connecting*the*dots

I’m currently working to prep the project environment of one of my clients — a domain that relies on ad sales for survival. The stakeholders have hired me to lead the redesign of their site, which includes the information architecture. Knowing the degree of “get it” in the domain, I need to provide easily digestible “IA” education before I can move forward with my design methodology to improve the tactical findability of their most valuable content.

Yes, it’s a typical IA consulting gig, but I’d like to establish a reusable approach; not for creating explicit architectural solutions across different project types, but with a presentation of explicit, findability techniques.

I’m looking for feedback of my current progress, so if you’d like to participate, feel free to comment on this post or contact me at spcoon [at] seancoon [dot] org. Please feel free to point me to any existing work available online as well. Once I’ve pulled together my findings, I’ll iterate my work and release it into the ’sphere for anyone to use.

The Baseline

Humor me for a moment and try to forget everything you know about classification, structure and order. Instead, imagine that the only element of a web site (we care about) is the most holistic/granular information object:

• On flickr, it would be the image page
• On Amazon, it would be the product page
• On Wired, it would be the article page

Now imagine that your goal is to increase stickiness across this entire object level. Remember, the revenue model is ad sales, so the more content explored, the better for my client.

Each of the previously mentioned domains have crafted specific information architectures to accomplish this goal of “stickiness.” They also have extremely different revenue models, so the “value” of findability is relative to the nature of the product, the domain’s degree of advertising/marketing and the bottom line.

For example, flickr image pages aren’t weighed down with contextual recommendations of similar images from other users (similar to how products are displayed on an Amazon product page) but the inclusion of a simple globe icon next to an image’s tag does expose index pages of similarly tagged photos from other users. This increases discovery, which both entertains me (the user) and increases page views for potential ad clickthroughs.

Different context; similar goals. Expose avenues of findability in the interface to increase domain stickiness.

I’m currently illustrating technique similarities (that are not domain specific) for optimizing information architectures to expose valuable content. Again, consider this exercise an effort to describe a baseline standard, or best practices for findability that can be reused in one way or another across project types.

Along these lines, I’m clarifying techniques by using non-specific terminology (i.e. contextual and relational are generic terms, as compared to collaborative filtering). Secondly, I plan on augmenting the illustration for this particular client by labeling specific values (a 1 to 10 scale, possibly) to the various avenues of findability, distinguishing the value proposition (ROI) between focusing on, say, relational discovery compared to categorical browsing. I won’t be able to complete this second part until user research has been finalized.

Here’s my current list of best practices:

• Object level contextual discovery: Hyperlinks to contextual content, embeded within the primary object of the page (i.e. hyperlinks within an article to other articles, linked notes on a flickr image, etc.)
• Object level relational discovery: Accessible related objects, determined via appropriateness (i.e. as simple as “Related Articles” or as complex as “Other shoppers purchased…”)
• Object to index level relational discovery: Using tags to move from the object level to the index level (i.e. flickr globe icons, del.icio.us tags, etc.)
• Index level relational discovery: Related tags presented from a mass sample of tagged objects (i.e. a tag search on Technorati creates a list of related tags to the original query on the index page)
• Tag/Meta-data search: Optimizing tagging to improve the results when searching objects that have been explicitly tagged (i.e. Gmail labels, Technorati tags, flickr tags, etc.)
• Full-text search: Optimizing objects and result pages to increase precision and to manage recall into precise, secondary, relational options in the presentation layer
• Categorical navigation: Traditional top-down navigation, with a focus on keeping categories both shallow and non-cascading, while keeping the breadth of topical choices as narrow as possible

The diagram (177kb .pdf) displays another element — Third party relational discovery, which is specific to partner deals with external domains.

Ideas, feedback, critique; all appreciated.

You have to love it when the guy behind “President Bush” starts snacking on a bag of potato chips.

(via Matthew Gross)

So what do you do when the grind of the city commute smacks you in the face? You find a comfy spot in the back of The Jazz Gallery and let Steve Coleman’s workshop grab ahold of your soul.

Coleman wasn’t on my radar before tonight, but leave it to Jonathan to introduce me to a hot act in the Jazz scene. This guy is dope. He’s currently playing a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1 then a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1-1-1 then a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1-1-1… 1-1 beat, getting his drummer up on cue to the progressive, deterioration of the riff. Man, this is a workshop. Sue Mingus runs a “workshop” with the B and C players of the Big Band and Orchestra, occationally practicing new compositions. I love you Sue, but that’s not a workshop. That’s income.

