• Paging vs. Scrolling (Longer passages, not search results)
  Participants stated that they found the Paging condition to be “too broken up,” and that they had to “go back and forth” quite a bit to search for information. It is possible then, that for searching as well, viewing more of the document on a single scre
  (tags: usability research paging scrolling)
• Visualising Time
  Visualising time or, best said, visualising the events that occur in time, is not so usual a topic. There aren’t so many visual metaphors associated to it either. We take a look at them here.
  (tags: interactive-timeline time visualisation visualization)
• Thoughts on (and audio of) Cory Doctorow’s talk in Sydney last night
  19 April 2006
  (tags: DRM Cory-Doctorow Sydney)
• Women 2.0 Conference – The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
  no no, not in Australia unfortunately, in the States. But cool to see it get up *somewhere* (and to see cool 2.0 chicks out and about)
  (tags: women web2.0 conference)

oooh, we’ve got *lots* of juicy goodness in todays links. (Lots of research for me today!).

Enjoy :)

• Coming of Age in Ethnography (GotoReport)
  ‘recognizing the points of possible distortion when observing and analyzing the behavior of others’ (along the lines of my earlier post re: group behaviour and performance)
  (tags: enthnography user-research informationarchitecture)
• The User Advocate: One Size Fits None? (GotoReport)
  this is also interesting for me in reference to the discussion on the ‘species’ of IA from a ‘past life’ perspective. This article looks at it from a ‘future life’ perspective.
  (tags: informationarchitecture)
• Heuristics for User Interface Design (According to Jakob)
  just because it’s a classic and it’s not in my delicious bookmarks yet :)
  (tags: usability heuristics)
• Gmail Incorporates Google Calendar
  Stowe is a fan of Google Calendar too, and it looks like he’s quickly becoming a power user!
  (tags: google-calendar calendar)
• Google v. Microsoft: New Search Interfaces (Techcrunch)
  Techcrunch compares the new/upcoming search results interface design from Google and Microsoft
  (tags: search searchresults)
• Cleaner Notes from Recent Innovations in Search Panel (Bitsplitter Blog)
  oooh, woudn’t this have been a interesting panel to see ‘in the real’
  (tags: search searchresults)
• Improve the usability of search-results pages (JavaWorld)
  (tags: search searchresults)
• F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
  based on eyetracking research. nothing particularly groundbreaking here. People scan… in roughly the same kind of pattern. (Admittedly, it’s a slightly different pattern to what I’ve seen before)
  (tags: eyetracking usertesting content usability scanning)

• A More Accessible Map (a list apart)
  guidelines for making pretty interactive maps friendly and accessible
  (tags: maps accessibility)
• Emotionally Centred Design (Don Norman)
  why are these so compelling? Is it the joy of immediacy after so many years of slow, clunky websites? Or perhaps it is the pleasure of the fluid movement, with information overlaying the maps.
  (tags: maps emotionaldesign)
• Web-applications: Speak the right language, please (We Break Stuff)
  The most frustrating thing in localized applications is when you can’t find the way to change the language it uses, to the one of your choice. Language and localisation (what (not) to do)
  (tags: language translation localisation localization)

(more…)

Today is all about interactive timelines. Here’s a few you might want to look at if you’re ever after some precedents/benchmarks etc. (And a few accidentally found cool interactive maps).

• The Secret Lives of Numbers
  
  Golan Levin’s. Not quite an interactive timeline but v. cool
  (tags: interactive-timeline)
• HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things
  from the Smithsonian Institution
  (tags: interactive-timeline)
• America on the Move | Browse Collection
  Includes an interactive timeline, but also a great method for browsing *lots* of content using multiple filters
  (tags: interactive-timeline browse)

(more…)