– Steve Jobs, Wired, February, 1995

vias Quote Vadis

Directed by Tony Kelly for American Apparel from Tony Kelly Photography on Vimeo.

Rainer Maria Rilke

But let’s get back to bathroom doors.

While at a pub yesterday, after a few beers I decided to use the restroom. While sitting down letting all that beer get out, I looked at the cabin door. Its was very pretty, with details crafted in beautiful wood. What is a bathroom cabin door for, anyways? For not letting people see me while I do my business. From a strictly functional point of view, that door could be a blunt piece of wood, or metal, or plastic – not glass – and it would 100% fulfill it’s functional purpose (How) – then why was it full of ornaments? I went to that pub because I like the Western feel of the place, the details in the walls and the wooden ornaments all over. If I had gotten to the bathroom and seen a boring metal door to close the cabin it would frankly break my mood. It did not. It fed me what I was expecting to get from that environment.

That is User Experience – a seamless one.

The same applies to the Web, Apps, Phones, Devices – Product Design in general. No one should run away from User Experience or, even worse, ignore it. If you want to launch a successful product (whether it is a pub, a bottle of juice, a computer, software, a website, sneakers, a campaign, etc), you need to know the why . The reason your product is appealing to the user should be your main drive.

A great read from PunchCut.com – read full article here

Research the audience and the Business
IAs take on a myriad of responsibilities for the project. To learn about the project’s audiences, IAs should have access to the results of, or conduct: usability tests, card sorting exercises, stakeholder interviews, user polling, etc. The goal is to provide as much information about what factors are influencing the project as possible. Information architects need to know what people will do with your application, how people will use information provided by the application, and what mental models user’s create while using your application

Analyze Data
The IA takes knowledge gained from the discovery period to define what the site’s primary objectives are and how it will realize those goals. At this point, it’s helpful for the IA to work hand-in-hand with the designers, developers, and other members of the team with an interest in the project deliverable. By analyzing data, the IA may generate a set of user personas.

A user persona is a representation of the goals and behavior of a real group of users. In most cases, personas are synthesized from data collected from interviews with users. They are captured in 1–2 page descriptions that include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details to make the persona a realistic character. For each product, more than one persona is usually created, but one persona should always be the primary focus for the design.

Develop labeling/navigation/site structures
Finally, an Information Architect will, in essence, architect the site. IAs will produce things such as site maps, site-flow diagrams, and wireframes to convey how the site will work from a practical perspective. Indeed, the best Information ARchitects will take all perspectives into account while creating these deliverables: business, technological, and social (user). From this point on, the IA will help make decisions about the overall direction the site gravitates towards. For example, the IA should be involved in periodically testing the site, reading the copy, and evaluating any user-testing that is occurring during development cycles.

I advise you to read the full post