud; weeding through the HTML can be intimidating at first, but don't be scared. You can always revert back to a basic template if you muddle things this first time around. Your blog layout is for playing with--don't be afraid to do so!
I apologize for the popups generated by any of these sites, but dealing with advertisements is the way you get things for free online. Also, most of these sites are aimed at Blogger. To expand my own horizons I'm going to experiment with Wordpress some time this week and see what it's about since the latest updates.
P.S. If anyone in my class stumbles on this post, and is still feeling lost, I'd be happy to help you put up some posters so you're happier being in your new online home. :)
Reflection on the Guest Speaker
Yesterday we had a guest speaker, Amanda, who talked to us about Information Architecture and the practical applications "in the trenches."
adobe connect -- the online conferencing software we used to meet with Amanda.
What struck me most about the presentation was that I never knew careers of this kind actually existed. At a job I used to work at, I was the primary designer of the text mining and semantic mapping strategies, including search functionality and interface design. I have some decent programming skills, but they weren't really sophisticated enough to complete the project on my own, so I worked with programmers to get things done. I had never considered this kind of work as information architecture--when I was working there, I don't think I even knew that term to apply it to what I was doing.
Since getting into my program for library science, I've had several experiences with librarians frustrated with the catalog search systems they have to deal with. The most frequent dissatisfactions seem to be that the design is cumbersome because there are too many search fields to do with, or the search fields/algorithms do not return the desired results. With my background in computers, I've been greatly influenced to try to solve this problem. Before the presentation I had been considering academic or special libraries, but I think I'm going to add information architecture to the list. Some of the companies out there designing software for use in libraries or by librarians seem to need more input on how the programs are used and the importance of a simple design that can achieve "Find It" results fast.
adobe connect -- the online conferencing software we used to meet with Amanda.
What struck me most about the presentation was that I never knew careers of this kind actually existed. At a job I used to work at, I was the primary designer of the text mining and semantic mapping strategies, including search functionality and interface design. I have some decent programming skills, but they weren't really sophisticated enough to complete the project on my own, so I worked with programmers to get things done. I had never considered this kind of work as information architecture--when I was working there, I don't think I even knew that term to apply it to what I was doing.
Since getting into my program for library science, I've had several experiences with librarians frustrated with the catalog search systems they have to deal with. The most frequent dissatisfactions seem to be that the design is cumbersome because there are too many search fields to do with, or the search fields/algorithms do not return the desired results. With my background in computers, I've been greatly influenced to try to solve this problem. Before the presentation I had been considering academic or special libraries, but I think I'm going to add information architecture to the list. Some of the companies out there designing software for use in libraries or by librarians seem to need more input on how the programs are used and the importance of a simple design that can achieve "Find It" results fast.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Technologies
cooliris.com -- this one allows you to view large lists of images at a glance.
twitter.com -- a social networking site that allows users to "follow" other users online and, possibly, through their phones. Users twitter what they are currently doing to their followers in 140 characters (letters and spaces) or less.
wordpress and blogger--online sites to host your blog. If you have a gmail account, your login information will be the same for blogger.
flickr--uses a process of folksonomy for users to assign their own tags. Uses a collective intelligence method to categorize all of the images on the site.
gettyimages -- uses a lot more time and energy to categorize their images (compare a search between flickr and gettyimages--flickr has more returned results, but they may not be as accurate; gettyimages returns less that are categorized on a stricter set of rules).
pandora -- pandora is radio online that uses an algorithmic approach to determining user preferences. You enter a song or artist that you like, and pandora will generate a list of artists or songs that you might like.
twitter.com -- a social networking site that allows users to "follow" other users online and, possibly, through their phones. Users twitter what they are currently doing to their followers in 140 characters (letters and spaces) or less.
wordpress and blogger--online sites to host your blog. If you have a gmail account, your login information will be the same for blogger.
flickr--uses a process of folksonomy for users to assign their own tags. Uses a collective intelligence method to categorize all of the images on the site.
gettyimages -- uses a lot more time and energy to categorize their images (compare a search between flickr and gettyimages--flickr has more returned results, but they may not be as accurate; gettyimages returns less that are categorized on a stricter set of rules).
pandora -- pandora is radio online that uses an algorithmic approach to determining user preferences. You enter a song or artist that you like, and pandora will generate a list of artists or songs that you might like.
