richoid.com: Information Architecture

Using Textpattern

Nov 15, 06:34 PM by Rich Webster

I’ve been setting up many clients with TextPattern and WordPress, and I’ve decided to make a sort of “users manual” for my clients within this blog. They’ll all be grouped under this address. This is the first such article.

Making Links in an Article, to another Article
There are two kinds of things you can do with a system like TextPattern (Txp):

use dynamic linking, where Txp does the work for you
do stuff just like Txp wasn’t there.

Linking to other TextPattern Content
Unlike old-fashioned web pages, the URL of a Txp web page provides the system — NOT with the location of a file — but with a command that goes to a database and pulls out the content of the page, and sticks it in a Template.

(FYI: It uses PHP to do this)

This kind of link is formatted:

http://www.richoid.com
/index.php?id=14

The blue part is the base information, and once you’re within the site, you can just ignore it (optionally) and just link to the other two parts:

The red part is actually a link to a set of programmatic instructions, which may or may not contain a web page. In TextPattern, it doesn’t, it points to a database, and gives instructions on what to do when it encounters…

The green part, which is an instruction to the server (signified by the ”?”)

In this case, the green part says “get the content stored at “id 14”. This is just the article you’re writing, to which it is referring. The rest of the page is defined by the “Template”. In Txp admin, you can view the template(s) under the “Presentation” tab -> “Pages” tab.

Question: So how do you know that particular page is found by calling ”?id=14”?

Answer: when you create the article, or edit it, you can see that the full address of the “write” tab when you are editing it, is:

http://www.richoid.com/textpattern/index.php?event=article&step=edit&ID=14

If you look at the very end, you see ID=14

There’s really a lot more to how these urls work, but in this case, if you make a standard html link:

<a href="">Link Text Here</a>

and put the address:
index.php?id="XX"
between the quotes like this:

and, finally, replace the XX with your article number, it should always present a standard page, with your particular article in it.

*Final tidbit: *
This probably deserves a longer discussion, but, briefly:

You can show all articles in a particular Category using a similar URL:
<a href="index.php?c="information_architecture"">Link Text Here</a>

You can show all articles in a particular Section using a similar URL:
<a href="index.php?s="About_Larry"">Link Text Here</a>

Use “Categories” to group articles that have related content, onto a single page, or if you want pages with substantially different layouts (in which case use “Sections” which can have different page templates)

BTW, one main advantage of Textpattern over Wordpress is that it is easier to accommodate multiple layouts in a single site. Wordpress requires a bunch of PHP “if” statements (i.e. programming… too complex for casual users) where Txp just lets you make any number of simple Templates, for each layout.

Comment

The most continuously surprising video I've ever seen

Sep 7, 08:08 PM by Rich Webster

I love this video because each second of it is a smooth transition from one utter surprise to another. Genius. But don’t bother to ask why, because it is so utterly beside the point that, well, maybe that’s the final surprise, right?

Check it out, be patient, and if you only like things that make sense — well, you’re probably on the wrong planet anyway.

Comment

Cory Doctorow on How to Be a Better Blogger

Sep 7, 12:49 PM by Rich Webster

This is a video which is well worth watching for anyone self-promoting via blogs. I recommend blogs to everyone, and create quite a few for local businesses and individuals. Cory is among the more successful bloggers, and he is part of the team at BoingBoing.com which is one of my favorite blogs.

Anyway, here’s the video.

Comment

Things users hate about websites...

Jun 15, 01:26 PM by Rich Webster

This article says things I’ve been telling clients for years. But it’s nice to have external validation.

Bottom line: Don’t make the user work too hard or think too hard. Don’t throw up barriers (like a required Flash intro).

Another way to think about it: A website is not an application (usually). So don’t make people learn how it works. Make it obvious.

Some Do’s and Don’ts:
Drop-down menus don’t tell people what they’re going to get when they click. Menus are for applications. Instead, use buttons for standard stuff: about us; products; services; contact us… etc. and use a paragraph with a link to explain what’s in the more obscure sections.

This means breaking down your site into a tree, rather than a flat hierarchy, so people can drill down. Show them a clear path to what they’re looking for. This means anticipating what they’re looking for, and giving them a guided path to reach it.

How do you know what they’re looking for? You don’t. But if you bothered to put it in your site, that’s something you’re anticipating they might want to find, so don’t hide it.

