My paper on "Client Scenarios" just published on IEEE Proceedings

My recently accepted and presented short paper on
"Exploring the Tension between User’s and Main Stakeholder’s Goals: The Role of Client Scenarios" has been just published on the IEEE Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on The Web and Requirements Engineering (WeRE'10), held within the 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2010 in Sydney, Australia.

Full PDF paper available from my research site:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~dbolchin/public/Bolchini_IEEE_WeRe_Workshop_2010.pdf

paper page on IEEE Proceedings Digital Library:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5623994&tag=1.

Paper abstract:
This paper introduces the notion of Client Scenario as a conceptual tool to characterize and address the tension between user and main stakeholder's goals in web requirements analysis. As complementary to traditional user scenarios, Client Scenarios assume the perspective of the main stakeholders of an interactive application in projecting stakeholder-desired behaviors on the user experience. Client scenarios are an important variation over a commonly used technique in requirements engineering (scenarios in general) and can facilitate web designers, requirements analysts and project managers to elicit and model a comprehensive set of requirements from different viewpoints, as they complement the considerations of the user's needs with the communication and business goals of large web applications.

Beyond Findability - Our Article just published on the Journal of Information Architecture

Our paper "Beyond Findability" (by Luigi Spagnolo, Davide Bolchini, Paolo Paolini and Nicoletta di Blas) has just appeared on the new issue of the Journal of Information Architecture.

Full citation:

Spagnolo, L., Bolchini, D., Paolini, P., & Di Blas, N. (2010). Beyond Findability. Journal of Information Architecture. Vol. 2, No. 1.

The journal is open access, so peer-reviewed articles can be read in full for free.

Full PDF here:
http://journalofia.org/volume2/issue1/03-spagnolo/jofia-0201-03-spagnolo.pdf

HTML version:
http://journalofia.org/volume2/issue1/03-spagnolo/.

Beyond Findability - Search-Enhanced Information Architecture for Content-Intensive Rich Internet Applications

Abstract
This paper details a way to extend classic information architecture for web-based applications. The goal is to enhance traditional user experiences, mainly based on navigation or search, to new ones (also relevant for stakeholders’ requirements). Examples are sense making, at a glance understanding, playful exploration, serendipitous browsing, and brand communication. These new experiences are often unmet by current information architecture solutions, which may be stiff and difficult to scale, especially in the case of large or very large websites. A heavy reliance upon search engines seems not to offer a viable solution: it supports, in fact, a limited range of user experiences. We propose to transform (parts of) websites into Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), based, beside other features, upon interaction-rich interfaces and semantic browsing across content. We introduce SEE-IA (SEarch-Enhanced Information Architecture), a coherent set of information architecture design strategies, which innovatively blend and extend IA and search paradigms. The key ingredients of SEE-IA are a seamless combination of structured hypertext-based information architectures, faceted search paradigms, and RIA-enabled visualization techniques. The paper elucidates and codifies these design strategies and their underlying principles, identifying also how they support a set of requirements which are often neglected by most current design approaches. A real case study of a complex RIA designed for a major institutional client in Italy is used to vividly showcase the design strategies and to provide ready-to-use examples that can be transferred to other IA contexts and domains.

Search, Keeping Found Things and Personal Information Management

Usability Analysis Could Bring Benefits to Bioinformatics Portals and Research - my interview just published

I released an interview to Genomeweb, just published on Bioinform online newsletter, on how "Usability Analysis Could Bring Benefits to Bioinformatics Portals and Research": >>>>

Usability should be engineered into the development process of web-based bioinformatics resources, particularly because databases and applications don’t grow in linear patterns, according to a team of researchers from the UK, the US, Switzerland, and Italy. READ THE STORY >>>>.

After the publication of my usability article on Bioinformatics, I was kindly contacted by Vivienne Marx from Genomeweb to illustrate some key findings of the work and the implications for bioinformatics researchers.

Travelling and the User Experience...

Reading this latest Jakob Nielsen's alert box, I bumped into an interesting well-written NYT article on the burden and pain "tall" travellers typically suffer in their journeys, and discovered also this interesting "seat comparison" site providing some help...

