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Information Design—Week 3, Assignment 3

Compare and critique information design on the two search engine giants, Google (www.google.com) and Yahoo ( www.yahoo.com). Please write a one page comparison of them.

You should consider these questions:

• How easy is it to locate information?
• Where are the search fields and search buttons located?
• For both search engines, how much information and options are available on each page, and how do you feel as a user when viewing each home page?
• Why do these search engines approach information architecture differently?
• Which interface design is built toward broad general searching of information?

It is easier to locate information on Google. Fewer items fight for the user’s attention, so the user feels more at ease to choose which item to choose. If performing a search is their sole objective, Google’s interface doesn’t get in the way; the search field receives focus by default, so that the user can immediately begin typing after the page is finished loading.

On Yahoo!, there are lists and ads and button and links all competing to draw the user’s attention. There is no clear call to action. The user subconsciously feels pressure to make a choice. It is more difficult for the user to locate the information for which he is looking because so much unrelated information is being thrust in his face. The search field is also given focus on page load.

On Google, the search field and button are located directly in the center, vertically and horizontally. The search form fields on Yahoo! are located nearly at the top of the page and slightly to the right of center.

The information and options on Google’s home page are intentionally limited to give significance and priority to those items which are most likely to be useful to the user. The information displayed is minimal and invites the user to them without causing distraction. There are no ads. Nothing moves. The page feels established, trustworthy, ready, powerful. It says, “I’m good, and I know it.”

Yahoo!, however, chooses to inundate the user with as much information as possible. Reviews, shopping, ads, news—it is all thrown on the page, each element trying to grab the user’s attention. Personally, I find Yahoo! to be stressful and inefficient. It says, “I know ‘the other guys’ are good, but look at all the stuff I have!” To me, Google’s approach to design—minimalistic and relevant—is more appealing than Yahoo!’s approach—shotgun, hit-as-many-as-we-can, something-for-everybody.

But I realize that the reasons for the two different designs are founded in the user base. The typical user for Yahoo!, in my own limited perception, is less ‘geeky’ than the typical Google user. Yahoo!’s users are generally less technologically savvy and are more prone to be swayed by its dramatic flair and gimmicky ads and promotions. Google’s users are more to-the-point, matter-of-fact, get-the-job-done people. They are on a mission, whereas Yahoo!’s users aren’t necessarily sure what they, so they browse and peruse and explore whatever the site has to offer.

For finding broad, generalized information, Google is a better search engine. If you know the topic you want more information about, Google is more apt to accommodate that search, offer suggestions to clarify or refine your terms, and in general give you better results.

Information Design—Week 3, Assignment 2

…choose one of your proposed project concepts from week 1, and write a description of the strategy and scope phase of the project (minimum of three to four pages).

Your document should address these points:

• Define your project goals and objectives
• Describe how to reach those objectives
• Write functionality specifics and content requirements
• Clarify the user and the user needs
• Define three types of users for this interactive project or product, (this entails creating user profiles)
• Content asset breakdown and requirements (guideline: no more than three hours of content research)

Project overview

akbirthcenter.org is in need of a redesign. The information conveyed is scattered, unorganized, and difficult to navigate. This concept would propose an outline of the same data restructured to make it more accessible to the user, emphasizing those areas that are most popular.

Goals, objectives, functionality specifications

This project will make the information, services, products, expertise, and assistance offered through the clinic readily and easily available for current and potential patients. The following list outlines the goals I have for the project and specific methods I plan to use to meet these criteria.

1. Provide information for pregnant women to make informed choices about birth
   • organize content in such a way that it is easily accessible and understood
   • index of information should provide a synopsis of available resources with links to more verbose pages
2. Connect users emotionally to the staff and patients of the clinic
   • share previous birth experiences at the clinic
   • use text, images, possibly video
3. Allow users to contact the clinic, publicly or privately
   • to allow users to schedule appointments, request information, or ask questions
   • functionally, this will include two parts: a threaded public forum and a simple contact form that e-mails staff

Users and their needs

Users will typically be pregnant women seeking information about childbirth. Many will be first-time mothers. Most other users will likely be somehow involved with the pregnant woman—a supportive friend or family member, her husband or boyfriend, her doula, her doctor. Many users will have questions about particular topics, including natural childbirth, waterbirth, and midwifery in general. A few will be interested in the clinic as an entity, for considering donations, map to the clinic, or simply trying to find a phone number or e-mail address.

Sarah

Sarah just turned 18 years old, and lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. She left home six months ago and has been staying with her boyfriend and his roommate. It has been five weeks since her last period, and she is fairly certain that she is pregnant. She is angry at her parents, and is determined not to ask for their help. She is worried that her boyfriend might not want to be with her after he finds out. Abortion is not an option to her; she is determined to have the baby, whatever else may happen.

