Blogs

"Web Navigation" Recently: March 25, 2004 at Spring <br> info tech conference. Updated for local web usability class (Feb 23 2005).

Presented at several local professional societies in 2001-2: MOCHI (March 14, 2001), Great Lakes Information Architects (August 1, 2001), BuckCHI (August 14, 2001), Puget Sound SIGCHI (September 16, 2002).

• Navigation Stress Test
• Global Navigation
• Local Navigation
• Contextual Navigation
• Personalized Navigation
• Breadcrumb Navigation

"Web User Experience" My introduction of user experience as a broad concept. Original presentation: March 25, 2004 at Spring <br> info tech conference. Also presented at Toledo Area MacroMedia User's Group (Feb 17 2005) and local web usability class (Feb 28 2005).

Attached are 2 files that I created in 2002-2003 about Location, Path & Attribute Breadcrumbs. This work on breadcrumbs was first presented as a poster at the 3rd Annual Information Architecture Summit, March 16-17, 2002.

Three Breadcrumbs Overview (280K, April 1, 2003 version) - 1-page example for each type of breadcrumb: Yahoo! for Location, Eddie Bauer for Path, Amazon for Attribute.

IA Summit Poster (550K, March 30, 2002 version) - A single PDF that includes the overview, the poster contents, and comments from attendees.

"User Experience of Large Web Sites," November 5, 2003. Presentation for the BGSU Student ACM chapter. Stories about how user experience work affects the brand, corporate culture, budgets - and vice versa. The analogy is making sausage - you just may not want to know how things are done, it can be ugly.

"The State of Web Site Usability," May 29, 2003. This was my part of the panel at the Southeast Michigan chapter of UPA meeting. Tom Brinck, Laurie Kantner and Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus were also on the panel.

This is the first reference I have found in the "1to1 literature" specifically about the quality of the user experience: Timberland Blazes a Better User Experience Trail.

It mentions the importance of navigation and the web experience. Timberland was tracking (disappointing) sales and noticed that design issues were getting in the way. Do some user-centered design and sales climb. Makes sense to me!

Admin note: this was originally blogged in 2003 at my blogger.com account. I moved the entry here in 2006 and took that old blog down.

"CHI, IA, UE/X: How does the alphabet soup taste so far in 2002?," CHIFOO (September 17, 2002). Selected topics from the presentation:

• Information Architecture as Strategy
• My real job at Argus - Pain in the Rear
• Insights from my Cave in Afghanistan
• Review of this year at CHIFOO
• The Big IA / Little IA Summit
• When Librarians Attack
• User Experience Network
• Business Leadership and User Experience
• Information Architecture - Not Dead Yet

"Knowledge Management: How do you tackle your new role?," November 3, 2001, panel with Alan Holsztynski and Catherine Titta, STC Region 4 Conference, Ypsilanti, MI.

I presented How to do User Testing for the Web on November 7, 2001, MLA Annual Conference, Lansing, MI.

Some of the other places where I did similar presentations on how to do user testing (but I am sure there were others that I am forgetting about):

• Web Design World, July 21, 1999, Seattle, Washington
• Web Design and Development, July 1, 1999, San Francisco, California
• Web Design '99, April 8, 1999, Atlanta, Georgia

"Web Usability: Understanding the User in your Web Site Audience," September 21, 2001. 2001 Professional Development Seminar, Northwest Ohio Chapter of The Public Relations Society of America.

What is web usability and how does it relate to public relations? I explain the basic concepts of web usability and how they can help you serve your audiences better with more effective web sites.

• What is usability and how it is similar to (and different from) marketing
• Navigation: Today, everyone is a user interface designer
• Guidelines: Common sense apparently is not that common
• User research: It is amazing what you can observe when you look
• Usability testing: The proof is in the doing
• Finding good help: 5 questions to ask those web designers