Beyond the Page

R.I.P. Beyond the Page

“ The page is dead.” - David Heller

Beyond the Page Information Architecture Summit March 7, 2005 Gene Smith “ Turn the Page” - Bob Seger

Craftsman vs. Conductor

“ Half of my website is in Flash.” - Dennis Schleicher

“ We’re in the last days of a static environment.” - Jim Leftwich

“ Interaction becomes less browser-centric. Wireframes fall apart.” - Bill DeRouchey

“ It’s all about patterns.” - Jim Leftwich

The Page

This talk is about…
The Page Metaphor
Its place in IA notation systems
And how we think about IA
Trends
Alternatives

"Ideas about organization are always based on implicit images or metaphors that persuade us to see, understand, and manage situations in a particular way.”

“ Metaphors create insight. But they also distort. They have strengths. But they also have limitations.”
Gareth Morgan
Imaginization

Technical structure:
a network of geographically distributed machines connected via wires
organized in a conceptual network of hyperlinks
Conceptual structure
Moving on a path
Toward and into information
Paul Maglio & Teenie Matlock
“ Metaphors We Surf the Web By”
Metaphors we surf by…

What is a page anyway?
Document
Viewed in a web browser
Delivered over the Internet via HTTP
Linked to other documents
Node on a path to some goal
Deeply ingrained in IA literature, tools, deliverables

“ The basic unit of user experience on the Web is, of course, the page , which we represent as a simple rectangle.”
Jesse James Garrett
“ A visual vocabulary”

“ The [visual] vocabulary currently treats the page as something of a black box”
Jesse James Garrett
“ The Visual Vocabulary Three Years Later: An Interview with Jesse James Garrett”

Page metaphor
Page is basic presentation unit
Page is basic organizational unit
Web is consumed as pages
Stuff is assembled into pages

Page metaphor
Page is basic presentation unit
Panels, layers, plug-ins
Page is basic organizational unit
Granular units (e.g. post)
Web is consumed as pages
Web is a platform
Stuff is assembled into pages
“ Stuff” delivered outside the browser

IA Notation Systems
Flow diagrams (like the Visual Vocabulary)
Blueprints & Site Maps
Wireframes

Disruptive Trends
Rich Internet Applications
RSS, Atom, XML content
Blurred boundaries

Rich Internet Applications
Internet infrastructure (HTTP)
Software interface
Flash, Ajax, Java
Reduced latency
Transparent transitions

Impacts
Change in focus
From IA to Interaction & Interface design
From content to software
Growth in XML
Metrics

RSS, Atom, XML content
Structured document
Built-in validation
Multiple nodes
Simple, flexible content model

Impact
User chooses how to consume
User can choose interface
Multiple sources, one interface
RSS remix: splicing (union), intersection, frequency, length
RSS feeds for everything
Need for good content models

Blurred boundaries
Desktop-web
Multiple syncable, sharable Devices
Personal-Public IA
Web 1.0 – Web 2.0

Blurring of Desktop - Web
RIAs
Macromedia Central
Longhorn
Mozilla XUL

Impacts
Abstraction of IA
Push to re-use content
Design across devices
Design across channels

Things to think about
Page metaphor is web 1.0
Evolving tools
Content models
Improving metrics

Tools to go beyond the page
Wireflows
Canonical prototyping
Content models

Wireflows
Detail of wireframes
Page-level interaction
In-page details
State, widgets, flow

Fulcher, Glass, Leacock Method
Simple vocabulary
In-page details
Supports states and roles
Minimal system details

Role/State example

Some cons of FGL
Little abstraction
Too detailed?
Page based
Could be adapted to support RIAs
More details (and other tools): http:// leacock.com /deliverables

Canonical Prototyping
Constantine & Lockwood
Toolkit for prototyping
Glyphs representing
Materials
Tools (operations & actions)
Active materials (stuff you can do)
Micro-patterns

Materials

Active Materials

Example

Cons to Canonical Prototyping
Too abstract
No interplay between containers (aka, “okay, but we still have to deal with pages”)
Not plug and play?
More details:
http:// www.foruse.com/articles/canonical.pdf

R.I.P.?

“ The page is dead, long live the page.” - David Heller

“ The page is a constitutional monarchy” - Marianne Sweeny

“ Wherever there’s information… we need to be there architecting that puppy.” - Christina Wodtke

Transmedia
Transpersonal
Transformative
Brenda Laurel
IA Summit 2004

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Beyond the Page

by gsmith on Oct 02, 2006

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Beyond the Page — Presentation Transcript