Julian Scopinaro’s Blog

A few weeks ago I started reading “Information Arhictecture for the World Wide Web” (Morville & Rosenfeld, 2007). So far it has proven to be a really interesting book which delves into the basics and the not-so-basics of information architecture. This post is based on some reports I’ve been writing to share my knowledge gained throughout the reading. It shows what I consider to be the highlights of the book’s first three chapters. Hope you find them useful, and stay tuned for more!

The infamous three circles of information architecture

“We need to understand the business goals behind the web site and the resources available for design and implementation. We need to be aware of the nature and volume of content that exists today and how that might change a year from now. And we must learn about the needs and information-seeking behaviors of our major audiences. Good information architecture design is informed by all three areas” (Morville & Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, page 25).

“We must learn about the needs and information-seeking behaviors of our major audiences”

“We need to understand the business goals behind the web site and the resources available for design and implementation”

“We need to be aware of the nature and volume of content that exists today and how that might change a year from now”

When reading this description of the three circles of information architecture, I recognized similar concepts to the ones used by Jesse James Garrett in his great book The Elements of User Experience:

Above: The five planes of user experience design by Garrett.

If you think about it, the strategy plane where one has to define the user needs and the site objectives is closely related to Rosenfeld’s circles of “Users” (user needs and information-seeking behaviors) and “Context” (website’s business goals).

User needs & information seeking behaviors

Probably the most interesting part of these first three chapters is when Morville & Rosenfeld delve into the type of information that users usually want to find, and the ways in which the users try to find it. That’s when the authors say that the most important goal in designing information architecture is to satisfy user needs. But in order to do that, first we need to model those needs and think about what kind of information users need, how much of that information they need, and how they will look for it.

As regards to what kind, the book talks about users having four information needs:

Above: Four types of information needs (Morville & Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, page 35).

• Item-seeking: you know what you’re looking for, what to call it, and where you’ll find it (e.g., a colleague’s phone number);
• Exploratory seeking: you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for; you want to learn something from the process of searching and browsing (e.g., company retirement plans);
• Exhaustive research: user is looking for everything on a particular topic, he has many ways to express what he’s looking for, and has the patience to construct the search using all the varied terms (e.g., learn more about a medical condition, type HIV, AIDS, acquired immune-deficiency syndrome, etc.);
• Re-finding: you find something and want to make sure you’ll find it again (using bookmarks, del.icio.us, etc.);

And as regards to how will users find information, the authors mention three main ways: they enter queries in search systems, browse from link to link, and ask humans for help (through email, chat interfaces, and so forth). That is to say, searching, browsing, and asking are all methods for finding, and are the basic building blocks of information-seeking behavior.

However, within each finding session, it’s important to note that there are two important seeking behaviors:

• Integration: We often integrate searching, browsing, and asking in the same finding session.
• Iteration: we don’t always get things right the first time. And our information needs may change along the way, causing us to try new approaches with each new iteration

Above: Integrated browsing, searching, and asking over many iterations (Morville & Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, page 36).

These different components of information-seeking behaviors come together in complex models, such as the “berry-picking” model, developed by Dr. Marcia Bates:

Above: the berry-picking model of how users move through an information system (Morville & Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, page 36).

In the “Berry-picking” model users “start with an information need, formulate an information request (a query), and then move iteratively through an information system along potentially complex paths, picking bits of information (”berries”) along the way. In the process, they modify their information requests as they learn more about what they need and what information is available from the system” (Morville & Rosenfeld, page 36).

In conclusion, this is what I consider to be the highlights of the book’s first three chapters. I probably missed some important bits, but the spirit was to make a succint and consumable summary. Hope you’ve enjoyed it!

Have you ever made a really wrong decision that you ended up regretting for months? And have you ever missed an important business opportunity because of being unprepared for it? If you think about it for a second, you’ll realize that in both cases you probably could have avoided these mishaps if you’d used forecasting, or forward thinking. So what is forecasting? Simply put, it’s an effort to anticipate what will occur in the future.

Even though we normally use forecasting unconsciously in our everyday lives, sometimes we forget to do it when we’re dealing with work. And that’s something worth fixing. Forecasting is a good work practice that should always be employed because it leads to more sensible decision-making and it also helps us become more prepared for the future. This article will try to briefly explain why so.