Steve just invited audience members to join him on stage and work out the riff. Now with two women on the mic and the drummer carrying the beat, he gets abstract off the beat — like a launch point of a ramp built in progressive takes.

Two boards added, a half peeled away, two and a half stiched on, pause for a second, add three and gone!…

Now an audience member is on the piano, riffing to the progressive beat, Coleman standing back, checking out the take… and the first woman on the mic scatting… add Coleman…

Coleman’s not only brilliant, he has the patience and explanatory skills of a teacher.

Alright, now he’s dropping the improv down an octive and slowing down the tempo, mixing up the original riff into more paused flashes of laddders. Live blogging a jazz show… if I could visually describe what I’m hearing, well, imagine it to be something like this.

Dope!

This is only the second time I’ve been back to the NJ/NYC area since I moved in September, and it’s the first time I’ve commuted in over three years. Stepping onto the NJTransit Bloomfield Station this morning immediately brought me back to the days of running to the Union Street Station with dripping wet hair and bagel in mouth trying to catch the N&R.

It’s strange how you notice the little things around you when you’re not a part of the scene, such as watching an entire car full of people reading their NYTimes (almost exclusively) by folding the paper into columns. Or how a triple seater gets claimed by two people, with one placing a large bag in the middle signifying “Go ask someone else to move. I need this space.”

No, I don’t miss spending an hour each morning struggling with the rest of humanity for a seat and a two-second head start out the door into Manhattan. But I have to admit, it is nice to be around people again.

UPDATE: Okay, I’m finishing this post at the office I’m working from this week. Let me take back everything I said about being around people. After I got off the train, I walked through at least five different scents of piss. My home office (sans piss smell) is looking good right about now.

I’m heading up to 14 Wall Street tomorrow until next Thursday in order to “feed the babies” (yes, that’s just a figure of speech). If any of my NYC/NJ people are free for drinks Mon - Weds, give me a shout.

Arab Palestinians have been screwed throughout the course of history, so it’s not hard to imagine how Hamas became the strong-armed, righteous voice of their people. Their tactics as a revolutionary front (social services, terrorism, etc.) are well documented, so now, as the democratically elected, legislative representatives of the Palestinian people, the question at large is how will they lead as a political party?

The transition to an open-political organization is going to be difficult at best, as Hamas’ senior leadership has been in hiding since Israel assassinated founder Sheik Yassin and then his replacement, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, just a month later in the Spring of 2004. They’re probably the most decenralized political organization in the world; the type of organizational change necessary to run legislative politics and foreign policy relationships cannot happen overnight.

And on the other side of the planet, how did the US react to this true democratic expression of change? Yesterday, President Bush awkwardly framed the US perspective:

A few of his comments were very telling (emphasis mine):

…The elections yesterday were very interesting.

On the other hand, I don’t see how you can be a partner in peace, if you advocate the destruction of a country as a part of your platform. And I know you can’t be a partner in peace if your party has an armed wing.

And so, the elections just took place, we’ll watch very closely about the formation of the government. But uhm… I will continue to remind people about what I just said. That uh… if your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you’re not a partner in peace…

First of all, if one doesn’t understand the history of the Jewish-Israeli/Arab-Palestinian struggle, as well as the corruption of the Fatah Party, then there is no way to understand how Hamas has become the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

As for this reaction to “an armed wing” of a party, can we please recognize the situation for what it is without the bullshit?

• During it’s foundation years, Israel created Haganah to defend Israeli settlers, which later became the foundation for the Israeli Defense Forces — Israeli’s army
• The outgoing party of yesterday’s election, Fatah, was an armed party, just not as overt as Hamas
• While the US does not have armed political parties, we do have the most powerful armed forces in the world

Everyone at the table is armed, each with an agenda and a stake to claim. Now that we have that straight, I guess the question remaining is who’s going to blink first?

