My new favorite book is The Design of Sites, Second Edition. Not only does it eruditely cover just about any topic in User Experience Design that I could think of; but, it is the most user-friendly book.

I must say part of my excitement about this may be due to my Scandinavian roots, but it may also be because I wrote User Interface Guidelines for about two years. The Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry has written some remarkable guidelines on designing simplified forms on the internet. It’s called ELMER 2 (PDF - 1 MB) and if I’d had something like this when I started out, it would have been my secret weapon on designing input forms .

Not only that, but it’s a very tight example of design documentation - putting the guidelines in a tabular format with cross references and clear examples. It also has a glossary of terms used in the document (for example, “inline error” and “standardized text”.) So simple even a blond could use it!

And don’t forget, as the document footer says… “In case of discrepency, the Norwegian version prevails.”

Because a few people have been asking me for some basics, here is an outline of the steps to build a simple website. Next, I’ll be going more in-depth into each step, linking to examples and/or a web tutorial with steps on exactly how do to it. For now, it’s just an outline.

Step I: Ideation: Coming up with the idea
Step II: Requirements Gathering: Figuring out what kind of website it is, who will visit and what they’ll do there
Step II: Information Architecture: Organizing the site, with your visitors in mind
Step III: Visual Design: Making it look right
Step IV: Build: Turning design ideas into coded pages
Step V: Hosting & Launching: Putting it on the internet
Appendix: General Best Practices & Techniques

Today Michael Tyrell gave a great presentation (6.7M Powerpoint) on his experience getting into the field of user centered design (a.k.a user experience, interaction design, information architecture). Fresh out of New York University, Michael started at Razorfish last year as a Junior Inofrmation Architect - or what Razorfish call a User Experience Associate.

His presentation is very illuminating for anyone who is interested in getting into information architecture and wants to know what’s in store.

T: This morning I am talking with Rachel Lovinger, a Senior Content Strategist for Avenue A | Razorfish. Rachel will be presenting at next week’s Semantic Technology Conference. In addition, she recently published a paper on Boxes and Arrows. And just this week, she started her blog Meaningful Data, available here http://meaningfuldata.wordpress.com/. Good morning, Rachel.

R: Good morning, Tobi Jo.

T: So, I thought I’d start by asking how does the work of a Content Strategist differ from or overlap with an Information Architect/Interaction designer?

R: Well, this is something I’ve thought about a lot because when I wrote that article for Boxes and Arrows, at first, that’s what I thought I was going to write about. Strictly speaking I think the goal of the Information Architect and the Content Strategist is basically the same - and that is to come up with the best way to present information so it is useful and meaningful to the user. Primarily the way the field is going right I feel like Information Architects and Content Strategists just take a slightly different perspective of it. While the Information Architect looks at the physical presentation and how its organized and structured as the person is interacting with it, the content strategist looks at it from the perspective of the content itself and says “does this content have everything in it that will enable it to be presented meaningfully?”. So, it’s like if you as an Information Architect have devised a really innovative and compelling way to present up the information and the content then my role as the Content Strategist is to make sure all the pieces are in place to support that presentation.

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When I get new a project, I start by researching the client and their competitors. So, I create a Bookmarks Toolbar Folder in Firefox where I drag all related web sites. When I want to research a particular item, I just click on the last option in the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder “Open in Tabs”. Viola! All of my research items are opened instantly.

Another cool thing is that I can export that bookmarks folder as an HTML file (File > Manage Bookmarks. Then once you’re in the Bookmarks Manager it’s - File > Export). That way I can easily pass along my sites to anyone on the project.

So, the other day I was asked to create yet another information graphic. Even though I’ve made a handful of these, I always like to step back and do some research - almost as if this is the first time I’ve designed this feature. So, for information graphics I turn to the following for my inspiration.

Information Aesthetics Blog: www.infosthetics.com

Totally awesome site that is regularly updated with great information graphics. Browse by category, month or keyword for everything from charts and graphs to calendars and weather.

Digital Diagrams, by Trevor Bounford

Great collection of ideas that always get my mind going. Beautifully illustrated examples from some of the information graphics greats like John Grimwade (who now does graphics for Portfolio magazine - whose website I helped design… but that’s another post), and Grundy and Northedge.

This week, I had a good conversation with a User Experience Associate (the equivalent to a Jr. UX Designer) about some basic reads of our trade. He just bought a couple recommendations I’d made:

Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell - Basic toolkit of interaction patterns with straightforward explanations.

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Typographic Elements of Style by Robert Bringhurst - Somewhat advanced tome on type. To get acquainted, flip through it and study the diagrams and examples. I guarantee the presentation of your UX design will improve. overnight.

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And to that list I’ll add a couple we’ve already read (of course):

Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug - This book is always the first one I recommend to people interested in user centered design. Also has fun little comics about the office space.

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About Face by Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann- If you’re an Information Architect (or want to be), but you don’t know who Alan Cooper is - you should. I would recommend any of his books.