Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

OK - a bunch of interesting stuff is accumulating in my “to post” folder again:

DonnaM has started an interesting conversation on card sorting to determine information architecture.  The Intranet Journal has posted an article on Requirements Gathering.  D. Keith Robinson puts out Gorilla Web Tip #7, Writing Better Page Titles  - I think also worth mentioning is that a site design often provides constraints for page titles by limiting how long they can be before either wrapping or truncating.  PR Opinions has posted a tutorial for getting RSS subscriptions up and running.  Also of interest is his post about branding.  Bruce Clay has also updated the PDF version of his Search Engine Relationship Chart.

Just a heads-up, tonight I implemented a new feature of pMachine 2.3, which creates URL’s that are more search engine friendly.  Basically it takes the “pagename.php?id=xxx URL format and changes it around to make the ID’s look like directories instead - “pagename/xxx/”.

All existing links into boyink.com should still work - but I’ll soon want to clean out the old files so update your links accordingly….

http://www.builtforthefuture.com/reuseit/
ReUSEIT is a design challenge for coders, and a coding challenge for designers. Here’s the idea: create a redesign of Jakob Nielsen’s useit.com. Design a usable, intuitive layout and navigation, organize the content with the user in mind, and create an aesthetic which reflects the importance and influence of Nielsen’s work.

http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue26.htm
The trap, and the myth, of discoverability is that in any design, not everything can be discoverable.

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/52/breadcrumb.htm
In general, the breadcrumb trail serves two purposes: 1) it provides information to users as to where they are located within the site, and 2) it offers shortcut links for users to jump; to previously viewed pages without using the Back button, other navigation bars, or typing in a keyword search.