Sarah dropped out of school at the same time she left home, and has been working part-time at a local restaurant busing tables. She makes $7.15 per hour, about $150 per week. Most of her income is spent on transportation to and from work, clothes, cigarettes, and fast food. She has no health insurance through her employer and no savings to speak of.

Alex

Alex is a young doctor who recently moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. He graduated as an obstetrician from University of Michigan Medical School two years ago. His wife of three years gave birth to their first child at a hospital in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they had met and lived previously while Alex was finishing his degree.

Alex likes hospitals. He respects their place in Americans’ minds as a safe haven where quality, professional medical attention can be obtained. He is a little uptight, but his toddler at home is teaching him to relax. He is still very idealistic, and treats every patient as though they are family.

About 20 minutes before his graveyard shift started, Alex received a call in his office from the maternity ward receptionist requesting he come down immediately. In the lobby, the receptionist pointed him to an 18-year-old girl named Sarah in the waiting area, who wiped a couple tears from her face with her restaurant uniform’s apron as he approached.

Sitting there in the lobby and without going into details, she told him that she was considering having her baby at the Alaska Family Health and Birth Center, which she knew about because one of her mom’s friends had a baby there a few years ago. She had no money to pay to have the baby delivered, but a receptionist at the clinic had told her on the phone earlier that day that they would be happy to have her there anyway, regardless of her financial situation. She wants to know whether the clinic is a safe place to have her baby. Alex has never heard of the clinic and wants to know more about it, both for Sarah’s sake and to satisfy his own curiosity.

Amanda

Amanda is 23, and lives with her husband in Tempe, Arizona, where he works as a mechanic for a mid-sized airline. She works as a substitute teacher at a local elementary school. Together, they earn about $76,000 annually, and live comfortably in a two-bedroom condo. They are saving for a larger house. They do not have children, but they are trying.

After a surprise call from her younger sister at 5 a.m., Amanda is anxious. She grabs her laptop and searches Google for information on Alaska Family Health and Birth Clinic, where her sister, Sarah, is considering having her baby.

Content and requirements

1. Provide information for pregnant women to make informed choices about birth
   • frequently asked questions and their responses
   • informative pages on the dietary supplements offered at the clinic and their uses
   • informational handouts such as recommended diet plans and posture diagrams
2. Share previous birth experiences at the clinic
   • stories of previous births at the clinic, hopefully written by the new parents or family members
   • photo gallery of satisfied, happy patients and their little ones, possibly somehow integrated with the birth stories
3. Further resource those seeking birth and pregnancy information
   • a contact form for visitors to ask questions of the staff members and midwives
   • pages listing products offered at the clinic (this will not be an online store)
   • links to other quality online informational resources

Information Design—Week 3, Assignment 1

What are functional specifications?

From Wikipedia: “Design specifications are the measurements and characteristics of a structure or object which provide for a workable, sustainable, or pleasing creation or construct.”

Basically, functional specifications are the outline of a project. They form the base on which investments in the project are made, acts as a blueprint for designers, and gives guidelines for quality assessment at each revision.

Why would functional specifications change during the design and development of an interactive project? Is this change positive or negative?

New information, flawed planning, or simply new insight can cause a project to take unforeseen turns, which in turn necessitate revisions of the functional specifications. These changes are generally positive; the project becomes more refined with each revision, and the end product comes clearer into focus. The quality of the end product will increase with each iteration of the spec.

Who should have access to the functional specifications?

Functional specifications apply to every development and design aspect of a project. It is important, therefore, for each developer and designer to have access to the functional specification in order to keep a clear focus on what is important to the project and how their efforts should be prioritized.

Information Design—Week 3, Assignment 1

Why is user centered design so important in interactive media as opposed to other information media?

Traditional media is not interactive. It does not and cannot interact with with those viewing or hearing it. It does not respond to “user” input; indeed, it has no method for users to offer input. In traditional media, the user is without a voice, and the medium on which the information is conveyed delivers its message without seeking input from its audience. Designing traditional media for the end user, while important, still allows only one-way communication.

Interactive media, by its very definition, seeks to interact with the user. It must, for that reason, be intuitive and well designed so that the user can understand how to interact with the medium. User-centered design is far more important in interactive media than in traditional media because the user makes decisions and interacts with the medium to choose what to see or hear next.

What is the process for developing user centered content for interactive media?

First, the information designer must determine who needs the information he plans to present, then figure out how they will use it. The target audience’s characteristics must be discovered. The users’ base level of understanding of the subject matter must be known. The project must also be developed in the context of users’ daily lives, allowing everyday users to access it. Finally, the information designer must develop a project the user can comfortably use and from which he can readily learn.

