Comments for ia play

Comment on ways of adding metadata by Fran

Fran — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:41:54 +0000

Very useful! Thanks!

Comment on Search Solutions 2009 by Tony Russell-Rose

Tony Russell-Rose — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:53:17 +0000

Thanks for covering this, Karen. We hope to hold a similar “Industry Day” event at ECIR 2010 in MK next April (see http://kmi.open.ac.uk/events/ecir2010/). Perhaps I might twist your arm to come & present(?!) Either way, hope to see you there.

Cheers,
Tony

Comment on search forms on online shops by Karen

Karen — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:27:22 +0000

Agreed. Definitely have to treat the guidance text with a lot of caution where screenreaders are concerned. We generally just avoid it as there are other ways to provide the advice.

Suggestions as you type on the other hand is hard to provide an alternative to.

Comment on search forms on online shops by Gonzalo González Mora

Gonzalo González Mora — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:09:58 +0000

I’d be careful with the “guidance text in box” method. Although widely spread, I’ve read that some screen-readers can have a hard time with it. Also, users without JavaScript enabled (which sometimes are screen-reader users) would have to erase its content first in order to populate it.

One solution is to use JavaScript to both “pre-fill” and erase the default text. Patrick H. Lauke has made a function for this some while ago, which can be found here. I hope it helps.

PS: it’d be nice to have the “Gurken Subscribe to Comments” plug-in for Wordpress; it can help to encourage the discussion

Comment on ia deliverables by Lauren Bopp

Lauren Bopp — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:01:24 +0000

I've seen a lot of discussion on the UX blogs lately about prototyping. It's interesting to come across fresh perspectives since I think often many of us who don't focus on UX are still locked in the old "gray-box Visio wireframes with func spec in Word" paradigm. Exploring these new prototyping tools has been really eye-opening. I decided to write my own blog post about it, particularly about how I think prototyping can provide value to the developers, not just the client stakeholders.

Comment on ia deliverables by Zack Perry

Zack Perry — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:04:55 +0000

This is a good point of view. I’d say over the years I’ve had to adjust my IA documentation greatly. I’d like to think we are slowly transitioning away from heavy documentation as things like agile take hold. I honestly believe that if you have solid research in front of you, then the sketch method inside an agile framework is the ideal way to go.

But you hit on a very good point early on. Take this into context. Teams these days are all over the place, complexity is the monkey running free in the park, VPs think they are designers, etc. etc. etc. Hopefully one day we’ll reach the true pathway forward.

Comment on search forms on online shops by Wandtattoo

Wandtattoo — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:06:17 +0000

I think the best way is to use the shown version “guidance text in box” – it helps for faster search

Comment on search forms on online shops by Watch 24 Online

Watch 24 Online — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:45:02 +0000

Your observation is right. It is quite obvious that book stores need long boxes as most of the time the search string is comparably long.
Anyway can you suggest me a way to incorporate “suggestions” in the search as google and amazon.
Thanks

Comment on “Best Bets” functionality for search systems by James Melzer

James Melzer — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:30:56 +0000

I explain that best bets are a editorial tool as much as a search tool. It isn’t just about relevance. Best bets give an organization control over the presentation of their content within search, just like they control it in their content management system. It is a way to overcome the mindlessness of an algorithmic approach to content. For example, the complex answer to a question might be the ‘most relevant’ from a search perspective, but the simple answer might be the best bet. This may or may not provide a better user experience, but at least it allows the organization to control the user experience.

Comment on alternatives to conferences by Karen

Karen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:38:30 +0000

Another thing to remember is that speaking at conferences is a good way to get there cheaply. You can usually get into the conference for free, and some will pay costs too.