Decisions, decisions…

Our life at work involves making a lot of decisions. And most often than not it’s hard to tell if they will bring the results we expect them to. However, a good practice to make sure we’re on the right track for making a sensible decision is to consider the consequences that may stem from it and the possible new decisions that we may have to make because of those consequences. Shortly put, by forecasting we predict and evaluate our decisions’ consequences before implementing them to imagine the future scenarios we could be dealing with.

In order to make this method easy to use, it helps to draw a map of our initial decisions and the possible decisions that could follow them. By using a model to evaluate the impact of our decisions retrospectively, as if the decisions had already been made, we can visualize the possible responses that they will generate. That way it’s easier to know if we should or should not make the decision. The key is to always ask oneself: where is this decision taking me?

Staying agile (while keeping focused)

This same concept of forward thinking applies to planning our future actions. We can’t know for sure what the future will surprise us with, but in today’s business world we do have to be ready for any opportunity or adversity that could land in our door. So forecasting is also about making an effort to anticipate tomorrow’s opportunities, risks and clients’ expectations in order to start dealing with them now.

However, the key is to make a deep evaluation of the things we forecast in order to realize if what we start doing today is something that we’ll really need tomorrow. Because if we lose focus on our mis sion the risk is to start doing “other delivering”: something that neither the client (nor us, for that matter) will need in the future.

Therefore, to stay agile we need to become adaptable to future situations. And the best way to accomplish that is by anticipating what’s coming next and start responding to it today but only if it’s something we’ll need and that will create value for us and our clients.

Keywords: Forecasting; Decisions; Anticipation; Adaptability
Photo Source: Getty Images.

So what is trust anyway? And why is trust so important in today’s business world? We can say that trust is to have confidence in the abilities of a person or of a group of people (organization). You trust someone when you have some certainty that he/she will behave in a defined way. In that sense, trust is an asset because it helps to reduce uncertainty and make transactions easier. As Stephen M.R. Covey (2006) states in his book Speed of Trust, business happens faster and at lower costs among people who trust each other.

So far, so good: trust is positive because it helps to reduce costs and to increase speed in business transactions. But how do you develop trust with a client? And most importantly, how do you get a client not to lose that trust in you? That is, precisely, the main topic of this article.

From Trust to Expectations

The idea is pretty simple: if a client trusts you it’s because he believes you will respond in a certain way. In other words, he has an expectation of the results you will deliver to him. We must always keep this in mind because if we don’t respond to the expectations we’ve created in the client, we will risk that trust and all the benefits that come with it.

From Expectations to Responsibility

That is why responding to the client’s expectations has to become our first priority, our main responsibility. We need to understand that if we were delegated a task to be fulfilled, we have to be accountable for its results. A responsibility is like a debt and we can’t fail to live up to it. Therefore, we must always think and rethink what the client is expecting from us and work our best to satisfy those expectations.

From Responsibility to Stewardship…and back to Trust

So stewardship is basically about assuming a personal responsibility to take care of the client’s affairs with the utmost respect for them; it’s about solving the client’s problems as if he were solving them himself. When that high level of commitment is achieved the client can rest assured that he has nothing to worry about. And that is precisely the main weapon to strengthen the trust with him.

Closing the circle

So why is this important to us? Because we now have a clear idea of how trust is built (high level of commitment) and how trust is maintained (living up to those commitments and to the created expectations). If we continually respond as the clients expect us to do, we will probably never lose their trust and its benefits.

Keywords: Trust; Expectations; Responsibility; Stewardship

The last couple of months we’ve been working hard towards building a new quality system that would help us improve the way our processes work. For that matter, we delved deep into the ISO 9001:2000 and used it as a guide to build our system. As of today, we’re in the final stage of the system’s design and will be finishing it in the next few weeks. In other words, we designed an ISO 9001:2000 compliant quality system from scratch in just about three months with only two people working on the project (and an external consultant). I believe the key to this fast rate of development lies in the way we approached the ISO set of standards, so the purpose of this article is to show what this approach is about and what are the main advantages of it.