Davide's Seminar at City University (London) on Usability and Bioinformatics

On May 2, 2008, I have been hosted by Prof. Neil Maiden at the Centre for HCI Design at City University, London, to give a talk on my current research on usability issues and redesigns for bioinformatics web applications.
Here you can enjoy the slides of the talk:

| View | Upload your own

30 minutes multimedia tutorials on designing for usability (in Italian)

For the occasion of the publishing of our report on the quality of eGovernment in Switzerland (see details), I find worthwhile recalling that, in the context of a project aimed at raising the skills and the awareness on user-centered design in the Italian public administration, Lorenzo Cantoni and I have designed and developed 2 multimedia tutorials (requiring 30' study effort each), one on "designing for usability" and one on "evaluating usability", with specific examples for public administration website project managers, web masters and designers.
The tutorials are in italian and freely accessible:

>>> Designing for Usability

>>> Evaluating Usability

The tutorials frame usability and user experience design in the context of web communication and requirements understanding.

Article submitted to IEEE Requirements Engineering Conference: "Evaluating Communication Requirements"

We have just submitted a full paper to the IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference about Evaluating Communication Requirements -
here is the abstract for the submitted paper:

<< As it is important to elicit communication requirements for systems (such as websites and multimedia applications) with persuasion goals towards its users, it is even more crucial to be able to assess at which degree the expected communication impact has been achieved. On the basis of previous work and successful experience in communication requirements analysis, this paper presents a method to evaluate the fulfilment of communication requirements of content-intensive multimedia applications. The evaluation method is based on a lightweight set of value-driven conceptual tools and on a straightforward process that involves both communication and requirements experts, as well as final end users. With respect to existing evaluation methods focusing on usability requirements, our approach targets the communication effect of the design on the user experience and considers a number of aspects that go beyond pure ease of use. The paper presents our method, discusses a real life project in which it has been adopted, and reports an empirical study that has been carried on to validate its quality. >>

Paper submitted by Davide Bolchini, Franca Garzotto, Paolo Paolini and Elisa Rubegni.

Design for “Infosuasive” Web Applications - paper to be presented at WWW2008 conference

We just got a paper accepted at the "World Wide Web 20008 International Conference".

Here is the paper abstract:

Value-Driven Design for “Infosuasive” Web Applications
Davide Bolchini, Franca Garzotto, Paolo Paolini

An infosuasive web application is mainly intended to be at the same time informative and persuasive, i.e., it aims at supporting knowledge needs and it has also the (declared or not declared) goal of influencing user’s opinions, attitudes and behaviors. Most web applications, in fact, are infosuasive (with the exception of those the aim of which is mainly operational).

In this paper, we investigate the complex set of elements that inform the very early design of infosuasive web applications. We propose a conceptual framework aimed at supporting the actors involved in this process (strategic decision makers, marketers, business managers, brand designers, communication designers, graphic designers, information architects, technology experts) to integrate their different viewpoints, to organize the variety of issues that need to be analyzed, to find a direction in the numerous design options, and to finally represent the results of this activity in an effective way.

Our approach is value-driven since it is centered around the concept of communication value, regarded as a vehicle to fulfill communication goals on specific communication targets. We place the analysis of these aspects in the wider context of web requirements analysis, highlighting their relationships with business values analysis and user needs analysis. We pinpoint how values and communication goals impact on various design dimensions of infosuasive web application - contents, information architecture, interaction, operations, and lay-out. Our approach is multidisciplinary, and was inspired by goal-based and value-based requirements engineering (often used in web engineering), to brand design (often used in marketing), and to value-centered design “frameworks” (as proposed by the HCI community). A case study exemplifies our methodological proposal, discussing a large project in which we are currently involved.





by the way, the conference features outstanding keynote speakers ("outstanding" at least by their title) >>>

"Experience is the Product" By Peter Merholz

Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path (an experience design firm based in San Francisco) gave this interesting presentation on the shift of paradigm from technology and feature-driven design to experience-driven design of interactive products.
Enjoy on slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/gofull/146514/1