Information Design—Week 2, Assignment 4

Compare and critique a traditional hardbound book series encyclopedia to an interactive encyclopedia of your choice. This may be a Web site or CD-ROM. Your critique should be approximately one page.

You should consider these questions:

• How easy is it to locate information?
• Which type of encyclopedia media did you find information quickest?
• Which offered more depth of information? And how is that?
• How do you understand the beginning and end of the information in each media?
• Which media is more dynamic and rich for learners or users?

Traditional encyclopedia articles are alphabetized. The content relevant to each topic is listed under its appropriate heading. Then, the next topic in the alphabetical sequence begins. Articles may reference other related articles. This linear fashion is not ideal for researching a single topic. Online- and CD-ROM-based encyclopedias have the advantage of having every article’s words indexed in a central database which allows users to search not only on the main topic, as an alphabetical index would, but also on the text of the articles themselves. This would simply not be a plausible method of finding information in a printed encyclopedia.

For me, it was easiest to find information online. I was able to find information quickest through Wikipedia; rather than flipping pages and watching for the words I am looking for, I simply typed my key phrase. Usually, a search isn’t even required as I will likely be able to guess the exact URI for the resource I am searching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhateverIAmLookingFor.

For the articles I looked at, HTML and Internet, Wikipedia had a greater depth of information. This may or may not be indicative of the whole bodies of each of their information; Wikipedia, being a constantly updated encyclopedia, is consequently more likely to have more and newer information, especially about those technologies that make it possible in the first place—HTML and the Internet. Also, the fact that anyone can contribute to Wikipedia makes its potential for a larger base of information much greater than the limits of the writers of print encyclopedias.

In printed encyclopedias, the end of the segment on a particular topic is denoted by the heading of another topic. The articles are listed linearly, start to finish, back to back. There can be references to other related topics, including the topics and the pages on which they can be found. Online, the end of an article is even more pronounced—when you reach the end of the Web page.

Obviously, the very definition of Wikipedia—an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit—makes it more dynamic. The fact that pages and articles can instantly be changed to reflect current events reinforces this. Pope John Paul II, for instance, is still alive, according to the print encyclopedia, but online, his death is chronicled in depth.

New Web site for akbirthcenter.org

akbirthcenter.org is in need of a redesign. The information conveyed is scattered, unorganized, and difficult to navigate. This concept would propose an outline of the same data restructured to make it more accessible to the user, emphasizing those areas that are most popular.

…choose one of your proposed project concepts from week 1, and write a three to four paragraph description of the project. Please answer these questions:

• What is your goal for this interactive project?
• Why would users want to use this interactive project or product?
• Define the user and explain his/her goals

The Alaska Family Health & Birth Center “offers a safe alternative to families seeking maternity care in Interior Alaska.” This nonprofit organization is comprised of 4 full-time midwives and several regular staff members, and assists expecting mothers during pregnancy and labor. Because profit is not an objective, the clinic asks patients to pay only what they can afford for the care they receive.

My goal for this project is to make the information, services, products, expertise, and assistance offered through the clinic readily and easily available for current and potential patients:

• stories of previous births at the clinic, hopefully written by the parents or family members;
• photo gallery of satisfied, happy patients and their little ones, possibly somehow integrated with the birth stories;
• links to other quality online informational resources;
• frequently asked questions and their responses;
• a contact form for visitors to ask questions of the staff members and midwives;
• informational handouts such as recommended diet plans and posture diagrams;
• pages listing products offered at the clinic (this will not be an online store);
• informative pages on the dietary supplements offered at the clinic and their uses.

If enough interest is voiced and traffic is high enough, the site may at some future point offer an online forum where patients and staff members can discuss concerns where others may benefit from them.

The average user of this site will be either a pregnant woman or a woman hoping to get pregnant. Occasionally, the user will be a concerned family member, perhaps a spouse, or in some cases a close friend or the woman’s doula. Most will be interested in natural childbirth, particularly waterbirth, which the clinic offers.

The user will not necessarily be physically located in Fairbanks, Alaska, or even the United States, and hence will not necessarily be planning to visit the clinic. These users will be on the site mostly for information and perhaps for counsel.

There are two groups of users for the site: those who plan to be seen at the clinic and those who are solely seeking information. The site will need to cater to both groups and address both groups’ needs.

Information Design—Week 1, Assignment 2

Camryn Brazil Bourne

Camryn Brazil Bourne’s life began at the Alaska Family Health and Birth Clinic. She was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, on July 11, 2005, at 8:52 p.m., weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and was 21 inches long. She had blue eyes and a little bit of light brown, almost blond, hair on her head.

