links for 2006-10-04
Written by lerble on October 3rd, 2006links for 2006-09-22
Written by lerble on September 21st, 2006-
A digital patina. On this 2002 redesign of the UK’s BBC website, the home page gradualy darkens sections of the site that the user frequents. This creates the equivelent of a ‘worn path’, visually cueing the user with places they frequently visited on the
-
We learn more from our failures that we do from our successes. This coincides with the matra in user centered design “fail early and fail often”. Words to live by.
-
If you ever need to convert a .swf file into a .avi file, this free program will do it for you.
links for 2006-09-21
Written by lerble on September 20th, 2006-
An iteresting article about creating effective wireframes.
-
Interesting article by Jared Spool that debunks some of the ‘usability guildelines’ that are have been published. He advocates using existing sites as a model for your own, and using them to evaluate and test user tasks and goals. Usability guidelines see
links for 2006-09-19
Written by lerble on September 18th, 2006-
For $5 a month, this service will backup and maintain all of the data on your hard drive. It also keeps files that you delete for 30 days. Claims “strong encryption for super security”, and it “never slows down your computer or Internet”.
-
Interesting breakdown of the current web design trends.
links for 2006-09-16
Written by lerble on September 15th, 2006-
Creating reflections of images using Javascript. Will this be the new ‘Web 2.0′ design style?
-
A more usable replacement for the obtrusive dialog box.
-
An RSS feed aggregator the eliminates the page metaphor. When you scroll to the bottom of the page, it automatically loads in more post, making it imposible to get to the ‘end’ of the page. I’m not sure if I like this or not.
The Future of Interaction Design
Written by lerble on August 22nd, 2006Fast forward through the intro to get right to the good stuff. A really amazing interface!
[gv data="http://www.youtube.com/?v=PLhMVNdplJc"][/gv]
Blogging in the Classroom
Written by lerble on August 22nd, 2006Here at UMUC, our LMS uses a couple of different methods that facilitate communication between instructor and student. The two primary vehicles for communication are the announcement area and the discussion board. The announcement area is used as a ‘one way’ communication from the faculty to the student, while the conference area is used as a discussion area for both student and faculty. The former is a ‘push’ medium where the latter facilitates participation in a conversation.
I suggest making the announcement area more like a blog. Breaking the paradigm of one way communication in the announcement area will help facilitate interaction between faculty and student. What if a student has a question about something in an announcement? Currently, we force the student to post this question inside a ‘questions’ conference, away from where the inquiry originated. Adding a comments area, a common blogging feature, to each post in the announcement area allows students to question and comment at the original point of communication. Keeping both the announcement and response interface on the same page works to reduce the student’s cognitive load—they don’t have to remember the text in question because it is adjacent to where the comment is being posted. It also encourages questions and comments by students which enriches the communication for all.
Adding the ability to categorize announcements, as do most blogs, would allow instructors a wider variety of information on the front page of the class without having to resort to the conference area. I see instructors do this all the time. They have materials they want to post, but want to categorize it. Sometimes responses are required by students, sometimes they are not. By providing blogging elements such as categorization of posts and comments, instructors can post such materials in way that better fits the genre of the information.
I am convinced that adding blogging features to the announcement area would create a rich environment of communication that is currently lacking in our classrooms at UMUC. Blogging is popular because it serves a certain genre of information and interaction. I believe that WebTycho’s announcement area is a similar genre of information as blogging, thus incorporating blogging feature seems an ideal solution.
BlackBoard patents the Learning Management System
Written by lerble on August 14th, 2006Thought this was some interesting information.
Apparently, the company that owns BlackBoard now has a patent on the Learning Management System. From the plain language version of the patent, http://tinyurl.com/g29ao , it appears BlackBoard can now claim intellectual property rights to the functionality of nearly every LMS that has been created since the early 1980s. Note that almost every aspect of the patent applies to the current iteration of WebTycho (announcements, discussion board, chat, assignment drop box, etc.). It is also interesting that one day after securing this patent, BlackBoard filed suit against http://www.desire2learn.com/ , for copyright infringement. It seems unlikely that this patent will stand, as there is a lot of prior art that can invalidate BlackBoards’ claims to these LMS features. But, with the US Patent and Trademark Office recent track record of allowing patents for such obvious things as Amazon’s 1-click purchase, who knows what will become of this.
I have collected a series of links on the subject, if you are interested in reading more. There is also a Boycott BlackBoard website where you can add your name to a petition.
Is the instructor the customer?
Written by lerble on July 5th, 2006In Alan Cooper’s “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” and “About Face 2.0“, he talks about how the user’s goals are the most important thing to consider when making design decisions. He also mentions the need to consider the person who is buying the product as well. If you can’t sell the product to the customer, then designing for the end user becomes a moot point.
In the situation that I am currently in (see previous post), we have a problem where instructors are not using the course modules that are being provided for them. In this case, they are like the ‘customer’ that Cooper refers too. If we cannot sell the module to the instructor, then fulfilling the user’s goals, again, becomes a moot point.
During the research phase of this redesign, I will be very interested to see why these instructors are ‘working around’ these course modules. What is it about the current product that frustrates them? What goals does the instructor have that are not being met?
It will be interesting to see how the importance of the instructor’s goals compares with the importance attributed to the customer in Cooper’s texts. Will the instructor be treated as the ‘customer’ in the research and modeling process, or will he become another primary persona that needs to be considered in the design process?
