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Date: Thursday 04 October, 2007
Time: 2.30 pm - 4.50 pm
Where: NLA Theatre, lower ground floor, National Library of Australia, Parkes Place, Parkes, ACT 2600
Cost: Free
Please note that Matthew Hodgson is now unable to speak at this meeting. Instead, Andrew Boyd will be giving a presentation on prototyping as part of the web design process.
First speaker: Donna Maurer, Maadmob Interaction Design
Topic 1: Information architecture - Beyond the hierarchy
Donna is a freelance information architect and interaction designer. Donna has been designing structures and interfaces for web sites, intranets, web applications and business tools professionally for more than six years, and has been hanging around the internet for much longer than that. Donna is an experienced presenter and trainer and has developed and presented workshops on information architecture, usability testing, web design, interface design and writing for the web. More about Donna: http://www.maadmob.com.au/maadmob_id/
For thousands of years humans have been organising information in hierarchies - we start doing it early in life and continue through our careers. So it's not surprising that it is our dominant method for organising content for web sites and intranets. But there are alternatives, and they can be much more effective.
Donna will discuss when hierarchies are most useful and when an alternative approach is better. She'll look at deliberate approaches such as metadata-driven databases and faceted classifications; and emergent approaches such as organic structures and tagging. Donna will examine good examples of each and discuss what to consider for our own projects.
Second speaker: Andrew Boyd, SMS Management & Technology
Topic 2: Prototyping as part of the web design process
Andrew is a Consultant with SMS Management and Technology in Canberra. He has worked in a wide range of web-related roles from Information Architecture to web content wrangling and document usability.
Do you prototype as part of the web design process? If so, when and how? Andrew Boyd will talk about the place of prototyping in the design process based on his experience over the last ten years - and will spend some time discussing the differences between conceptual/revolutionary prototyping and the detailed/evolutionary type.
Our sponsor
The eleventh Canberra WSG meeting is proudly sponsored by SMS Management & Technology.
SMS Management & Technology Limited (SMS) is Australia’s largest publicly listed Management Services Company. SMS provides consulting, resourcing and technology services to Australian and international governments and corporations. SMS employs in excess of 1300 professionals through offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Mackay, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and London.
The SMS Web and Information Management practice in Canberra is renowned for its innovative approach to solving complex problems, with over twenty years experience in analysis, design and project implementation. SMS have recognised experts utilising standards based methodologies and broad experience across a wide range of government departments, from Defence to Healthcare, on projects large and small.
More about SMS Management & Technology
Posted: 05-Oct-07 by Tom Worthington
Blogged at: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/10/information-architecture.html
Donna Maurer on Information architecture - Beyond the hierarchy:
Perhaps Information Architects could have a future as management consultants. They could first design the web site to match what the customer needs and then restructure the organisation to match. An advantage of this is that management consultants get paid a lot more than web designers. ;-)
Matthew Hodgson on Information classification and designing web site navigation:
This was a detailed examination of something he mentioned in a previous presentation. He described prototypes and their benefits. He demonstrated a web interface prototype tool AXURE. To me this looked like any of a number of user interface design tools and I wonder if it may be better if the designer used whatever the developers were using. However, Matthew pointed out that the prototype tool can simulate complex AJAX applications. Another buzzword used was "wire framing". The example he showed was of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme schedule on a PDA. This would be a good use for a prototype tool as it would need a difference interface to the average web page.
One worry I have is that much of what web designers are doing is reinventing software development techniques, by trial and error. It would be of advantage if they studied the tools and techniques for software engineering which have been developed over several decades. Also software developers could learn about being more responsive to client needs from web designers.
Posted: 05-Oct-07 by Tom Worthington
I wrote: "Matthew Hodgson on Information classification and designing web site navigation". Apologies, that was ndrew Boyd, SMS Management & Technology, on prototyping as part of the web design process.
Posted: 17-Oct-07 by Glen Wallis
Tom
I take your point about designing a web site to support customer needs and then restructuring the organisation to match it. But I'm not sure why you make that point.
If you are criticisng the concept of user-centred design, then I think you're misguided. If you are highlighting the need for organisational change, I probably support you. If you are just taking a cheap shot at the discipline of information architecture...well, that's just a cheap shot.
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