(via swissmiss through Chris Glass)

(via Ethan)

Chris Penn, RIP

He always played the right-hand man, the bit part, even the little brother in real life, but he made every moment onscreen a memorable one. As a tribute, here are my all-time favorite Chris Penn moments:

• Footloose: For taking one on the chin (professionally) by letting Kevin Bacon teach him how to dance, in a montage sequence, to the cheesiest song of all time (check the title of this post)
• All The Right Moves: For being a dumbass by getting his girlfriend pregnant, thereby giving up his only chance to escape SteelTown USA on a football scholarship.
• True Romance: For being the no nonsense vice-cop that hilariously scared the living shit out of Cousin Balki
• At Close Range: (One of my all-time favorites) For looking his father in the eyes as he’s about to be put down for good. Just thinking about that scene makes the hair on my body stand on end.
• Reservoir Dogs: Favorite lines from a film chock full of great dialog:
  Nice Guy Eddie: The chick got tired of him beatin’ her so one night she walks in the guys bedroom and super glues his dick to his belly. Ambulance came and had to cut him loose.
  Mr. Pink: That ain’t all that bad.
  Nice Guy Eddie: Oh yeah, how would you feel if every time you had to take a piss you had to do a hand stand?
• GTA San Andreas: For being the epitome of a punk ass cop and letting me chase him down, run him off the road and waste his ass.

You are missed.

This “Boycott MSNBC” meme being promoted by the “Open Letter To Chris Matthews” blog and pushed by big-time, left bloggers is disingenuous at best, and a horrible strategy… period. Forget for a moment that Chris Matthews compared Osama bin Laden’s recent choice of language to Michael Moore’s, the facts regarding Moore are just not being represented correctly. The “Open Letter…” blog states:

What’s this all about? Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Osama bin Laden to Democrats…

Wrong.

1. Michael Moore is not a registered Democrat
2. Michael Moore does not hold office
3. Michael Moore is an independent documentary filmmaker, one who goes after both corrupt corporations and government administrations

1992 was the last time Moore was registered as a Democrat. In the past, I’ve had my own problems wrestling with how he has been positioned by both the media and the RNM as a “Liberal Democrat” due to his hardcore stance against the Bush administration. And then I experienced F9/11 on opening night and my eyes opened even wider regarding the actions of this administration, realizing that Moore wasn’t being partisan, he was being as direct and honest as humanly possible.

I’m sure Democrats feel a rush when an independent, creative voice rips apart the opposition party — especially one as corrupt as the Bush administration — but these actions don’t exclusively subscribe a voice such as Moore to the Democratic Party’s brand of progress or politics, nor should the Democrats want such to be the case.

As an independent (or non-affiliated here in North Carolina), I respect Moore’s perspective because he doesn’t belong to a political party. Michael Moore will reach more people to act and/or vote against corruption as an independent filmmaker, than a labeled “Liberal Democratic” filmmaker. The sheer amount of bloggers that are blindly supporting this meme is poor strategy.

Stop feeding the machine their propaganda. This is a short-term tactical reaction, one that will negatively affect Moore’s long-term output of truth if he’s pigeon holed as a Democrat.

UPDATE: The blog has changed its intro to now read:

What’s this all about? Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Americans who are concerned about the war in Iraq to Osama bin Liden…

Well, at least they got the Democratic issue corrected, but Matthews only compared Moore’s language. This boycott is retarded. Shit, I’m watching Keith Olberman no matter what Chris Matthews says.

I’ve had the Koran sitting on my bookshelve for the past ten years; I have no idea how The Message has alluded me until this past weekend.

While the historical accuracy of the film and its brilliant acting took center stage, there were explicit elements of both the production and storyline I found especially intriguing.

For instance, Islamic law forbids portraying either the voice or likeness of the Prophet Mohammed (that concept would put Christianity straight out of business), so when certain scenes called for interaction with The Prophet, director Moustapha Akkad made the call to turn the camera into Mohammed’s silent point of view.

The cast of followers spoke directly to Mohammed, yet they were simultaneously engaged in conversation with the audience, providing us with the positioning of The Prophet. In 1976, this may not have been viewed as a compelling technique, but in the age of first person shooter video games — where we directly engage and interact with the narrative, driving the storyline as we gaze into the eyes of AI avatars — the technique shifts meaning over the years. Very retro-cool.

In terms of the story, both the politics and marketplace of Mecca circa 600 AD were fascinating and generated numerous offshoots of thought.

