Wonders of the Internet

June 13, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Technology

It’s all different now. That the Internet has fundamentally changed our lives is a well-worn truism. But if you’re a younger member of society–say, someone born in the 1980s–you probably don’t realize just how big that change has been. We were once islands of interest, alone in our peculiar fascinations. If you liked to sew dresses for dogs, it was easy to feel unique, imagining that no one else had your kind of creativity. Surely, no one else had the foresight to fill a niche for canine haberdashery.

Of Librarians and Architects

June 08, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Content Strategy, Information Architecture

The librarian and the information architect are more similar than they are different. They both practice their craft with the intent of efficiently connecting people with the information that they seek. But only one is going to shush you for talking too loudly in the stacks.

Single Labels for Diverse Content: an Impossible Task

June 08, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Content Strategy, Information Architecture, User Experience

In website redesign projects that I've led, I've often encountered the problems associated with ambiguous organization schemes. While there are other organization schemes, it's almost impossible to rely on a single solution. A combination of approaches is often best.

Databases in the Wild

June 06, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Information Architecture

I keep backyard chickens so I thought that an interesting real world example of entity relationships would be the chicken keeping process.

Information Management, Information Strategy

June 05, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Content Strategy, Information Architecture

Implementing an information strategy is what lets most business concerns survive. Given the torrent of information that floods businesses every day, a formal strategy is what lets them cope with the volume.

Poor Structure by Design

June 05, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Information Architecture, User Experience

When does a vendor not want a customer to immediately find the content they want? When they want them to accidentally find other stuff that they didn’t even know they wanted when they began their search.

Fond Remembrances of the Physical World

May 28, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in Technology

One of the most tangible examples of a qualitative change in the way we live brought about by the digital revolution has been the disappearance of physical media.

The Value of Wireframing

April 19, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Before a user experience expert begins their contribution to the project, the team that first conceived the idea for the website has to be able to wrestle their imagined website into a physical reality that others can see. This is where the wireframe comes in; it’s the first crack at making the big decisions that will make a website work.

Death of the ‘Targeted’ Mobile Website

February 15, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

Responsive web design solves the problem of device proliferation and multiple domains. The organization need only maintain one website. In a site build using responsive design principles, the content of that single website will re-flow according to the device on which its being viewed, creating no penalty for how the site is used or on what device. Not only that, the site is future-proofed against the emergence of as yet unknown devices that are sure to hit the market in the years ahead.

The ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ of Mobile Design

February 15, 2016 by Gary Schroeder in User Experience

A good mobile website is one which allows the site user to be accomplish their online task in a manner that is easy and free from frustration. Among the wide universe of possibilities, some common user tasks on mobile sites include reviewing the latest news, researching a product, making a purchase, verifying an address, or checking the weather forecast. A good mobile site facilitates quick, painless completion of tasks like these in a way that never calls the user’s attention to the limitations of a small screen or restricted bandwidth.