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Adobe makes a plug-in that allows you to see on your mobile device exactly what you're working on (as long as it's on a server - like the dev server). I've found it very handy when working on something and wondering how it will look on the iPad. The plug-in works for a myriad of devices including droid stuff. You have to use it in Google Chrome and be signed in, but it's well worth the effort. Those of you with smart phones could load the plug-in on the smart phone and iPad at the same time.

I like how they simply call Summon "Summon" on the Find Articles page and give the option to search the whole library world. Other than that they don't bother the user with branding and you get the same results for a search from the tabbed search on the homepage as a search on this page.

Alexander Rehm on usability and accessibility issues of not displaying PDF links properly and a best practice guide on how to fix it

This is not a ground-breaking site but there are a handful of things they're doing well that demonstrate how much simpler/better our design could be: 1. It's a visually interesting and attractive site without resorting to images sprinkled randomly throughout content. Each images has a home and a purpose. (We've got to move away from treating the web like a print layout where we allow our content folks to intersperse text with images) 2. The text on pages is structured well and utilizes nicely-styled headings and bulleted lists to make it easy to scan/digest lots of content. I also like how the B/W Feature images on the homepage become full color on hover. A nice touch. Also, nice use of white space to avoid overwhelming.

If we accept this, are there implications for our aim to design a responsive site?

I take issue with focusing on the amount of time spent in apps vs. mobile web. If you look at the breakdown, 68% of app time is on pure entertainment activities like gaming, social media and YouTube. Which makes total sense that people spend a disproportionate amount of time on those things. Plus that guy looks really annoying!

RE: Mason-Good points, Señor Mason. But using inflammatory titles gets people reading. My next post will be "LIBRARIES ARE DEAD-EVERYTHING IS ON GOOGLE, ANYWAY".

In early May of this year, I was fortunate to be able to attend the annual DataEDGE conference hosted by the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. This is a conference that focuses on developments in data science with some emphasis on work going on at Berkeley and more broadly in the Bay Area, and offers a range of presentations dealing with technical developments, workforce, and broader implications of data science. There is much here that will interest various segments of the CNI community, I thnk.

We should install on the tech library iphone once we get one.

LITA Regional Institute on User Centered Design on July 24, 2009 at the Thompson Conference Center here in Austin. The speaker, Brenda Reeb, is the coordinator of the usability program at the River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.

Built on the software that powers Hacker News, this seems like it could be a pretty rad thing, if more folks got on board.

In this blog post by a Microsoft developer, there are examples of scrolling on a single webpage by moving left to right (vs. scrolling up and down). Also, some main navigational buttons and menus are now on the RIGHT side of the layout instead of the long-used left side of the layout location for these elements. I believe this is an example of the influence of touch screens on tablets, phones, and computers affecting the long held paradigm of left side menu navigation. The gesture navigation of touch screens is making another mark on design and layouts.

Example of mobile site using jQuery Mobile. From the Digital Services Librarian: "...; I released our library's first mobile site this summer (http://m.library.iit.edu), and the framework allowed me to concentrate on the university-specific items I had to address (such as rewriting our textbook checkout code) rather than how to make it look nice on various mobile platforms."

Parts that stood out for me: "Over the last year, we've started explaining design as "the rendering of intent." The designer imagines an outcome and puts forth activities to make that outcome real." "It seems pretty clear to us that the Global Entry team had a typical intention of many government (and non-government) design teams: get the service up and running... In contrast, the We The People team wanted to showcase that a government design team can produce designs on par with the best non-government commercial teams." "Well, everyone who participates in the rendering of their intention is a designer, using this definition." "Many of our design deliverables, such as wireframes, prototypes, and style guides, are as much about getting agreement on what we intend as they are to move our intentions closer to done."

I like how they feature a group of collections on the home page and then include a separate section of additional collections. It clearly shows which are of greater importance and leaves no question of where users can click to start exploring. On the con side, only some of these featured collections lead to digitized primary source materials. We need to make it clear for our users which collections are available online and which only include online finding aids.

When you want to to share music, movies, photos, or other files online, you've got countless options. We've examined most, and for our money, one tool emerges on top of the heap for its ease of use, wide support, and all-around excellence.

Although purposefully-deceptive design is more likely to occur on for-profit sites, I thought this was an interesting article about the subtle ways design can hamper usability. Interestingly, Scribd.com got called out for Baiting and Switching on a grassroots wiki that documents dark patterns: http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Bait_and_Switch

Super cool visual look at book vending machines since their creation in 1937, including one at a modern library that dispenses books on the swipe of a valid library card.

Practical advice on doing content strategy in conjunction with UX on a new project

Dave also has some nice writeups on his data

Dave also has some nice writeups on his data