Adventures in TWiki Land

Earlier this week, Colin and I had a personal growth opportunity to post some changes to documentation on TWiki. Of course, when we went to peform this feat, none of our partners in crime were around, you know, the usual suspects: Chris, Jessica, and Laura. After a couple of false starts, we were successful. I thought I should describe our steps, so that if I forget in the future, I can come back here and refresh my memory. If any of you have an easier way of posting, please comment. Although I like TWiki, it's organization and processes seem a little topsy. So here's what we did (eventually) to post an updated document on TWiki for APS:

1. Go to TWiki at http://collaborator.
2. In the left navigation menu, click the eSolutions link.
3. On the eSolutions Welcome page, click the eSolutions Groups link in the right column under Contents.
4. On the eSolutions Group Pages page, click the User Research and Interaction Design link in the Business Groups and Links section at the top of the page.
5. You might want to bookmark the UserResearchAndInteractionDesign page.
6. On the UserResearchAndInteractionDesign page click the Attach icon and link in the page header.
7. On the Existing Attachments page, click the Action link for the document that you want to update.
8. At the bottom of the screen is a Local File field. Click the Browse button to locate the updated document that you want to upload to TWiki from your computer's hard drive.
9. After you have located the file (and the Local File field is filled in), click the Upload button at the top of the page.
10. Poof!

Wasn't that easy?

Book List

About Face 2.0

I’m looking to borrow a copy of Alan Cooper’s About Face 2.0. Please let me know if you have one that you would be willing to share for a few days!

Some Experiments with HTML/CSS Prototypes

A couple of weeks ago, I had a discussion with Erika and Bill about the shortcomings of wireframes used in evaluations. I put in my two bits that we should really test with HTML prototypes. Bill pointed out that HTML prototypes had a couple of drawbacks in our work here: they require additional resources to create, and people who see them tend to think that they are the "real thing" -- decision makers can be seduced by the prototype and believe that the design is already baked.

So I think the requirements for HTML prototyping comes down to this: we have to build the HTML prototypes very quickly on the cheap, and they can't be mistaken for the final design.

Friday or Monday, Chris sent me some "cool" links that address these issues head on. Chris, I don't know where you find these websites, but they are gems. The upshot of this is that I could quickly create an interface, including form elements. Being the geek that I am, I wanted to know how effectively this could be applied to a template and across a web site. My personal website (which you should never visit at work) is template driven. In about 15 minutes I designed a new layout template and applied it to my web site. The results, while aesthetically challenged, showed to me that an HTML prototyping approach is feasible.

So I guess I'd better list my caveats. I acknowledge that I have a fair amount of experience with HTML and CSS. If you want to build HTML prototypes quickly with the tools, you need to have an understanding of CSS and HTML.

I suggest the books, Cascading Style Sheets: Separating Content from Presentation, Briggs et al., Glasshaus, 2002, and Cascading Style Sheets, Designing for the Web 2nd ed., Lie and Bos, Addison-Wesley 1999. For HTML, I always suggest Werbach's Barebones.txt.

And now, Chris' super-cool links that changed my life:

• Layout
• Lists (I use these for navigation components)
• Forms generation
• Form elements (for custom tweaking)

All of these tools generate HTML code and the underlying CSS. These really are better than sliced bread!