WebVisions: Total Recall – Complementing Information Architecture
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
James Keller & Sean Cowne
A new approach to web design.
It all starts with a quiz:
Product demo – best UI?
- animaion + 100 words text
- animation + voice and 100 words (my guess)
- animation + voice
… but they won’t tell us until end…
Some Definitions
IA (information architecture) – is the art and science of organizing and labeling information to support findability and usability.
ID (instructional design) – is the art and science of knowledge transfer and retention.
Well are they alike???
Scholastic pursuits. Need to have a love of the philosophical. upon cognitive psychology. Constructivism, behaviorism and other big words are used :)
It all boils down to: A need to connect user with an end goal. Making sure a string of action happens easily.
Brings up “Don’t Make me think”.
Looks like only 2 people in the room haven;’t read the book. No comment on where I stand.
- users scan, they don’t read
- users don’t make optimal decisions – look for first reasonable options
- users muddle through
Blink thinking
Thin slicing: make decisions based on a very small section of information.
<rant>Sean name drops too much for my taste: gladwell, krug, nielsen, klein, zeldman, big bird, count chocula, blah, blah, blah… OK, I get it… you’re well informed.</rant>
Gladwell is the father of viral marketing? OK, that’s cool.
James just used the word “automagically”, +1 for her.
Oh, and she hates talking on the internet, but…
Back to original question
Narration is good for retention.
- Animation and Sound = Visual and Auditory
- Animation and Sound and Text = Visual and Auditory and Visual (too much Visual)
“Minimize on screen text.”
<another rant>I want to write “or give it as alternative”, but Sean just disputed that. He then goes on to tell a story where he tried to convince a bank to not include close captioning in a video. WTF? If I was blind – I would be insulted, actually I am still insulted. If CC text is an option, but you think that it gets in the way of retention, then you design is flawed! Visually-abled users might retain better with only visual and audio, but why not give a text alternative for other users???</another rant>
The give an example: star wars trading card game site that they designed.
When to look at your sister discipline
ID people need to look at IA and visa-vera.