Katy Cat

Have we become too dependent on Google? | The Open Road – CNET News.

CNET has another interesting article about whether or not Google is becoming a monoculture. I tend to think the answer to both of these questions is yes. Google actually has a bit too much power, which we freely give it. We should be wary of it, and diversity our search portfolio.

It’s not as if we do not have options, but I know I use Google search all the time. Last year I tried to switch to Yahoo! just to make a point to myself and to help preserve choice, but Google’s algorithm is just better. It just is.  It takes me where I need to go, and without a lot of junk. But as more and more companies slash their marketing budgets and rely on “organic traffic” through search engine optimization, I think Google’s  search could and will be compromised. Certainly their reputation may be.

I suggest a day where we all use a search engines other than Google. Switch your browser default search to…Yahoo or Live (sigh). Would this be similar to the day where we all buy print newspapers to “help”, and then promptly return to the online version? Perhaps, but maybe that could also be the day we all begin to see opportunities to help build another option. Choice is what drives our market forward, after all. What’s the next Google?

Speaking of print,  maybe we should keep that alive too, just in case some day the lights go out and we will have to rely on some other method of communication. Will anyone remember how to set type? How to clean ink-stained fingers?

Technology Review: Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth.

I continue to be fascinated by the effects of our sharing, volunteer-passionate, Web 2.0 world.

So Wikipedia might be accurate much of the time, says Simson Garfinkle (come on is that his real name? Well, Wikipedia says it is!). But how do we know what we know? How do we authenticate and authorize? Does it matter that we’re basing our notions of what is true on what someone else wrote about something or someone?

Wikipedia’s epistemology, based on that of  third-party or second-party sources, may or may not be in fact wholly accurate. I think Garfinkle’s critique really comes down to one of vetting. Who are these people anyway, and why can’t subjects edit their own biographies? Why indeed.

Britannica and academics must be pleased with this article, as it basically addresses what they’ve been trying to say alll along.  “We know what we’re doing! We have the skills and know-how! We are fact-checkers.” (Although didn’t they lay off the fact-checking department a few years ago? Whatever.) Of course, fact-checking has garnered a bad name in recent weeks because of all the biased fact-checking going on out there in the name of politics.

Given that, we could go deeper with this in sophomoric fashion. What is a  fact, and how do we prove it, really? By consensus? Or do we, as some might say, just KNOW?

And do we even care? Hmm.

Activity-Centered Design – Bokardo.

So I haven’t blogged in a while, but this is an interesting article on whether or not IA is truly the correct “frame” for design. I really think this gets a bit into semantics (and I don’t mean the Semantic Web). My issue with activity design (aside from that fact that I likely don’t fully understand it,and have a mental block against anything created by the Soviets) is that it seems to focus exclusively on the action, but  the action is nothing without the user. Can we really successfully have one without the other?

Computers figuring out what words mean.

The semantic map is reportedly the world’s largest, and gives computers a vocabulary more than 10 times as extensive as that of a typical US college graduate.

The IAI listserv has been up in arms in recent days about this article When Information Architecture Can Fall Short on the FutureNow blog.

The idea of Persuasion Architecture is very silly indeed. The whole point, as I understand it, of information architecture is to enhance the usability of websites! However that happens — via taxonomies, top-down navigation, tag clouds, information flow– it’s all essentially structure that makes sites more useful.  And useful for what?

Function and information — the twin (and often intertwined)  goals of websites. Every content manager and website developer worth their salt has  known this for some time.  And I might even argue that information trumps product sales on most websites.

See … blogs, for example.

However, I think the article has a good point, and with which some IAI members agree. IA as a discipline really isn’t marketed very well.

Granted, it’s a new field. But even I, who am getting my master’s in it, have trouble defining it in layman’s terms to strangers. I always say it’s a combo of web design and library science. Which is true as far as it goes, but then what does the listener think either of those fields really are? Pretty pictures and card catalogues, no doubt.

And there have been endless discussions about this definiton by practioners. Who really is an information architect? Is it more technical or creative? We’re still figuring it out, but we know BS when we see it, and that’s what Persuasion Architecture clearly is.

We must take some time out of our busy schedules to honor – yes, a cat. This blog’s very name demands it.

Tipper, Christmas 2007

Tipper came to our family in the fall of 1992, during my freshman year of college. I never lived with her day in and day out, except for 9 months after college graduation, and during a few summers home.

But still, we were close.  Despite my long absences and random returns, she would invariably come out and welcome me. We’d touch noses. She’d purr loudly. I’d gently scratch the tippy top of her head, which she loved. We’d play occasional games. And she always wanted to sleep right up next to me…

She was a humorous cat, and smart. We always marveled at her engineering abilities to figure out shortcuts, her hunting skills (she had caught a squirrel once), and strictly animal intuition that would tell her I was coming home.

She descended into death very rapidly. At least, we thought it was rapid. Perhaps she had been feeling unwell for some time. But one day she just decided to stop eating. She hung on until she heard a different voice whistling  “Here, kitty!”

It’s amazing to me how creatures like these can love. Granted, much of it is based on what we’re doing for them, but at the same time, there is a selflessness to their love.  Even if they’re forgiving because they forget, it’s still a lesson and an example. Even a gift.

Thank you, sweet kitty.

This, from CMSWire:

Cuil Is Not the Google Killer It Would Like to Be

Well of course not. I think the article above make some valid points, particularly with regards to the layout (magazine? I’m no Jacob Nielsen but even I know that’s stupid).

But I do think it’s interesting that they’re attempting to focus on content rather than popularity (novel thought!). I wonder how an algorithm can really accomplish that, however. My background in human indexing does come to the fore here — I can’t help it. People (aka USERS) will still have to sort and re-sort in their own fashion to find what they need, and they probably will fight against the top-down structure Cuil has implemented. And many people resent being told what to do (at least, being told in obvious fashion. Google tells us all the time, and somehow we don’t seem to mind.)

However, I commend these guys for trying to build options other than Yahoo. Google is, yes, quite cool. We admire it. We use it. We rely on it.  Perhaps too much. So I say let these guys refine and work on their Cuil tool and we’ll just see. Ford was the first successful mass-made automobile, but it wasn’t the last.

How not to design online encyclopedia: Encyclopedia Britannica has new interface.

Perhaps this will be the first of a series of posts I’ll make about Britannica, my erstwhile employer.

First, it should be duly noted that I do not in fact have a subscription to EB online, nor have I had any interaction with the current site other than a 2-minute glance. But since my initial interest in IA was born there, I feel I have to make some effort at responding to what has been happening to them.

Poor Britannica — it is inevitably the punching bag of usability experts and self-appointed gurus of information design, and although philosophically I really want them to be wrong (I’m a traditionalist and prone to over-excessive nostalgia), this time — they are right.

Read the rest of this entry »

Best and Worst of the Web – BusinessWeek

Interesting sites, though as soon as I saw the designer of the NYT online was on their panel of design experts, I grew rather suspicious, simply because I just don’t really like the design of that site. However, I agree with most of their picks — even Craigslist. In fact, OF COURSE Craigslist. Content and function still reign supreme.

An activity-theory-based model to analyse Web application requirements
“…present a task model to analyse Web applications based on the principles of activity theory in order to overcome the limitations of traditional task analysis methods.”

Yeah.. ummm. If I’m understanding this correctly, this approach could fundamentally assist lowly content managers (like myself) and others involved in producing websites using tools built more for the engineer than the client.  Oracle, for example, would benefit a LOT from using activity theory to focus on the actual interaction between human beings and the application rather than what the application could in theory do.