Character Limit Guide for Content Recommendation
One of the things that I’ve found useful in a content matrix that I’ve been writing is using a character limit guide to see on a page at different font sizes the relative space a certain amount of text takes up. So I thought I would post it up in the manner my blog is accustomed to - ie. Other than anything else it is a repository of useful stuff and my own personal log book that is open to all under Creative Commons.
6 words / 30 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, enjoy life.
9 words / 40 Characters with spaces
On the other one, enjoy life and love it
10 words / 50 Characters with spaces
On the other one, enjoy life and prosper every day
10 words / 70 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we thoroughly denounce with righteous indignation.
30 words / 172 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire.
50 words / 281 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who?
100 words / 459 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what?
200 words / 1162 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains.
Infography
Here’s a couple of nice infographics from Flickr. One of the things that really stands out, is that even though they are in a foreign language you can get a good idea what they are talking about just from the imagery. This is good IA. it reminds me of when I used to read comics without the words as a kid.
Dashboards and Dashboardes
The definition of the word dashboard has changed markedly in our brief immediate past. In the 1800’s if you referred to a dashboard, apparently you were talking about a running board across the front of your horse drawn cart where you could wipe the muck from your shoes. In the 1980’s, if you were talking about a dashboard it was probably to do with your Chevy Impala’s instrument panel. And now in 2008 if you are talking about your dashboard, it is likely that you are referring to a set of widgets or iframes that make up your desktop or web administration panel.
In homage to the dashboard of the 1980’s, theres a lot we can learn from the dashboard design of that era that can be transferred across to the modern era.
A standard dashboard of 2008 - from an IA perspective is this as functional and beautiful as it could be?
A couple of classic dashes from the past
A couple of modern day equivalents
And last but not least looking at a vintage car dash that in my mind corresponds on a similar level to the way that a current dashboard is dealt with in many ways. It is mainly based around function with little detail dedicated to form.
NB - All images are linked from Flickr and are released under CC
Summarising my social order
Apparently my life can be summarised in a single image. These images are from a program called nexus that links in with my Facebook account. They are the same image with a Black and White variation. On the dynamic site I can scroll over and see the groups and how they are ordered by name and profile. This info via the very nice website infosthetics.
Cultural Learning from Olympic Posters across the years
One of the things that I really love about Information Architecture is that it is firmly rooted in the Arts rather than Science. Like any art form, there’s room for best practices and conventions in there, but the real beauty lies in the knowledge of convention and subtle disruptions and improvements on that best practice that add to an overall picture.
One of the things that makes IA an art in the way that anthropology is part of the Arts Faculty in a university is understanding the cultural viewpoints that lead to websites. For example I have been looking at the Beijing Olympics website a lot at the moment, and there is a clear tendency towards what seems to be somewhat of an Eastern mindset that the page value lies in how much information is available in one space and the variety of the media that is used to portray that information. It is why the official Beijing 2008 website sits on the hefty side of 500 or so kilobytes. But this whole subject has led to looking at some of the Olympic posters from the years gone by. And this in turn provided the forum to look objectively at the way that different cultures dealt with providing a poster (piece of advertising) that would encompass such a grand global occasion. It is really an interesting case study into a subject where a static medium – in this case a poster to represent the Olympic Games – has been treated across different cultures. In a similar way that XHTML and CSS combine to portray a front page or a contact page and what is valued in that data across the many cultures of the world. But have a look and see the progression through the decades and also the subtle nuances of culture.
I'm an Information Architect working in Wellington New Zealand who deals a lot with web standards, conventions and best practice every day. This is the place where I place findings, musings and facts as a repository for myself and anyone else who migth benefit.