As with any other system, the ISO 9001:2000 one has its own special features, so in order to get the most out of it we first had to understand its functionality and structure, and then think how it could fit our own purposes. The understanding part took us a bit more than expected, but turned out to be crucial in the final design premises of our system because of the approach we decided to give it, focusing more on the records than on the processes.

Records first

Sometimes, in order to really understand an object’s essence you have to look at it from different perspectives. One of my favorite examples of this concept is Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie series: a marvelous work which seems to focus on the same object from three different points of view, each of them unveiling an insight of the object’s essence you hadn’t really noticed before.

When trying to understand the ISO 9001:2000, we were stuck the first couple of weeks with the common viewpoint based on processes. Undoubtedly, the main purpose of the norm is to build a quality system using a process approach; we’re not going to question that. But after analyzing the model from different perspectives we found out that the real core structure of that system are the records, not the processes. Without the evidence that quality tasks are being executed in the firm, the whole ISO 9001:2000 model would crumble like a house of cards; and what’s more, two of the most basic tasks associated to process improvement – that is, measurement and control – wouldn’t be able to be implemented.

Show me the evidence

That’s how we started to conceive a quality system from a different architectural perspective: starting with a strong foundation based on records and building on top of it the rest of the ISO structure.

But then the next question was: which records? The answer turned out to be pretty simple: the basic ones, i.e., the ones that the ISO 9001:2000 points out as the absolutely necessary ones to build a quality system. That’s how we produced a list of 21-basic-records-you-need-to-have (plus the must-have-documents) and from then onwards focused on the processes that would use them to manage the quality system and give the ISO “building” the rest of its appearance.

Some answers

The obvious questions anyone would ask us are: why did you decide to do things this way? Why not stick to the classic ISO 9001:2000 perspective and build a system like everyone else does? Well, the answer is pretty simple too: we needed an approach that could allow us to build a quality system from scratch and having scarce resources. And the truth is, once we got past the first “understanding” phase of the essence of our object, i.e. the ISO 9001:2000 norm, and once we understood how we were going to make a difference based on the new architectural perspective, the results were really good: fast rate of system development, seamless interaction with our already existing processes and low chances of risk associated to the usability of the system.

Will that be good enough to achieve the ISO certification? Only time will tell…

We found out from the work done the last couple of weeks that there are two fundamental issues that must be understood in order to improve our work methodology:

1. Less is more: one should try to make make his/her work as simple as possible, i.e., try to simplify not only the work methodology but also the presentation of results. And when there are major problems to get sorted out, the most sensible decision is probably to start solving the simpler, most basic issues first. Attacking the basic and absolutely necessary matters is the cornerstone in succesfully attacking the complex matters.

2. If I really understand, I'll work better: in order to carry out a well-done job one must always ask oneself three important questions:

a) what do I have to do?

b) how will I do it?

c) why do I have to do it?

Most often than not, the first two questions have simple, easy answers and maybe that's why we tend to ignore the third one. But the truth is, if we can't produce a good answer for that third question before getting started with our work we will hardly ever produce good results because we'll be lacking awareness of our purpose.

Hope you find these guidelines useful!

Cheers!

This post should've been released a couple of weeks ago probably, on my second or third day @ southworks, because it's reason of being was to illustrate how my first day went. That explained, I figured it still was worth the effort to post it because it may be useful for future southies to read on their first weeks. So my first day went something like this…

After setting up the essentials on my computer with the help of Federico Jack, I was assigned to help my teammate Jony Menasches with his work on building a template. The following two hours or so I was lost among terms of unknown meaning to me (TFS, team stand up, blackbox, whitebox, source control, etc., etc.), learning Visual Studio on a super fast course and trying to keep up with the pace of my dynamic mentor. If you readers come from a background that involves programming I guess this won't impress you, but I'll tell you it was a tough ride for me…Fortunately, Jony was very patient and clear with his explanations and the result was that I finished my first day sending the end of day report on my own!

In the last few days, I learnt from conversations with other southies that they had confusing first days too. I guess that's probably a consequence of starting any new job, but also of adjusting to work on a scrum mentality. So if any of you readers is having a tough time on your first days here, let me tell you: hang in there![:)] If there's something really valuable here @ southworks, it's the people working in it. So don't be shy to ask for a helping hand whenever you need it because we're here to do that. And before you know it you'll be perfectly adjusted to our work environment, and happy working in it too!