Schemas and Elements
Schema: The information you want to collect.
Element: The information you have collected.
For example, imagine you have a box of fruit you want to organize into several different groups. How are you going to do it? By color? By size? By shape? By taste? The schema you decide to use will determine what fruit goes where in your piles.
Obviously, the way you want to organize your fruit will determine the information you want to collect and consider about your fruit. For example, if you're concerned with organizing fruit by the area of the world it's grown in, you don't care what color it is or if it has a citrus taste. All you care about is where it came from. The opposite is also true--if you just want to classify by size and color, you don't care if the fruit came from South America, Australia, Europe or Mars.
So, let's say you want to organize your fruit first by color, type, and then by size--your schema is color, type, and size. You conduct a survey to collect this information about each piece of fruit. There are large and small red apples. There are large and small green apples. There are large and small yellow apples. There is a group of medium size green pears, some large yellow bananas, and some small green bananas.
You might end up with a list of information that looks something like this:
apple, large, red
pear, medium, green
apple, small, red
apple, small, green
banana, large, yellow
apple, large, green
apple, large, yellow
banana, small, green
apple, small, yellow
So, in the schema of type, there are the elements of apple, pear, and banana. In the schema of size, there are the elements large, medium, and small. In the schema of color, there are the elements red, green, and yellow.
So, if you organized by color, you would get green, red, and yellow fruits in your piles. If you organized by type, you would get apples, bananas, and pears. If you organized by size, you would get large, medium, and small.
Now let's say you want to sell your piles of fruit online. You create a site and want to display your fruit using the schema. So you create lists of the schema and elements:
Type
-apple
-banana
-pear
Size
-Large
-Medium
-Small
Color
-red
-green
-yellow
So, if a potential buyer clicks on "red," they will get a list of large and small apples (as there are no red bananas or pears). If they click on the "large" element, a list of red, green, and yellow apples and bananas will come up (because there are no large pears).
Element: The information you have collected.
For example, imagine you have a box of fruit you want to organize into several different groups. How are you going to do it? By color? By size? By shape? By taste? The schema you decide to use will determine what fruit goes where in your piles.
Obviously, the way you want to organize your fruit will determine the information you want to collect and consider about your fruit. For example, if you're concerned with organizing fruit by the area of the world it's grown in, you don't care what color it is or if it has a citrus taste. All you care about is where it came from. The opposite is also true--if you just want to classify by size and color, you don't care if the fruit came from South America, Australia, Europe or Mars.
So, let's say you want to organize your fruit first by color, type, and then by size--your schema is color, type, and size. You conduct a survey to collect this information about each piece of fruit. There are large and small red apples. There are large and small green apples. There are large and small yellow apples. There is a group of medium size green pears, some large yellow bananas, and some small green bananas.
You might end up with a list of information that looks something like this:
apple, large, red
pear, medium, green
apple, small, red
apple, small, green
banana, large, yellow
apple, large, green
apple, large, yellow
banana, small, green
apple, small, yellow
So, in the schema of type, there are the elements of apple, pear, and banana. In the schema of size, there are the elements large, medium, and small. In the schema of color, there are the elements red, green, and yellow.
So, if you organized by color, you would get green, red, and yellow fruits in your piles. If you organized by type, you would get apples, bananas, and pears. If you organized by size, you would get large, medium, and small.
Now let's say you want to sell your piles of fruit online. You create a site and want to display your fruit using the schema. So you create lists of the schema and elements:
Type
-apple
-banana
-pear
Size
-Large
-Medium
-Small
Color
-red
-green
-yellow
So, if a potential buyer clicks on "red," they will get a list of large and small apples (as there are no red bananas or pears). If they click on the "large" element, a list of red, green, and yellow apples and bananas will come up (because there are no large pears).
