InfoFoundry

• Published:December 17th, 2008
• Comments:1 Comment
• Category:Information Architecture, prototyping, tools

Recently I undertook a review of different software for prototyping websites. It was great to have the time to have a cursory look at the different products on offer for a Windows OS platform. Here’s the results.

Some of the comparison fields were taken from this very good (but a little dated) article - http://boxesandarrows.com/view/visio_replaceme#comment_4021

Note that this is a personal review from a cursory inspection, spending between 5 – 10 hours evaluating the products.

• Published:December 10th, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:Infographic, tools

Monitor your Twitter Statistics via Tweetstats.

• Published:December 3rd, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:Information Architecture, Interface, tools

Idee has a fantastic tool for instantly searching and finding Creative Commons flickr shots based on colour groupings. The interface is fantastically simple as well and provides a thoroughly enjoyable user experience.

All the user needs to do is add some colours from the colour picker:

that display in a colour list:

And then the search engine buzzes off and finds corresponding Creative Commons shots from flickr that match the colour parameters entered:

Link at: http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/

• Published:November 21st, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:Information Architecture, Research, tools

Link to the download page - http://www.flashbulbinteraction.com/WTS.html

To a large extent you can judge a book by its cover. Especially if it’s not a book, and is a pdf about interfaces. The whole document - “100 ideas for envisioning powerful, engaging, and productive user experiences in knowledge work” is beautifully laid out, and each section is colour coded according to the chapter. The document itself is evidence of the process of considered IA / IXD / UI / UX, and is available in three accessible formats: Standard PDF, PDF print card version, and online as an html version. It’s a big read, and I’m looking forward to getting into it, as the introduction is compelling:

Extensive concepting, based on intensive questioning, driving visionary, collaboratively defined strategies for exemplary tools for thought.

This statement is broken down into a number of suggestions for product teams and it certainly whets the appetite.

• Published:November 20th, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:Information Architecture, Interface, Wordpress, process, tools

I love Firefox, and it’s mostly because of the plugins. Firefox is fast becoming my only tool for the web as it covers so many bases with Fire FTP, CSS and html editors, debugging tools, developer and designer plugins, administration tools, local program controls and social networking monitors to name but a few. A picture is better than words for this - and it only took about a minute to install at a svelt 400 od kilobites.