Information Design and Architecture SIG news page

Information Design and Architecture news

Web patterns project

December 2. A recently posted article discusses semantics and patterns in CSS and web semantics and web patterns, and proposes development of a semantically rich set of design patterns for websites:
http://westciv.typepad.com/dog_or_higher/2005/11/webpatterns_and.html.

UXnet fosters collaboration among professional organizations

December 2. UXnet is working to foster collaboration among the many professional groups serving user experience professionals. Efforts are under way to build collaboration and create exchanges at both the local and national levels. Please visit www.uxnet.org.

Interaction Design Association formed

December 2. In October, 2005 the Interaction Design Group (IxDG), which has served practitioners, teachers, and students of interaction design worldwide since 2003, incorporated as a non-profit, member-supported organization called the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Interaction Design Interaction design (IxD) defines the behavior of interactive products and how products communicate their functionality to the people who use them. Good interaction design makes products ranging from computer software to microwave ovens to cars more useful, usable, and desirable. The Interaction Design Association (IxDA) promotes both the field of interaction design and the interests of practitioners, managers, educators, and students of interaction design around the world.

IxDA's goals are to (1) communicate the unique perspective that interaction design brings to both industry and the broader design community, (2) promote awareness of the discipline, craft, and value of interaction design among business leaders, academia, consumers, and our colleagues, (3) advance the discipline of interaction design by encouraging the adoption of innovative methods, (4) encourage and recommend high standards of practice among interaction design professionals, (5) help establish standards for academic programs in interaction design, (6) develop an active, close-knit community of interaction design professionals worldwide.

IxDA hosts IxD Discussion, a mailing list for the discussion of interaction design with about 1800 subscribers worldwide. There are 800 subscribers to the IxDA Announcements mailing list. Subscribers include practitioners, educators, and authors in the field of interaction design, as well as students and others who are interested in the discipline of interaction design. For more information visit the Interaction Design Association at http://www.ixda.org.

Eyetrack research

July 15. The Eyetrack III research on news websites released by The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools may help answer questions such as: Is homepage layout effective? ... What effect do blurbs on the homepage have compared to headlines? ... When is multimedia appropriate? ... Are ads placed where they will be seen by the audience?

In Eyetrack III, researchers observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content. An overview of the observations is posted at http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm.

Website adapts its links to the users

July 15. A server can track the number of times a link is followed to open a page, and the code can remove links that are not followed. For an example, visit the news map at
http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm. Here the size of the font for each headline increases as the links are followed. Links that are not followed decrease in size and eventually become too small to see.

Strategic thinkers sought to lead design

June 18. The June 2005 issue of Fast Company features several articles on design. One discusses recruiting design executives. "The big trend right now is the search for designer as turnaround agent, or design savior. These are designers who think strategically and speak the language of business, in addition to being incredibly talented." http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/95/getting-ahead.html.

ASIS&T to hold first IA Summit in Europe

June 18. The American Society for Information Science and Technology will hold the first European Information Architecture Summit, Building Communities, at the Tulip Inn, Brussels, Belgium, 15-16 October 2005. The submission deadline for case studies, presentations, and panels is July 31. For details on submitting a proposal, please visit http://www.asis.org/Conferences/IA/euia.html.

The objective is to build the IA community in Europe by bringing together a number of disciplines and practitioner communities in a stimulating environment for debate with
opportunities to establish cooperation. This community is not limited by language or region, and encompasses specialisations including designing for mobile devices and multilingual solutions. The call for papers seeks presentations that reflect those communities of practice, language and location.

If you are using techniques from related disciplines in your day-to day work or researching the latest ways to connect people and content, the conference committee would like to hear from you. Examples of relevant activities include, but are not limited to, developing the IA practice in an organisation or country by documenting methods,
applying IA principles to European-focused platforms, providing multilingual solutions and designing devices like interactive TV or mobile devices.

The committee encourages submissions by students, developers and designers, including people working in areas ancillary to information architecture. The committee is looking for work of a specialised nature, work concerning new features, design elements, methods or processes, controversial topics, and work in progress.

The Summit seeks proposals for:

Digital Information Design Camp

AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts) is holding a Digital Information Design Camp from June to August, 2005. Online orientation is available from June 27 to July 1, 2005. The online instructional program is from July 5 to July 25, 2005. Preparation for the online exhibition is from July 26, with online launch August 1, 2005. AIGA members may apply to participate. The program of study is conducted online both to allow participation by working people, and to provide experience in online design. The goal is to provide training in computing technologies for traditional designers, and to provide traditional design education for professional designers trained primarily in digital design. For details, visit http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/didcamp. Posted June 2005.

