Recently Read

Another week, another list of articles that I’ve found interesting or useful. As usual they are spread across various areas, from technical writing, to information architecture and web design. Hope you find them interesting:

  • Scenarios and Minimalism – if you only visit one of the links today, make it this one. To summarise hugely, it’s all about user and task analysis, and matching the outcomes of your analysis to your writing methodology.
  • User Centred design – a paper investigating the different theories and methodologies evolving in this area. A bit dry at times.
  • MIKE2.0 Wiki – I’ve been looking into MIKE, purely out of curiosity, and this wiki is the best place to start.
  • 7 Lies of Information Architecture – an excellent starting point with links to respected resources. Should help debunk some myths, e.g. Lie 2. “There is a magic number (plus or minus two).”
  • What is Success? – “Success means… engaging with a social world: a world of clients and employers, but also of readers, users and other designers. It is those things that make us rich.”

Other than that, I’ve updated the TechComms RSS list (over on the right there), and if you do download it and find it useful, please let me know. I’m maintaining it for myself but happy to take requests if there are any sites you think I’ve missed.