Don’t be afraid of redundant links: Often it makes sense to have sidebar buttons, along with descriptive links. But it really makes sense to repeat “inline links.” By inline links, I mean a paragraph like this with a link stuck in the middle.

It’s less important to be original than to be good: Everyone who is a designer wants to be original. But unusual navigation is confusing, difficult, and wrong. A typical business site can have great photography, cool graphics, great guided tours and slide shows… but don’t spend your energy on creative navigation names and weird button arrangements. Never hide functionality or make people have to figure it out!

If you want to be totally creative, great! But do it on an experimental site, make it a novelty or a form of entertainment. But don’t cripple a business site’s functionality to make your mark as a designer.

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Why Good Technical Writing is Good Marketing

Jun 8, 06:54 PM by Rich Webster

We’ve all experienced the manual from hell.

You might have in your hands the greatest piece of software, the most fetishistic piece of hardware, or maybe just a kid’s toy with “some assembly required”.

But the experience is ruined because the manual makes no sense.

Is there an excuse? No, there’s not.

There was a time when manuals had to be written up on typewriters or longhand, they had to be sent to a typesetter, professional illustrators were brought in, proofing and correction cycles were long and painful… but the job got done.

Now it’s easy. Digital cameras, Technical illustration in PhotoShop, 3D rendering from CAD, great page layout tools like Adobe InDesign, Acrobat PDFs, for proofing and electronic distribution, printing plants worldwide that can take PDFs and produce manuals locally… Even translation is easier than it has ever been.

The problem is most acute in small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. To maintain full-time staff to deal with these things is often a substantial financial burden. Many such firms actually develop their products in countries other than their end markets… so the engineers don’t even speak or write the language of the end customer, or don’t do so natively.

With the web, you’d think there would be an ongoing dialogue between manufacturer and user. Sure, many companies post their support phone numbers, but few actually provide ongoing guidance online, and many that do, do so inadequately. The long wait for support with most companies is a pretty good indicator that they are spending in support what they didn’t spend in documentation.

So why is it still a last minute effort by a low ranking engineer with no grammar skills and a complete unwillingness to use spell check? Why is there no user-testing? Why do the online help, the print manual, and the PDF on the provided CD all have inconsistent, often contradictory, always incomplete information?

The answer may differ between organizations, but it really comes down to a lack of commitment to end users. Many organizations isolate themselves from their users, putting the burden on retailers or their support staff, after the sale. There’s a booming aftermarket for manuals and magazines for most software products. All are indicators of a failure to communicate.

If you recognize this problem in your organization and would like help resolving it, contact me.

Comment

The Secret Value of Business Blogging

Dec 16, 10:25 PM by admin

Those who followed the meteoric rise in the number of websites in the ‘90s will
see parallels in the similarly stellar growth of blogs. By some estimates, the number of blogs doubles every five months, and is approaching 15 million blogs worldwide — Which makes blogging the buzz, everywhere you go. But most people are still at the stage of asking: “What is a blog” and “Why should I care?”. Businesspeople often ask, “How can I use a blog to help my business?”

What is a Blog?
The word “blog” is a contraction of “web log”. Like an ordinary website, it has text and navigation that uses HTML to display content in a web browser. It differs from an ordinary website by using specialized software to manage the content in a particular way. This blog software resides on a web server. It allows the user to write articles and manage images and links within the web browser itself, with little knowledge of HTML, and no special tools required.

When you write an article (called a “post”) for your blog, the post appears immediately online, on the blog’s home page. The most recent article is always at the top, and the rest in descending chronological order. As new articles appear at the top, older articles “roll off” the home page. Each article is also stored in an archive, where writings continue to be available for as long as the blog exists. Links to the archives are automatically created and managed by the blog software.

The Secret Value of a Business Blog
Because it is easy to write a post, and the posts appear chronologically, it forms a journal. For a business, a blog is a great way to keep customers, employees, vendors, and the press up to date on company or industry news. But the secret value of blogs is not just how people read them, but how search engines, like Google, read them. Blogs are magic at Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The secret is that, over time, posts written about a particular product, service, or industry will create a cumulative volume of pages that are rich in keywords related to your specialty. The more you write, and the more careful you are about embedding keywords in your posts, the higher your blog will appear in search results.

