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Using stories in user experience architecture
There are lots of things to focus on when you’re designing something. I think there are three layers of abstraction to most digital design challenges. The simplest is the interface – deciding what things look like. Interaction design turns 2d designs into something with both form and function. But there is another layer – the…
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Invisible art, intrinsic motivation
10,000 hours Imagine waking up at 8am practising something for 12 hours, going to bed, getting up in the morning and doing it all over again. Imagine eating soup, wearing the same pants everyday* and avoiding all distractions. Imagine that you take weekends off, but use them to visit your Aunty Doris, who you hate.…
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Turtles all the way down
For some time I’ve had this bon mots rattling around in my head, like an earworm, infinitely repeating as if it knew it’s own meaning. When this happens it usually means either that my brain has made a decision and it’s waiting for the rest of me to realise, or it’s a request for more…
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The third way
You should probably read this with a hat hard on – it’s a work in progress, but published here mainly as a motivation to edit and finish it. Alternatives are tricky things. They complicate the world. If you were to tell me right now that I can have a ham sandwich I would be delighted.…
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Learning online
One size fits all? Motivation in learning can be enhanced by setting clear expectations and defining a direction of travel, creating a sense of where you are going and how far into the ‘ideal’ journey that you are. But the ‘ideal learning journey’ will vary depending on who you are. Learning has a lot to…
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Places don’t exist
Cartographers can’t be trusted. It’s a controversial view (possibly), but I feel like they’ve always kept to the furtive fringes of society – happily knowing exactly where the fringes are – and they’ve done this for a reason. First off, maps are difficult to fold. Secondly and worse than that, they’re also full of lies.…
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Learning and being curious
Curiosity killed the cat. Because I’m a dog person I was delighted. But as soon as we leave formal education, dog people and cat people alike, curiosity is probably the thing that’s going to drive most of our learning. That cat-killing compulsion will replace the person at the front of the class and take charge…
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the map and the territory
“What a useful thing a pocket-map is!” I remarked. “That’s another thing we’ve learned from your nation.” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?” “About a six inches to a mile.” “Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. We…
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Managing information
Content management systems, digital rights management technologies, search and user experiences all rely on well organised content. As a way of categorising content, taxonomy and vocabulary management helps you to stay organised and create smooth and intuitive user experiences. I strongly believe that information architecture needs to help both clients and systems make the most…
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Content management and systems
As an information architect and content manager, I spend time getting to know the priorities and working practices of the clients I work with. Content comes in lots of formats, flavours, shapes and sizes and finding a way to shape the messges of a client to the audience they’re trying to reach can be one…
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Teller – on how magic works
[blockquote]In its most fundamental form, magic is about what happens when what you see differs from what you know. You seem to be seeing something that is really happening, you know it can’t be happening, and those two forces come into collision. That purely intellectual element of magic, where what you know about the world…
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Magic, information and interaction design
All projects require a focus on the result you need to achieve and the audience that the product is being designed for. It’s only then that you can combine and negotiate the needs of both client and audience to ensure that they intersect and the solution is a success. That’s a bit of a jargon-laden…
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On Moodle
[blockquote]Question: You can’t just use Moodle out of the box – the basic Moodle install just isn’t that sophisticated Answer: Have a look at the feature list, all of which comes as standard with every Moodle download. Additional themes, blocks and activities are easy to integrate and the vast majority are free, open source code…
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Off-page SEO
Link building Search engines judge each link to a page from another page or site as a vote for the page. Search engines are really just big popularity contests – the more links you get the better. It is not just the number of links that are important, but also the quality. Quality is determined…