She was immediately surrounded by family. Both her parents’ families lived in Fairbanks, which meant two pairs of doting grandparents, two aunts, one uncle, and a slew of extended family: several great aunts and uncles and over fifty first, second, and third cousins.

Though tiny at birth, she rapidly began to grow. By her 24-hour checkup, she had already gained half a pound. Her mother, Caitlin, fed her well, and it showed. For the first 5 months of her life, she consumed only her mother’s milk. She continued to grow and fatten, just as her father—who at 6 months weighed 26 pounds—had as a baby. When Camryn reached 6 months, she was herself a hefty 21 pounds.

By 2 months of age, she was already in 3-6 month clothing, which was in no short supply. Camryn received many outfits for this age range at her baby shower. Before she had reached 10 months old, she was wearing her 12-month clothing.

Camryn was 5 months old during her first Christmas. Although she did not fully understand the concepts of presents and Santa Claus and Christmas trees and lights, she was mesmerized by the splendid displays and exuberant celebration. She herself got into the festivities Christmas morning with a bow adorning her head. She received many gifts that morning: teething toys, noise-making toys, reflective, flashing toys, more new clothes, and a couple keepsake ornaments.

Later Christmas Day, she saw many of her relatives who further lavished upon her stuffed animals, battery-powered toys of various shapes and sizes, and of course the hugs and kisses associated with seeing family.

Late in the following month, Camryn took her first trip abroad with her parents. She flew across the country in their arms: from Fairbanks to Anchorage to Seattle to Miami.

After settling into the hotel room and catching up on some much-needed sleep, Camryn and her family decided to visit a local zoo. After a short cab ride, they arrived at Parrot Jungle Island. Camryn was introduced to many strange and wonderful creatures there, most of which she thoroughly enjoyed seeing.

From there, she boarded a Carnival Cruise Lines luxury cruise ship bound for Grand Cayman Island and Jamaica. Onboard, she saw several entertaining shows, felt the cool breeze of the Caribbean Sea, and witnessed still more new, wonderful sights and sounds.

Information Design—Week 2, Assignment 1

How does the information design differ in a Web hypertext system as opposed to a software interface system?

According to Jesse James Garrett, information design is necessarily different when using the Web as a software interface as opposed to a simpler hypertext system. The fundamental difference is that hypertext systems are one-way transactions of information—from the server to the client (user)—while a software interface requires two-way communication to utilize its functionality—from the server to the client and vice versa.

This requires a fundamental change in the way interaction designers create their systems; using the Web as strictly a hypertext medium requires navigation design, and using it as a software interface requires interface design. A hypertext system requires only a method of navigating it—links. These links point to various pieces of information within the Web site, which the user requests via the URI and the server serves: one-way communication. Using the Web as a software interface, though, is necessarily more complicated, and requires additional methods of communication—text fields, drop-down lists, radio buttons, checkboxes, etcetera—which enables two-way communication between the server and client.

Information Design—Week 2, Assignment 1

What does Jesse Garrett refer to in this term “building from the bottom up”? What are the advantages in creating interactive projects in this manner?

Mr. Garrett describes a five-step process to building a Web site—strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface—when he speaks of “building from the bottom up.” The advantages to building a site following this methodology is that you will have a good idea where you are headed before you ever write a line of code. You will have already decided what your users want and need, and will have defined your site’s functions and delivery method in clear and practical ways before sitting down to create the actual user interface.

Information Design—Week 1, Assignment 4

Please post 2 additional examples of mental and spiritual ergonomics you have seen.

1. Google SERPs

   Google’s Search Engine Results Pages are a good example of mentally ergonomic design.

   

   While Google’s spartan approach to design is subtle, it is effective, as the search giant’s popularity suggests. Its results pages are highly usable:

   • the title of matching pages is displayed in blue and large type as the link to the page;
   • the brief description of the page shows relevant portions—those that matched the user’s search terms—in bold, highlighting for the user exactly where the page matches their query;
   • users can see the domain on which the page is hosted in small, green type at the bottom of each listing.

   Also effectively aiding the user is Google’s suggestions of misspelled words.

   

2. Amazon

   Amazon.com, perhaps the largest e-tailer on the planet, has greatly optimized their store for the user.

   

   The store “learns” as you use it, storing your searches, browsing history, and purchases to determine similar products in which you might be interested. The design of the whole system is designed around the user’s preferences without the user doing anything more than using it. The home page, as seen above, lists items that closely match items I have recently purchased through Amazon.

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_ergonomics
• http://www.google.com/search?q=mental+ergonomics