Another Great Book
Morville, P. (2005). Ambient findability: what we find changes who we become. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn 0-596-00765-5
(it has a lemur on the front)
isbn 0-596-00765-5
(it has a lemur on the front)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Welcome, All!
Welcome, all! This is my blog for school this semester.
Please enjoy my graduation countdown featured on the right, and the Impossible Quiz, which has been set at the bottom of this page. Kudos to Pyzam and Widgetbox for these excellent features and the layout.
On the first day of class we covered the syllabus, and the professor passed around a fantastic programming text:
Segaran, T. (2007). Programming collective intelligence: building smart web 2.0 applications. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn-13:978-0-596-52932-1
(it has penguins on the front)
The book covers several algorithms and programming strategies used on modern sites to compute probabilities of the "Find It" factor.
Please enjoy my graduation countdown featured on the right, and the Impossible Quiz, which has been set at the bottom of this page. Kudos to Pyzam and Widgetbox for these excellent features and the layout.
On the first day of class we covered the syllabus, and the professor passed around a fantastic programming text:
Segaran, T. (2007). Programming collective intelligence: building smart web 2.0 applications. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn-13:978-0-596-52932-1
(it has penguins on the front)
The book covers several algorithms and programming strategies used on modern sites to compute probabilities of the "Find It" factor.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Terminology
agile (project management): the "all at once" approach; testing and communication are contsant and back and forth
cowboy (project management): the "my way, or the highway" approach; one person dominates, thinks they know everything, and demands things happen their way
customization: design and construction of a service to suit an individual's or group's needs based on their specifications.
diagnosis: process of assessment/examination of a condition to determine needsand responsive solution
element: The information you have collected.
Grover's Diagnostic Cycle: 4-stage cycle that explores the process of locating desired resources for a user. (See original post and notes.)
information seeking behavior/information use behavior: how people seek and use information.
Lynch: wrote in her paper that in reference situations, librarians used mostly close-ended questions (See original post and notes.)
mashup: the combination of new technologies into new services.
metadata: quite literally data about data. For example, consider a collection of books as data; the metadata would be the things in the catalog (like titles, authors, isbns, number of words, etc.). For a group of people, metadata could be names, ages, heights, etc. For a collection of online sites, metadata could be number of visits per day, number of links, average frequency of update, etc.
non-human intermediaries: exactly what we discussed in 840. It's information architecture; providing effective information services and easily accessible resources to humans through computers.
Robert Taylor: Wrote "Process of Asking Questions", which detailed for levels of information need. (See original post and notes).
schema: The information you want to collect.
streaming (video & audio): streaming media is being constantly received by the user, as opposed to a download that must be completely downloaded to the user before viewing.
system-centered: prior to the 1960s, the librarian was the Keeper of Information. In a system-centered approach, the research focused on the library (i.e., how many people came there, how often, and for how long).
user-centered: the research focuses on how people seek and use information (notice the removal of focus on the library).
waterfall (project management): the "one step to the next" approach; leaves the majority of testing until the end.
web service: info that's created elsewhere and brought into a web application (like a site that displays local weather via a widget they don't manage in house).
cowboy (project management): the "my way, or the highway" approach; one person dominates, thinks they know everything, and demands things happen their way
customization: design and construction of a service to suit an individual's or group's needs based on their specifications.
diagnosis: process of assessment/examination of a condition to determine needsand responsive solution
element: The information you have collected.
Grover's Diagnostic Cycle: 4-stage cycle that explores the process of locating desired resources for a user. (See original post and notes.)
information seeking behavior/information use behavior: how people seek and use information.
Lynch: wrote in her paper that in reference situations, librarians used mostly close-ended questions (See original post and notes.)
mashup: the combination of new technologies into new services.
metadata: quite literally data about data. For example, consider a collection of books as data; the metadata would be the things in the catalog (like titles, authors, isbns, number of words, etc.). For a group of people, metadata could be names, ages, heights, etc. For a collection of online sites, metadata could be number of visits per day, number of links, average frequency of update, etc.
non-human intermediaries: exactly what we discussed in 840. It's information architecture; providing effective information services and easily accessible resources to humans through computers.
