One complaint about the podcast is that it was split into four parts. The parts didn’t break well and had way too much intro/outro music in between them to flow well when all you wanted to do was listen to the whole thing at once (Boston traffic allows me to do this). Part 4 contained some discussion that related directly to the site I am developing.

The UPA (Usability Professional’s Association) has a project called the Usability Body of Knowledge (BOK). The BOK, which has a preview posted, is a community-developed reference for usability. I talked about something similar for my site that I was calling the “wiki-riculum”. The BOK, I believe, is more reference than curriculum, but many points they made about it still apply.

The first question that Jared asked was why not just edit pages on Wikipedia? The response was that even though Wikipedia has a way of policiing content, the BOK is supported by an organization and therefore has an “official” feeling to it and an official content approval process. It is what the UPA agrees on as an association.

Wikipedia, though a great resource, is uncredentialed and you really never know who put the information in. The BOK is aiming to be a definitive reference from an esablished association. The BOK is the product of an organizational process.

It was brought up that efforts such as these are often better suited for something like Wikipedia because when professional associations try to take soemthing on like this it becomes difficult to sustain and is subsequently dropped. With Wikipedia, there are more people involved so it is more sustainable.

On the other hand, an “organization” like Wikipedia generally only goes so deep into the coverage of the information. UPA contributors could go deeper because the resource is about just one topic—not about EVERYTHING.

Lastly, the point was made that companies using information from the site might run into less trouble than if they said “I got it off Wikipedia.” The UPA brings credibility as it is a trusted organization.

Something about this was obviously still bothering Jared, and he finally let on what it was. How do you avoid having a “very UPA viewpoint” on all entries?

My wiki-riculum is similar in that it is a body of knowledge, but it is not coming from on specific source. My site is a professional community gathering, not an official site for an organization. So, it has some aspects of both Wikipedia and the BOK.

You won’t have any potential content bias based on an orgnanizations “official” point of view. The content will be a product of site visitors from many different groups. With that, there is some aspect of not knowing who actually crafted the information. To that, I’ll point to our user rating system and how a contributor is not “allowed” to modify the curriculum until the user’s rating reaches a certain level. The only way this level goes up is if the user is deemed a positive influence on the community by the community itself.

So, the first Spoolcast was a success for me, as it spoke directly to a problem I’m encountering right now. I look forward to more.

Design Panel

Spakers: Bryan Veloso (Moderator), Dan Cederholm, D. Keith Robinson, Mike Davidson

Every once in a while you go to a panel that is just … fantastic.

This panel was three web rock stars (Dan, Keith, and Mike) and a guy that looks like he’ll be part of the next generation very soon (Bryan). Bryan was nervous going into this (as stated on his blog), but he did very well as the moderator.

My battery was low for this one, so I scribbled down five pages of notes. here’s the transcription (if I can read them)…

What’s wrong with web design today:

• Internet Explorer
  • IE7 is better but still not where it needs to be
  • It’s not necessary to wait until IE6 is down to 0% usage before ignoring it.
  • Some site serve or more basic CSS for IE6 & below (make them want to upgrade!)
• Revenue being the bottom line in driving design decisions
  • Problems happen when short term revenue drives design decisions and not long term revenue.
  • You’re not an artist. Get over it.
    • Art provokes emotion.
    • Design provokes reaction.
• The disconnect between graphic design and web design.
  • Creativity bar is higher in graphic design.
  • David Carson would be a bad web designer (too abstract)
• Too much focus on technology, technique, and latest trends
  • Technology is means to an end
  • Talk about fundamentals
  • learn to design; solve the design problem with something like AJAX
  • CSS isn’t design, it’s a technique.
  • More focus on graphic desing & usability
  • There is such a small set of tools
    • Real creativity comes from constraints
• Browsers, HTML & CSS are moving along at a glacial pace
  • CSS3 will take a long time to become standard
  • The web exists for communication
    • Not for clean code nazis
    • Know when to break the rules
• There are ridiculous arguments about bad design actually being good
  • MySpace, Google, Craig’s List, etc.
• There isn’t enough focus on copy as a design element
• We need new heroes.
  • Every industry needs someone to look up to.

