Trip report for UX coctailhour amsterdam

21 May 2007 (c) 2007, User Intelligence 1

IA Summit 2007trip report

David Karemaker & Jacco Nieuwland

User Intelligence

May 16nd, 2007


IA summit

• The 8th IA Summit

• Theme: ‘Enriching IA’

• Jacco’s 3rd, David’s 1st

• 570 attendees

• 2 days of pre-conference workshops

• 3 days of conference sessions


What will we bring you?

• Pre-conference workshop: Social IA

• Session reports are limited: focus on two main themes

• Data driven IA

• Documenting rich IA


Preconference workshop

Social Information Architecture WorkshopGene Smith, Rashmi Sinha (slideshare), Thomas Vander Wal

• Three separate, slightly interactive presentations

• About 20 attendees


PCW – Social IA – Gene Smith

Social Software enables people to meet, connect or collaborate through CMC

Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family) Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system Groups - a way of forming communities of interest Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?) Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)



Creators, synthesizers and Consumers

1% creators

10% synthesizers

100% consumers



Three ingredients for social IA• Capture user actions

� Things people do that we can track� Popularity – Community – Reputation� Ignore higher goals & motivations

• Aggregate and display� Bring together user action in a relevant way� Display them� Rules

• Feedback� Positive & negative feedback� Feedback loops


PCW – Social IA – Thomas VanderWal

Interesting:

Who tags?

• As much as 28% of Americans have tagged

• Daily, 7% of people on the web in US tag

• Why?

� Their own use/value

� Add perspective/content

� Refindability

� State interest

� Sociality


Conference sessions

• 45 presentations

• 6 panels

• Flex track

For this presentation we focus on

• data driven IA

• Documenting (rich) IA


Conference sessions – Data-driven IA

• 4 sessions


1.Using search analytics to diagnose what's ailing your IA

Message:• If you are not analyzing your searchlogs you are not listening to your customers

• Search is too important to leave in the hands of robots

SA Works like the Short head - Long tail graph• Use ‘Best bets’ to help the short head (500 queries) and sample the long tail for trends,and… watch out for search engine politics

• Output of best bets to your site: Use best bets for A-Z index! (http://www.msu.edu/)


1.Using search analytics to diagnose what's ailing your IA

Remarks/tips

• Never fixed: Seasonal search trends, update best bets every week/month

• Use search logs or a special database/tool to analyze search terms and search behavior.

• Voorbeeld campus map banner: preference for search box over any other navigation

• Search results: #10 (10 on a page) is clicked more than # 6/7/8/9

• From which pages did users start a search?

• Update most frequently requested docs!

• Input for IA: Use SA to create a vocabulary, cluster 500 short head and sample of 100 from long tail


2.Intelligent inter(RE)action: An argument for a data-driven approach to UI design

Message:

• The Future of Design Will Be Data-Driven

• Become a data detective: find sources and testing mechanisms

Segmentation surveys, comscore reports, search logs, site traffic reports, google trends info, clickstreams & clickdensity analysis, cookie & javascript data, scrolling analysis etc etc.

Beta: fast online and optimize later: Multivariate testing (example slide multivariate testing)

ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit 2007

17

Product Release: Rough, Right & Ready For Change

CONTROLCONTROLControl

Design of ButtonContent

Above/Below Button

Boxes

Replace button with text link

Remove $395 from below button

Reduce to 3 and move NOT READY below the 3

boxes

Alter copyBullet listRename headers and text links

Leve

ls

1A 2A 3A

1B 2B 3B

1C 2C 3C

In Praise of Multivariate Testing!


2.Intelligent inter(RE)action: An argument for a data-driven approach to UI design

Do:

• Validate user persona

• Define quantitative success metrics early

There are no right answers, just ongoing testing and refinement


3.Search engine optimization and IA: the beginnings of a beautiful friendship

Web analytics show preference for search box over any site navigation of any kind

Google: Pagerank caused a googlearchy but...• Hilltop algorithm • topic-sensitive pagerank• Uses broad (learned) topics, authority pages and hubs to counteract previous problems with pure pagerank

Now It is All About Meaning! We should not capitulate or cooperate but instead let IA become a partner in developing search technology that works with the user.


3.Search engine optimization and IA: the beginnings of a beautiful friendship

Influence of Search engines on IA and technology:

• Site Navigation Strategy

• Site Organization Strategy

• Link Strategy

• Page Code Strategy

• Content Strategy

• Metadata Strategy


4.Real information architecture, new mighty deeds

Panel session about data on the web

• Today real information architects’ mighty deeds are moving from macro-organisationof one web site for one organisation, to the micro-organisation of information creating a web of data.

• Get information/data from different places on the web that is in some way related to eachother


4.Real information architecture, new mighty deeds

Why open up data?• Simply to get data out...

• Use APIs to drive people to your stuff

• Make your service more attractive and useful with less central development

• Use syndicated content as a platform

• Turn your API into a pay-for service

Consequences• Every new service can build on top of every other existing service - the web becomes a true platform

• Every service and piece of data that’s added to the web makes every other service potentially more powerful


4.Real information architecture – new mighty deeds

A virtuous circle• Massive creative possibilities

• Accelerating innovation

• Increasingly competitive services

• Increasingly componentised services

• Increasingly specialised services



Impacts on IA (data)• Operating within an ecosystem

• Always engaging with (simple) standards

• Always focusing on data for reuse out with the local site

• Data designed in weblike ways



Impacts on IA (site)• Site is public expression of data

• Site must be entry point for users, developers and machines

• Sites of objects, relationships and object ‘manipulators’

• Manifesting the human path through the data



Weblike Data• Atomic: parcels of data that can stand alone

• Global Identifiers: data you can link to

• Hyperlinked: points to related data

• Web-shaped: interconnected, with no hierarchy and no single starting-point

Examples: blogs, delicious, upcoming, flickr, last.fm, twitter, etc to find out about someone.


Documenting rich IA

1 session


Communicating design: an astonishingly close look at what makes IA documentation work

The role of documentation

• Consistency of Vision

� Documents help facilitate communication

• Accountability

� Documents represent project history

• Traceability

� Documents show progress



Different kinds of documents:

Persona

Usability Test PlanUsability Report

Screen Design

Flow Chart

Site Map

WireframeContent Inventory

Concept Model

Competitive Analysis



Screen Designs

WireframesContent InventoryUsability Reports

Flow ChartsConcept ModelUsability Test Plan

Site MapsCompetitive AnalysisPersona

DesignStrategyUser Needs

What do users want?Does it meet their needs?

What approach should we take?

What does the solution look like?



Creating deliverables• Establish purpose

• Identify audience

• Inventory contents

• Prioritize contents

• Create visual language



Using deliverables• Communicate purpose

• Relinquish control

• Note opportunities for improvement

• Estimate value of maintenance


Userintelligence workshop/flextrack: Swipr!


swipr.com intuitect.com axure.com

Trip report for UX coctailhour amsterdam

Technology

Transcript of Trip report for UX coctailhour amsterdam