Chris Khalil's Musings

My thoughts on work and life

Month: October 2008

Redesign of news.com.au

October 27, 2008 / / 3 Comments

This weekend saw the relaunch of the new news.com.au.

This is a project we’ve been working on for quite some time.  I’m really proud of the way it’s turned out, and it introduces a whole raft of new features not seen on any Australian media site before. These include:

  • Personalisation through drag’n’drop
  • Cookie based Personalisation, so no need to register
  • Ability to dynamically open sub-sections within the page (for instance you can now have a ‘Movies & Television’ content area show on the homepage itself)
  • A visual take on the news (click on the News Visualiser tab)
  • Improved page layout
  • Rationalised and simplified Information Architecture
  • Dynamic infotips and help
  • Improved, higher contrast font colours and typography
  • National & World sections which showcase the best news from around the world (we aggregate from other news sites)
  • Faster page load times
  • Improved navigation
  • Story pages which use highly contextualised linking to give you access to related stories
  • Story pages which include new site-wide navigational footers
  • Cleaner visual design
  • Improved Search form placement and optimised search results page

I’d like to hear any feedback you have on what we’ve done (both positive and negative welcome!)

Please, either reply here or on the news.com.au editorial blog.

User Centred Design Vs Activity Centred Design

October 8, 2008 / / 4 Comments

I’m a self-proclaimed fan of ACD (Activity Centred Design) or as Constantine calls it, Usage Centred Design, as opposed to pure User Centred Design. In most recent times this has been called ‘Jobs to Be Done’.  There are several discussions around this subject on our USiT Blog and the IxD list . The prevailing opinion seems to be that pure UCD is a bit outmoded.

As we look at sites which have fragmented, or ill-defined, audience profiles it’s hard to find commonalities in behaviours or attitudes. However, common activities, goals or tasks can be teased out, regardless of archetype. Designing for these activities or usages gets us closer to a better design solution, perhaps, than attempting to design for several different user archetypes.

Furthermore, there can be little doubt that there are some negative connotations to being seen as purely the ‘User Advocate’ in a real-life business environment. Our job is to design successful, usable and elegant solutions. Yes, we must fight for the optimal design solution, which by necessity must include the needs of our users, but we must also create designs which achieve business goals, are eminently findable and are technically feasible. Sometimes these factors oppose each other, and it’s our job to achieve a successful balance.

I think this discussion might just run and run, and does seem to be splitting the community.

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