archive.Joe Lamantia.com

Designing the Search Experience: The Information Architecture of Discovery is officially available for purchase from Amazon – congratulations to authors Tony Russell-Rose and Tyler Tate. As I mentioned in July, I was invited to contribute a piece. You can read my contribution in chapter four, “Modes of Search and Discovery”.

Now, go buy the book!

I’ve posted the slides from my UXLX talk on the Language of Discovery. Thanks to a few days spent featured on the slideshare homepage, they’ve clocked over 60,000 views in the past week!  In combination with the buzz from the audience for the talk, I think this shows there is broader awareness and appetite for answers to the question of how designers will make big data accessible and ‘engageable’.

From the practical perspective, if you’re looking for a way to describe discovery and sense making needs and activities, there’s no better resource than this.  And the LOD is well-grounded from the methodological and research perspectives, having roots in HCIR, cognitive science, and a number of other academic disciplines that contribute to the toolkit for understanding human interaction with information and discovery activity.

I hope the language of discovery is part of that bigger picture of how creators of interactions and definers of experiences shape the new tools people use in the Age of Insight.

Also, the Lanyrd page for the talk aggregates the slides, sketch notes, and pointers to some other resources.

I’m pleased to be presenting ‘A Taxonomy of Enterprise Search’ at the upcoming EuroHCIR workshop, part of the 2011 HCI conference in the UK.  Co-authored with Tony Russell-Rose of UXLabs, and Mark Burrell here at Endeca, this is our first publication of some of the very exciting work we’re doing to understand and describe discovery activities in enterprise settings, and do so within a changed and broader framing than traditional information retrieval.  The paper builds on work I’ve done previously on understanding and defining information needs and patterns of information retrieval activity, while working on search and discovery problems as part of larger user experience architecture efforts.

Here’s the abstract of the paper:

Classic IR (information retrieval) is predicated on the notion of users searching for information in order to satisfy a particular “information need”. However, it is now accepted that much of what we recognize as search behaviour is often not informational per se. For example, Broder (2002) has shown that the need underlying a given web search could in fact be navigational (e.g. to find a particular site or known item) or transactional (e.g. to find a sites through which the user can transact, e.g. through online shopping, social media, etc.). Similarly, Rose & Levinson (2004) have identified consumption of online resources as a further category of search behaviour and query intent.

In this paper, we extend this work to the enterprise context, examining the needs and behaviours of individuals across a range of search and discovery scenarios within various types of enterprise. We present an initial taxonomy of “discovery modes”, and discuss some initial implications for the design of more effective search and discovery platforms and tools.

There’s a considerable amount of research available on information retrieval — even within a comparatively new discipline like HCIR, focused on the human to system interaction aspects of IR — but I think it’s the attempt to define an activity centered grammar for interacting with information that makes our approach worth examining.  The HCIR events in the U.S. (and now Europe) blend academic and practitioner perspectives, so are an appropriate audience for our proposed vocabulary of discovery activity ‘modes’ that’s based on a substantial body of data collected and analyzed during solution design and deployment engagements.

I’ll post the paper itself once the proceedings are available.

Endeca invites customers, partners and leading members of the broader search and discovery technology and solutions communities to meet annually, and showcase the most interesting and exciting work in the field of discovery.  As lead for the UX team that designs Endeca’s discovery products, I shared some of our recent work on patterns in the structure of discovery applications, as well as best practices in information design and visualization that we use to drive product definition and design for Endeca’s Latitude Discovery Framework.

This material is useful for program and project managers and business analysts defining requirements for discovery solutions and applications, UX and system architects crafting high-level structures and addressing long-term growth, interaction designers and technical developers defining and building information workspaces at a fine grain, and

There are three major sections: the first presents some of our tools for identifying and understanding people’s needs and goals for discovery in terms of activity (the Language of Discovery as we call it), the second brings together screen-level, application level, and user scenario / use-case level patterns we’ve observed in the applications created to meet those needs, and the final section shares condensed best practices and fundamental principles for information design and visualization based on academic research disciplines such as cognitive science and information retrieval.