My advice to you is to read and re-read the company's MINDSETS from our website (www.southworks.net) because if you truly understand them and you work following them, you're integration will be WAY easier.

Cheers!

Technology’s Untanglers: They Make It Really Work

By BARBARA WHITAKER

Published: July 8, 2007

SOMETIMES there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries.

Enter the usability professional, whoso work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology. Jobs in the usability industry are varied, as are the backgrounds of the people who hold them. The work can involve testing products in a laboratory, watching people use products in the field or developing testing methods.

When the federal government was creating its informational Web site (now known as usa.gov), it brought in usability experts to look for flaws. By watching users, the site’s creators found that people were having trouble finding an individual agency’s Web site because they did not know which department to look under.

“Even people in the Washington, D.C., area didn’t know that,” said Janice Redish, a usability consultant who worked on the project in February 2002. “It was an easy fix once we knew it.”

Dr. Redish, whose background is in linguistics, is a usability consultant specializing in Web sites and software interfaces. In 1979, she founded the Document Design Center for the American Institutes for Research to examine how the government could make its documents more understandable. By 1985, she had established an independent usability laboratory and was testing software interfaces and documentation for companies like I.B.M. and Sony.

“It’s really a field that has taken off in the last three, four, five years,” Dr. Redish said. “I think the Web has really made companies and agencies understand they are in a conversation with their customers.”

In some cases, usability research has become very sophisticated, relying on equipment like eye-tracking software to analyze precisely what users are looking at on a computer screen. But in most cases, Dr. Redish said, the work relies on solid observation and interview skills.

Eric Danas, a geophysicist who worked for years in the oil exploration industry, became involved in usability after seeing how information could be tailored to different audiences. He went back to school and received a graduate degree in human factors (the study of how people interact with technology and other things) and advanced interface design.

In 1995, Mr. Danas became a usability expert specializing in software design. Today, he works for Microsoft, leading a “user experience team” that examines how to make software more accessible.

“The users of our products don’t really care about the technology,” Mr. Danas said. “They just have a job they’re trying to do. We bridge the gap between what technology is capable of doing and what users want to achieve.”

Many usability jobs are related to computers and the Web. But usability professionals are also in demand in fields like medicine.

Mary LaLomia, who has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, is a product manager who specializes in usability at Philips Medical Systems in Bothell, Wash. As part of the job, she recently surveyed 20 sites where the company’s ultrasound system was being used. She helped examine everything from the design of the equipment to avoiding repetitive stress injury to how patient information flows through the system.

In response to a growing demand for usability jobs, schools are offering degrees in areas like human computer interaction, new media and accessible Web design. But much of the training for usability jobs is happening in the workplace.

“People come into it from many different areas,” Dr. Redish said. “Anthropology, for example, is a great background for the field service aspect, going out to a customer’s workplace or a person’s home.” She said that linguistics is relevant “because it’s all about how people communicate.”

The Usability Professionals’ Association offers tutorials and holds an annual meeting. The Society for Technical Communication also has a group on usability and user experience.

General online job boards are a good resource for usability jobs. In addition, the usability association lists job postings on its Web site, and job placement firms like Bestica Inc. specialize in usability design jobs.

Harvinder Singh, president of Bestica, which is based in San Antonio, says that there is a shortage of people to fill usability jobs.

“We’re working with companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and having a lot of trouble finding user-experienced people,” he said.

More companies are dividing the various aspects of the job, he said. A business might want a usability researcher to go out and talk with users and examine what they’re comfortable with. Then it might employ a usability design expert to incorporate the researcher’s findings into the way a product works.

According to information compiled by the usability association in 2005, annual pay in the field in the United States started at about $49,000 and rose to about $120,000. The average salary was $86,500.

Usability position are receiving more visibility within companies, and high-ranking positions like director of usability are being created, Mr. Danas of Microsoft said. “From a career standpoint I think there’s a lot of opportunity, and that’s getting broader every day," he said.

Artículo original (hay que estar registrado al NYTimes): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/business/yourmoney/08starts.html?ex=1184817600&en=fe898119cbb2e5b6&ei=5070