Robert Taylor: Wrote "Process of Asking Questions", which detailed for levels of information need. (See original post and notes).
schema: The information you want to collect.
streaming (video & audio): streaming media is being constantly received by the user, as opposed to a download that must be completely downloaded to the user before viewing.
system-centered: prior to the 1960s, the librarian was the Keeper of Information. In a system-centered approach, the research focused on the library (i.e., how many people came there, how often, and for how long).
user-centered: the research focuses on how people seek and use information (notice the removal of focus on the library).
waterfall (project management): the "one step to the next" approach; leaves the majority of testing until the end.
web service: info that's created elsewhere and brought into a web application (like a site that displays local weather via a widget they don't manage in house).
Recommended Texts
Krug, S. (2005). Don't make me think: a common sense approach to web usability. 2nd edition. New Riders Press.
isbn: 0321344758
Morville, P. (2005). Ambient findability: what we find changes who we become. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn: 0596007655 (it has a lemur on the front)
Segaran, T. (2007). Programming collective intelligence: building smart web 2.0 applications. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn: 13:9780596529321 (it has penguins on the front)
isbn: 0321344758
Morville, P. (2005). Ambient findability: what we find changes who we become. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn: 0596007655 (it has a lemur on the front)
Segaran, T. (2007). Programming collective intelligence: building smart web 2.0 applications. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
isbn: 13:9780596529321 (it has penguins on the front)
List of Sites
adobe connect -- the online conferencing software we used to meet with Amanda.
camptasia -- screen recording software.
cooliris.com -- this one allows you to view large lists of images at a glance.
duvaga -- media management system.
flickr--uses a process of folksonomy for users to assign their own tags. Uses a collective intelligence method to categorize all of the images on the site.
gettyimages -- uses a lot more time and energy to categorize their images (compare a search between flickr and gettyimages--flickr has more returned results, but they may not be as accurate; gettyimages returns less that are categorized on a stricter set of rules).
gliffy -- a free diagramming (wire framming) online tool.
google docs -- online document sharing.
microsoft surface -- the desk computer with touch screen usability.
pandora -- pandora is radio online that uses an algorithmic approach to determining user preferences. You enter a song or artist that you like, and pandora will generate a list of artists or songs that you might like.
twitter.com -- a social networking site that allows users to "follow" other users online and, possibly, through their phones. Users twitter what they are currently doing to their followers in 140 characters (letters and spaces) or less.
wordpress and blogger -- online sites to host your blog. If you have a gmail account, your login information will be the same for blogger.
zoho -- free online web applications (i.e. word processor, presentation tools, document management, etc.)
camptasia -- screen recording software.
cooliris.com -- this one allows you to view large lists of images at a glance.
duvaga -- media management system.
flickr--uses a process of folksonomy for users to assign their own tags. Uses a collective intelligence method to categorize all of the images on the site.
gettyimages -- uses a lot more time and energy to categorize their images (compare a search between flickr and gettyimages--flickr has more returned results, but they may not be as accurate; gettyimages returns less that are categorized on a stricter set of rules).
gliffy -- a free diagramming (wire framming) online tool.
google docs -- online document sharing.
microsoft surface -- the desk computer with touch screen usability.
pandora -- pandora is radio online that uses an algorithmic approach to determining user preferences. You enter a song or artist that you like, and pandora will generate a list of artists or songs that you might like.
twitter.com -- a social networking site that allows users to "follow" other users online and, possibly, through their phones. Users twitter what they are currently doing to their followers in 140 characters (letters and spaces) or less.
wordpress and blogger -- online sites to host your blog. If you have a gmail account, your login information will be the same for blogger.
zoho -- free online web applications (i.e. word processor, presentation tools, document management, etc.)
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