It’s no coincidence that these sections reflect the application of the core UX disciplines of user research, information architecture, and interaction design to the question of “who will need to encounter information for some end, and in what kind of experience will they encounter it”.  This flow and ordering is deliberate; it demonstrates on two levels the results of our own efforts applying the UX perspective to the questions inherent in creating discovery tools, and shares some of the tools, insights, templates, and resources we use to shape the platform used to create discovery experiences across diverse industries.

Session outline

Session description

“How can you harness the power and flexibility of Latitude to create useful, usable, and compelling discovery applications for enterprise discovery workers? This session goes beyond the technology to explore how you can apply fundamental principles of information design and visualization, analytics best practices and user interface design patterns to compose effective and compelling discovery applications that optimize user discovery, success, engagement, & adoption.”

The patterns are product specific in that they show how to compose screens and applications using the predefined components in the Discovery Framework library.  However, many of the product-specific components are built to address common or recurring needs for interaction with information via well-known mechanisms such as search, filtering, navigation, visualization, and presentation of data.  In other words, even if you’re not using the literal Discovery Framework component library to compose your specific information analysis workspace, you’ll find these patterns relevant at workspace and application levels of scale.

The deeper story of these patterns is in demonstrating the evolution of discovery and analysis applications over time.  Typically, discovery applications begin by offering users a general-purpose workspace that satisfies a wide range of interaction tasks in an approximate fashion.  Over time, via successive expansions in the the scope and variety of data they present, and the discovery and analysis capabilities they provide, discovery applications grow to include several different types of workspaces that individually address distinct sets of needs for visualization and sense making by using very different combinations of components.  As a composite, these functional and informationally diverse workspaces span the full range of interaction needs for differing types of users.

I hope you find this toolkit and collection of patterns and information design principles useful.  What are some of the resources you’re using to take on these challenges?

Thanks to all who came to the Muziekgebouw on a lovely early summer day to talk about the emerging engagement space of social augmented experiences for the third edition of The Web And Beyond conference in Amsterdam.

For reference, here’s the session description from the official program:

Augmented reality blends the real world and the Internet in real time, making many new kinds of proximity, context, and location based experiences possible for individuals and groups. Despite these many possibilities, we know from history that the long term value and impact of augmented reality for most people will depend on how well these experiences integrate with ordinary social settings, and support everyday interactions. Yet the interaction patterns and behavior we see in current AR experiences seem almost ‘anti-social’ by design. This is an important gap that design must close in order to create successful AR offerings. In other words, much like children going to school for the first time, AR must to learn to ‘play well with others’ to be valuable and successful. This presentation reviews the interaction design patterns common to augmented reality, suggests tools to help understand and improve the ’social maturity’ of AR products and applications, and shares design principles for creating genuinely social augmented experiences that integrate well with human social settings and interactions.

A quick rundown on my fall speaking schedule so far.

First up is BlogTalk 2009, in Jeju, Korea on September 15 and 16. There I’ll be talking about ‘The Architecture of Fun’ – sharing a new design language for emotion that’s been in use in the game design industry for quite a while.  [Disclosure: While it’s a privilege to be on the program with so many innovative and insightful social media figures, I’m also really looking forward to the food in Korea ]

Next up is EuroIA in Copenhagen, September 26 and 27.  For the latest edition of this largest gathering of the user experience community in Europe, I’ll reprise my Architecture of Fun talk.

Wrapping up the schedule so far is the Janus Boye conference in Aarhus, November 3 – 6.  Here  I’m presenting a half-day tutorial titled Designing Information Experiences.  This is an extensive, detailed tutorial that anyone working in information management will benefit from, as it combines two of my passions; designing for people, and using frameworks to enhance solution scope and effectiveness.

Here’s the description from the official program:

When designing for information retrieval experiences, the customer must always be right. This tutorial will give you the tools to uncover user needs and design the context for delivering information, whether that be through search, taxonomies or something entirely different.

What you will learn:
•    A broadly applicable method for understanding user needs in diverse information access contexts
•    A collection of information retrieval patterns relevant to multiple settings such as enterprise search and information access, service design, and product and platform management

We will also discuss the impact of organizational and cultural factors on design decisions and why it is essential, that you frame business and technology challenges in the right way.

The tutorial builds on lessons learned from a large customer project focusing on transforming user experience. The scope of this program included ~25 separate web-delivered products, a large document repository, integrated customer service and support processes, content management, taxonomy and ontology creation, and search and information retrieval solutions. Joe will share the innovate methods and surprising insight that emerged in the process.

Janus Boye gathers leading local and international practitioners, and is a new event for me, so I’m very much looking forward to it.

I hope to see some of you at one or more of these gatherings that altogether span half the world!

I’m very happy to announce that Inside Out: Interaction Design for Augmented Reality – the latest installment of my column Everyware @UX Matters –  is live now.  (Timing is sometimes the writer’s friend, as I was at the Layar event Monday night here in Amsterdam just the day before, and had the chance to talk with some of their team.)

AR is more of a perspective and class of experiences than an instance of new technology, so I wanted to approach the subject from the specific perspective of user experience and interaction design.  Reactions from the augmented reality community are positive so far; Claire Boonstra of Layar, and no less than the inimitable Tish Shute of UgoTrade, have all been kind enough to recommend it.  Thanks to them and to everyone who’s tweeted and posted this one.

As we explore the role augmented reality will play in our gigantic experiment with everyware, we should keep in mind that the map is not the territory.  But there is no denying an effective map will surely help point the way as you try to find your way around a strange new country.

I’ve joined the Johnnies!  The good people at Johnny Holland Magazine just published Learning From Games: A Language For Designing Emotion.  This article is a introduction to the ideas I talk about under the heading ‘Architectures of Fun’, which is my perspective on the great research and design framework built by leading games consultant Nicole Lazzaro, of Xeo Design.  Check it out, and let the rest of the Johnny community know what you think about this powerful language for designing the emotional elements of experiences.

What happens when *everything* is designable? When the boundaries between humanity, technology, and the larger environment disappear? Designing Post-humanity: Everyware In the Far Future, the latest installment of my column on user experience and ubiquitous computing in UXmatters, takes a look at these questions. Post-humans, ubicomp, and science fiction may seem like strange territory for user experience professionals, but by considering these kinds of futures today, we make many important decisions about who we will [all!] be tomorrow.

**Update: Bruce Sterling just posted about it in his Beyond the Beyond blog at Wired. Thanks for noticing, Bruce!

Two quick updates on things happening other places.

First, the latest installment of Everyware: Designing the Ubiquitous Experience (my column for UXmatters) was published back in March. It explores the world of Vernor Vinge’s story Synthetic Serendipity from the experience design perspective. Vinge is justly reknowned as an SF author, but what makes Synthetic Serendipity worth reading closely is the dense collection of ideas it shares: augmented reality, wearable computing systems, a network-based co-creation economy open to all participation by people of all ages, the games vs. reality inversion, generational differences in adaptation to technological change, etc.

Mostly, I like Synthetic Serendipity as an entry point into the ubiquitous computing space because it presents a picture of the future from the viewpoint of an ordinary kid, who has ordinary concerns; go to school, play video games, stay out of trouble with friends.

In the companion piece in draft now, I look much further ahead, exploring scenarios that consider what happens when the boundaries separating humans from the environment blur and dissolve, and humanity itself becomes an object of design.

Second, and related, Jeff Parks just posted the podcast of a group discussion on ubiquitous computing that he organized at the IA Summit in Memphis. You’ll hear me along with Jeff, Steve Baty, Will Evans, Matthew Milan, John Tirmandi, Joe Sokohl, Todd Zaki Warfel as we share examples, ideas, and questions about the intersection of user experience and ubiquitous computing. Thanks to Jeff for making this happen – it was a fun session, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording it.