To really power your way to the top of the search engines requires getting more sites to link to yours. Google uses the number of links into your site to establish a “page rank”. Page rank, plus keyword matching, are combined to position your page in the search results. But to really drive traffic to your blog, you need to become an “active blogger.”

Passive Bloggers Write, Active Bloggers Link
If you just write articles on your blog, you’ll eventually get more people viewing it. But this is the passive approach. To crank it up, become an active blogger.

Blogs have the ability to accept “comments” from readers. Sometimes this feature is turned off to avoid “comment spam”, but most sites still accept comments. After you write an article on your site, go to like-minded blogs, and use their comments to notify them of your article. These comments normally link back to your site. Typically, active bloggers watch their comments. Most are looking for good material for their own blogs, So they might follow up on your comment by mentioning your article on their blog, and linking to it. Over time, this increases the number of pages linking into your blog, and your search engine positioning will magically rise closer to the top.

Ping the Blog Search Engines
Traditional search engines only update their links every few months. This is inadequate for blogs that are updated weekly, daily, even hourly. So specialty search tools for blogs have stepped in to fill the gap. These tools allow you to “ping” them each time you post a new article. The ping notifies them so they can immediately update their index of blog entries. Blog search engines just store an entry of each post, and link directly to the archive of that post. The archive has a permanent address (called a “Permalink”) so that, even years in the future, a search will return the correct results.

If you start a business blog, post at least two articles per week, and keep at it, and it will pay dividends. If you become an active blogger, you will soon create a network of links and relationships with other blogs that will increase your authority both to readers and to search engines. Becoming an authority in your field can only help your business.

Blogging tools:
WordPress
Blogger
TypePad
Moveable Type

Blog Search Engines:
Googles Blog Search
Technorati
BlogPulse
Bloglines

Sources of Business Blogging Information:
Author’s Blog
Blog Herald
The Intuitive Life
Wikipedia on Blogs

Comments

User-Centered Design…

Nov 26, 12:57 PM by

I stumbled across this page on IBM’s site on User-Centered Design.

You’d think it would be self-evident that you would design software, hardware, everything with the user in mind. You wouldn’t think it would be necessary to write an article on this.

But it is all too typical that stuff is designed by and for engineers, and their world-view. It stands to reason, really. People invent stuff for themselves, first and foremost. And engineers don’t typically need good UI’s, effective documentation, any of that stuff. The use of a tool is self-evident to the designer of the tool. There are no hidden features, no less-than-evident interface elements. It is all quite clear to the person who did the work. Even writers usually aren’t good at catching their own errors.

It is an extra process to make it good for the average user. And since users have different approaches and needs, and styles of learning, it is a game of compromise, in any case. But some designers are just so much better. Look at Apple.

And then there’s the ubiquitous deadline and staffing. If you can create something with one engineer, why pay 3? If you have to ship a product in a hurry, when will you do user testing? If the standards are low among your competition, why invest in raising those standards? It all cuts into margins.

It is a separate process, and a separate skill set. The creation of easy-to-use, attractive, design requires a whole different mindset than creating functional code, or a sound structure, or an ergonomic hand tool. But it seems to be worth the investment. Not just Apple. How about the Toyota Prius, any Lexus, or a Good Grips kitchen gadget. Look at a Calatrava bridge. These exceed the need. They say “in a perfect world, what would this thing look like, or do better, or last longer, or do less damage to the environment?” What is it’s entire life cycle?

The same can be said of service. Why does WalMart beat Kmart. Why does Starbucks consistently have a line 3-30 customers long, all day every day, even if there’s another one 2 blocks away? Why is the local espresso shop, right next door, have just a trickle of customers. What of Olive Garden, an incredibly consistent chain of restaurants serving quality food to huge crowds. Why is Hertz always #1, no matter who tries harder? The answer is the design of the WHOLE COMPANY. Of every user experience, every interface. Even vendor, community, and government relationships… if the interface is good the customer satisfaction soars. Starbucks recognizes that if you take care of the employee, the customer will benefit. So even internal interfaces are critically important.

IT is a key competitive factor. Those companies that say “In a perfect world…” often recognize that software can improve communications throughout a company. If the solution doesn’t exist, they create it. This isn’t easy. It often goes wrong. In fact the people responsible, the CIO or CTO, is the highest-turnover “C-Level” position in any industry. Most often what goes wrong is the inability to get people to use the tools. This comes back to the same two things: training and interface design.