The film reveals that the ruling class of Mecca kept the populous in-line, and themselves profitable, through establishing a marketplace of ~360 idolic “Gods” — wooden or clay figures, sold to individuals and families alike to provide good luck. The families blindly worshiped them as their personal saviors (talk about instant, add-water religion) and left the ruling class alone to continue their manipulation of the market and society.

When Muhammed returned from the mountains and began sharing his first poetic drops of the Koran, amongst the numerous stanzas (of eventual Islamic law), the message that forbode the worship of other gods was explicit. “There is only one God” quickly became the righteous chant of all classes of men who followed Muhammed’s revelations. Upon experiencing this shifting of inclusion (of social classes) and exclusion (of idolic gods), the local merchants/governors took this challenge of authority as a direct threat to the well-greased mechanism of Mecca’s economy, class and power structure and responded with force.

The mere concept of “There can only be one God” was more revolutionary than any number of armed men storming the city because their God could not generate a profit.

After digesting the film, my mind’s eye kept returning to the current global struggles between Islam and the West, asking the question as to whether or not we’re going through a historical recurrance on a global scale. I mean, the World Trade Center was considered to be the most prolific iconic representation of the American (and Western) financial system. Could Ramzi Yousef and Osama bin Laden possibly have targeted the WTC in ‘93 and 9/11, respectively, in an attempt to make a deep seeded philosophical connection with fellow fundamentalists, tying the traits of modern day global capitalism to Mecca circa 600 AD?

Yeah, the film was that deep. Now I’ve got to check out Reza Aslan’s recently published book entitled “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.” Based on Jon Stewart’s interview with him last night and the reviews of Islamic bloggers, it’s bound to be enlightening on numerous fronts.

No matter where we go as a community, we have to remember how we got here:

Pick up the documentary today.

(Full disclosure: my brother, Andy, is the documentary filmmaker)

Deborah Howell, the much maligned Ombudsman for The Washington Post, has created a stir; she reported that Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. Whether one wants to believe it or not is not my concern. Her column created an outroar in the blogosphere and incindiary comments began to fill the editor’s blog. Jim Brady, Executive Editor of The Washington Post, tried to deal with the situation:

As of 4:15pm ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.

At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.

But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we’ve decided not to allow comments for the time being. It’s a shame that it’s come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it’s a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.

We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it. Any thoughtful feedback on that (or any other issue) is welcome, and you can send it to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

So, the ombudsman of an institution can erase comments and lobby to shut down their feedback channel from customers? Can someone please explain to me the purpose of the role again, specifically for an institution that supposedly sheds light on critical matters to the public?

Here’s my email in response:

jim,

people who are online, commenting on your blog, are used to being flamed. they’re participating elsewhere, and have been for years. don’t try to turn this into a case where WaPo is “protecting” anyone.

as backwards as it might sound, lower your commenting standards, remove the worst when they are submitted, and go on about reporting the news.

welcome to the world of free expression. “adding blogs” to your realm comes with the price of bringing one channel of WaPo down to street level. it may not be the salad fork you’re used to, but it’s still a vehicle for consuming necessary roughage.

-sean

I realize that WaPo might be stinging from harsh criticism and frank language, but this shouldn’t motivate Brady to react in such a drastic manner. I mean after all, it’s a WaPo blog, the editor’s blog at that. Not all of us peasants are good and proper; some are mentally malnurished, but we’re taxpaying peasants just the same, and obviously, interested enough in WaPo to spend our time flaming each other and WaPo staff on comment threads.

This is a healthy sign for an institution. It might register as backwards, or uncivil, but so is your average football game on Sunday when you’re not watching it from the comfort of your living room.

“Transparency and reasoned debate” cannot be managed, otherwise you’re just adding back the filters of mass consumption that blogs have removed from the web. Commit to the medium and over-engage in the discourse; it’s the only way to make a connection with the people that care enough to fire back at you.

We are the voices that will be heard, whether you like it or not. Deal with it.

UPDATE: After receiving a form response to my above email from Michael Golden, the Director of Customer Relationships (strange, the email was addressed to Jim Brady at executive.editor@washingtonpost.com), I stubled upon this great post from Jesus’ General.

Wake up WaPo.

Welcome, fellers. I’m sure you’re going to be successful tilting that liberal network, CNN, back to the middle from their left-leaning ways.

Anything for ratings, eh?

UPDATE: Well, it didn’t take long for Beck to land on Keith Olberman’s World’s Worst Person segment: