Information Architecture Archive

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UI Pattern Documentation Review

“To date, the most common approach to propagating a single user experience standard is the development of UI guidelines and principles documentation within an organization. Development teams —... 
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Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture

“Information architecture is an often misunderstood job title. Are they Designers? Developers? Managers? All of the above? In this article we’ll discuss what information architecture is, why it’s... 
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20 Steps to Better Wireframes

” Possibly the biggest mistake in any development project is failure to plan. Recently, the owner of a prospective start-up told me that planning was unnecessary and a good developer could just start... 
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An Overview of Prototyping and Interactive Design

“In the broadest sense, all kinds of design artifacts are prototypes. Pencil sketches, blocks of wood, storyboards, wireframes, foam-core models, pixel-perfect state renderings, clickable... 
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Anatomy of an Iteration

” Unfortunately, we’ve found that many teams don’t know how to iterate effectively. Good iteration is a deliberate activity, with four important stages: planning, implementing, measuring,... 
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8 Mind Mapping Software Tools to Capture Ideas on Your iPhone

“Since Apple opened up the iPhone and iPod Touch operating system to outside developers and gave them a place to sell their wares – the AppStore – a new breed of mind mapping tools has quickly... 
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Introducing Interaction Design Frameworks

“Whereas a design pattern is a common solution to a specific, recurring problem (such as pagination interfaces), an interaction design framework is a set of design patterns and other elements... 
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Use of Photos in Interaction Design

“The barrier between web pages and desktop software is beginning to disappear, and modern rich client user interface technologies such as Silverlight/WPF, Air, or Java FX enables designers to take... 
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User Type Views & Annotations with Polypage Software

“Here is another very good Polypage HTML wireframe submitted by Joey Marchy from nGen Works. Two interesting uses of Polypage make themselves visible in this sample. First, on the upper left hand... 
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Leveraging XHTML Code as a Design and Specification Platform

“One of the biggest problems with wireframes is the lack of a standardized notation. In other words, my wireframes certainly don’t look anything like your wireframes. This means that visual designers... 
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Pattern Languages for Interaction Design

“An interaction design pattern is not a step-by-step recipe or a specification. It’s a set of things we’ve learned that tend to work in clearly defined situations as well as some known issues... 
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Educating Clients about Information Architecture

“I often tell clients that IA [information architecture] establishes the baseline, or foundation, for a solid site structure. It helps create the traffic patterns and navigational routes that get... 
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Review of 16 User Interface Design Tools

“People constantly ask me what the best prototyping or mockup tool is.  My standard answer is “whichever tool you are most comfortable/experienced with.”  But just to cover all the bases and... 
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Using Adobe Fireworks to Create Interface Design Prototypes

“So my choice of using FW for prototyping is most definitely not a statement about it being a great prototyping tool overall, just that it works great for me personally because I can go all the way... 
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Integrating Information Architecture Deliverables in a Web Application Development Methodology

“The user experience team members learned to speak the same language by collectively discussing our ways of working and our deliverables. This process started... 
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Shades of Grey: Wireframes as Thinking Device

“I think it is quite common for UX folks to view design as problem solving. For me, designing through the use of wireframes is a search in a problem space of alternatives; it’s a process of problem... 
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How to Design the Perfect List

“Lists are a beautiful way to display content and information in a very easy to scan, easy to read method. Lists are found on most blogs to list posts, comments, tags, or links. In this post we will... 
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State Based HTML Wireframes with Polypage

“Ben pointed me to an interesting set of HTML wireframes which use Polypage. Polypage expands HTML wireframes or mock-ups and allows for the creation of page states. Furthermore, the various states... 
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Share Your Favorite Screen Designs, See Other Favorites

Scrnshots.com is an online community where designers can share interesting and beautiful designs. What a great idea. Search by date, tags, domains, and users. This is a great resource for designers in... 
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The $300 Million Dollar Button

“It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce... 
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