What’s right with web design today:

• Best practices are now part of web standards
• Designers are creating their own design products and companies
  • If you an’t convince them your idea is better, become their competitor.
  • Having someone focused on design at the top of the company is great, until you have to worry about really making money.
  • Freedom to make something as you would want to do it.
• People are learning the right way at an earlier age.
  • There weren’t classes for this when we were in school (I didn’t learn web design in college, even)
• Many different people from many different backgrounds are trying their hand in design
  • There is a lot you can learn from print design (white space, grid, typography, etc.)
• Web designers are maturing, beginning to develop good fundamental basis
• Complexity of design is increasing in proportion with average bandwidth
  • Nobody cares about dialup anymore
• Flexible platforms make design more leverageable (WordPress, etc.)

The most important design elements:

• Clear and defined purpose
• Solid concept well executed
• Solid architecture
• Balance
• Answers “who?”, “what?”, and “why?”
• Easy for beginners, but still good for advanced users
• Easy navigation from one area to another
• Personality and memorability: standing out in the crowd
  • Learn how to write!

Breaking it down (what’s good):

• JeffCroft.com — creative comments
• thebignoob.com — great photos
• 31three.com — laptop image
• Technorati — clean URLs
  • URLs are interface design
  • no subdomains effects your search results positively
  • good structure helps your rankings
• veerle.duoh.com — art & illustration
• dustindiaz.com — style switcher
• muledesign.com — creative fine print
  • (scroll to bottom)
• uxmag.com — widget front page
• tatteredfly.com — flybox
• nytimes.com — typography
• digg.com — comment ratings
• digitalmash.com — dynamic head
• bearskinrug.co.uk — interactive bear
  • (on the right side of screen)
• nymetro.com — typography

Reassembly:

• Take elements of design and apply them to projects
• Do what fits
• Little details can make the most impact, but don’t spend 99% of time on it
  • Concept first
  • Details later

Spin it to make it your own:

• Nothing is new, just spun differently
• Every designer develops a style eventually
• Better to be good than original (on the web)
• Don’t steal: use nodes of design inspiration
• Mix up your process (comp first, css first, etc.)

I attended a snoozer of a seminar in the middle here… the only dud. I won’t comment on that one… This next one was another good one, though.

Social Metadata and the Relevance Revolution

Speaker: Gene Smith

• Harness what users are doing to make your site more relevant
• Emergent Information Architecture
  • Became Collective Intelligence
  • Social Information Architecture
• Takeaways
  • Better understanding of social systems we are so engrossed in today
  • Think about feedback and how to incorporate it into the design process
• IA: Structural Design of shared informaton environments
• Shared design of semi-structured information environments
  • Users are co-creators
• Social IA: User actions create some or all of the structure of an information environment
  • Using the wisdom of crowds to solve the problems of IA
• Amazon: Granddaddy of social IA
• Wikipedia: without the contributions of users it would be empty
• Flickr & tagging
• Augmentation vs. Co-creation: Levels of contribution from users
• The web is now part of our social structure
  • Go on to have fun, too.
  • Shouldn’t ESPN know that he ALWAYS clicks on the NHL button?
• Three ingredients of SIA
  • Capture user actions
    • Things people do online that we can track
    • Building blocks
      • Popularity
      • Community
      • Reputation
    • Ignore higher goals and motivations
  • Aggregate and display
    • Brining together user actions in a relevant way
    • Displaying them
    • Rules
    • Kinds:
      • Listing
      • Ranking
      • Clustering
      • Collaborative Filtering
      • Other algorithms
  • Feedback
    • Places to intervene
      • Introduce delays (comment moderation on blogs)
      • Modify the strength of feedback loops
      • Who has access to what informaton?
      • Adjust incentives and punishments
      • Change the system
• Challenges
  • Spam
  • Gaming the system
  • Balance
  • Relevance
  • Unintended consequences
• Design Principles (for Social IA)
  • Allow for different levels of engagement
  • Monitor and tweak feedback loops
  • Participate in larger ecosystem
    • YouTube is viral
  • Design new actions, aggregators, display
• genesmith@atomiq.org

Keynote: The Dawning of the Age of Experience

Speaker: Jared Spool

This keynote was done by Jared Spool of Boston-based User Interface Engineering. I’m actually more familiar with Jared’s colleague Joshua Porter for his writing on Bokardo. Jared was very entertaining, though. A few notes:

• Successful user experience integrates the user AND the business.
• Successful experience design is learned, but is not available to introspection.
  • (Chicken sexing example)
• Successful experience design is invisible.
  • (Think air conditioning — if it’s just right, nobody notices it)
• Successful experience design is multidisciplinary.
• Successful experience design is cultural.
• Redesign is dead — embrace incremental change.

More Notes:

• Ryan’s Notes
• Brian’s Notes (on the Design Panel)