Institute of Design Strategy Conference

The ID Strategy Conference was held in Chicago May 18 and 19. Slides from the presentations are available on the conference website. Topics include the relationship of strategy and design, the implicit needs of the audience, design and the developing world, and creating value through design. Posted June 2005.

Interaction Design Group Launches Resource Library

On May 17, 2005, the Interaction Design Group (IxDG)--an association that serves the needs of the international community of practitioners, teachers, and students of interaction design--launched the IxDG Resource Library at http://resources.ixdg.org.

The IxDG Resource Library is a repository of information about interaction design (IxD) that the IxDG community has created. It includes documents, compilations of discussions from the Ixd Discussion mailing list, and descriptions of and links to many interaction design resources on the Web. IxDG members may also comment on resources and contribute items to the Library.

New resource published April 2005

A new book has been published, of interest to developers and designers of interactive systems, user interfaces, hypermedia systems, system architects, and people dealing
with knowledge work systems: visuosT. 2005. by Clemens Lango. http://visuos.com.

The Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modeling '05 (LAP2005)

LAP — the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modeling— is a theoretical orientation toward solving these design challenges that has been taken up by an international, multi-disciplinary community of researchers and practitioners. A conference is scheduled for June 19 to 20, 2005, in Kiruna, Lapland, Sweden.

LAP emphasizes the importance of interaction and communication in designing useable, useful, and legitimate information systems. LAP recognizes that language is not only used for exchanging information, as in reports or statements, but that language is used to perform actions, as in promises, orders, requests, and declarations. Such actions are the foundation of communities and organisations and must be understood to create effective systems. This insight has profound implications for the theory and practice of designing systems to support organisational and community processes.

So far, 9 successful gatherings of scholars and practitioners interested in the Language-Action Perspective (LAP) have been held in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Canada and USA. For more information, visit http://www.vits.org/LAP2005.

ID-IA SIG news

Interview with Karen Schriver

December 3. Cheryl Powers reported that a substantive interview with Karen A. Schriver by Peter J. Bogaards was posted in September, 2005 at
http://www.informationdesign.org/special/schriver_interview.php. Karen Schriver and Cheryl Powers are both members of the ID-IA SIG.

ID-IA SIG membership report, July through December 2005

January 6. In December, the ID-IA SIG gained 139 members. As of December 31, the SIG had 2685 members and STC had 17,176 members.

As of November 30, the ID-IA SIG had 2601 members and STC had 16,976 members. In October and November the ID-IA SIG gained 221 members. In August and September 2005, the ID-IA SIG gained 107 new members, for a total of 2440 members as of September 30 when STC had 16,479 members. In July 2005, 52 new members joined the Information Design SIG. As of July 31, the ID SIG had 2330 members, up from 2278 on June 30.

ID SIG Membership report, April to June, 2005

In April 2005, 100 new members joined the Information Design SIG. In May 2005, the SIG gained 85 members. In June, the ID SIG gained 73 new members. As of June 30, the ID SIG had 2278 members, up from 2208 on May 31.

STC news

The STC RSS news feed continually updates the news from STC: http://www.stc.org/rss/newsfeedreader.asp.

The STC RSS news feed continually updates the news from STC: http://www.stc.org/rss/newsfeedreader.asp. Posted June 2005.

STC Board meeting report posted

October 18. The report of the fall STC Board of Directors meeting (held in Denver September 24 and 25, 2005) is now available at http://www.stc.org/boardReport01.asp.

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

October 18. Each year, STC offers scholarships to full-time graduate and undergraduate students pursuing careers in technical communication.

Four awards of $1,500 each will be granted for academic year 2006 to 2007. The application deadline is February 15, 2006. Application forms and instructions are available from the STC office, http://www.stc.org.

Two days dedicated to advancing your career: the STC Training Program

August 14. The STC Training Program is a new learning venue designed for today's professionals and scheduled for October 20 to 21. Plan to attend and enroll in one of the five, concurrent two-day courses covering information needed to advance your career in technical communication. The five two-day courses, described in detail at www.stc.org/training, cover the following subjects:

The STC Training Program will take place at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Crystal City, Virginia (near Washington, DC). Register by September 21, 2005, and the cost for STC members is $1,095 (with hotel, $1,295) and $1,255 for nonmembers (with hotel, $1,455). After September 21, costs increase $150. For information or to register, please visit www.stc.org/training.

STC Annual Conference, May 8 to 11 2005, Seattle

You can search for sessions of interest to you on http://www.stc.org/52ndConf/session.search.asp. There is a pulldown list of topics. Among those of special interest to members of the ID SIG are: