Centopeia

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SHiFT'08 by Animoto

SHiFT’08 via Animoto

Pedro — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:28:37 +0000

A few days ago, I came across the amazing Animoto service, and since then I wanted to try it, this weekend I got enough time and energy to pick a few images from SHifT flickr set, select a nice soundtrack and just look at the nice result:

Interview with Peter Morville

Pedro — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:22:53 +0000

During this past week I was able to attend uxWeek in Lisbon, and while I was there knowing that it was a paid workshop, I decided to ask on Twitter if someone, that couldn’t make it, would like to pose any question to Peter Morville which was running the workshops and was available and happy to reply to them. 1. Who is Peter Morville?

PM: My main claim to fame is as co-author of the polar bear book on Information Architecture. Through writing, presenting, and consulting, I helped to establish the field of information architecture during the 1990s. If you’d like to learn more, here’s my biography.

2. How do you define Information Architecture?

PM: When I explain what I do to my mom, I tell her that I organize web sites so people can find what they need. Of course, that’s a very simple definition, but it works. Here are a few more sophisticated definitions:

The structural design of shared information environments.
The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets.
The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability.
An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.

3. What are in your view the main barriers stopping a mass adoption of good information architecture?

PM: The main barrier is ignorance about both user experience and information architecture. First, executives, designers, and developers must understand the importance of designing for and with users, and doing user research and usability testing. Second, information architecture practices can provide the tools and framework for creating good user experiences.

4. Could you explain to us briefly what Findability means?

PM: Findability is a useful term for stretching people to think across traditional boundaries. We can design the search and navigation systems of our web sites to support better findability, to help people find their way more effectively. But, we can also consider the ways to make our products, services, and information more findable via search engines. It’s useful to think about individual documents or applications as findable objects and ask about all the ways someone might find that object, and how we could make it more findable.

5. What’s your thoughts on localization in the context of Information Architecture? Should we proceed with a deep localization approach or simply consider localization as a matter of translating a good universal design?

PM: It’s always a bad idea to ask someone from the US about localization My understanding is that translation of an information architecture is not enough. It’s not just about language. Different cultures have very different ways of organizing, different mental models, so ideally a deep localization approach is needed. But I have very little experience with this topic.

6. Some Key Links on IA and Findability?

PM: The Information Architecture Institute is a great place to start. You can learn and even better, you can join and get involved with the community. Also, I recommend the IA Summit and Euro IA. Finally, you can read my Semantics articles and my blog.

7. Most important steps taken in the last 3 years in information filtering / semantic web

PM: A big step forward in the last several years has been faceted navigation. It’s tremendously useful for helping people filter or narrow while searching. You can read more about this topic and see examples in my search patterns library.

8. Important Steps in the future of IA?

PM: There are some exciting new challenges. For instance, we’re only just beginning to design good solutions for mobile devices, and we have yet to fully embrace the need to design consistent user experiences across multiple channels or platforms in both physical and digital environments. That said, most of the world still doesn’t know anything about IA, so basic education will be a continuing opportunity and responsibility.

Note: If you’d like to discuss any of them with him, Peter can be contacted via his blog or his company, Semantic Studies website.

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Change.gov

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Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

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Zap Your PRAM Conference 2008

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Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

twhirl | the social software client

starts today!

Pedro — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:01:15 +0000

web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/>

, the global web conference starts today! it’s just starting!

I met Aral Balkan (the mentor / organizer) last february at LIFT and at the time the idea of having a conference entirely global and online happening live in multiple places in the world seem daunting, 8 months into the future and giant step has been achieve, is here and starts today

< HEAD> features 76 international speakers and will boost an equal number of presentations, not only online but also on pre arranged ‘hubs’ in a multitude of cities. It’s global, and yet green!

I’ll be making a presentation on sunday (18h) about online communities and if you’re interested I still have a spare ticket, just leave a comment on the blog, it’s a first comes, first serves approach.

Join us online!

15 days to SHiFT’08

Pedro — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:58:58 +0000

SHiFT 08 is about to roll out!

After some hard working months we’re happy with all the amazing Speakers that once again decided to come to Lisbon and help us decide on the role of technology in todays society.

SHiFT will take place during 3 days (15-17 Oct), this year theme is about transient technologies and how technology is shifting from it’s traditional boundaries, becoming progressively more transparent and ubiquitous, and being deeply integrated into almost all aspects of everyday lives.

We want SHiFT to be a happening not only in Portugal but thru Europe, and although we’re really close to the dates, we still have some last minute ‘helpers’ that might just persuade you to join us:

A 20% discount over the normal price (use code: shift08t2a79548a)
we’re still accepting sessions and demos, so take your chance and present something.
In case you’re flying over, we’ve gathered some discounts with the portuguese airliner and some nice hotels too.
Last, but not least we’re giving away a Golden Ticket, all you have to do is spread the word and enjoy an even bigger discount.

Hope to see you all at SHiFT

Magalhães

Pedro — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:35:59 +0000

Magalhães is the code-name of the Intel’s Classmate version that starts to be distributed today in Portugal. The Portuguese Government plan is to distribute one for each kid between 6-9 on this first phase. A daring and yet amazing step I confess, for which the results aren’t within sight of any of us!

Although the idea it’s new (there’s OLPC for instance and for which I’m still a big FAN, and would love see more widespread) nevertheless I’m grateful to live in a country that really looked a it and decided to address it in such way. Today’s measure will certainly dictate the forthcoming generations of portuguese and (MAYBE) allow us to bridge the technological gap that we’re so much lacking in Portugal.

The portuguese version of Intel’s classmate is code-named after Fernão de Magalhães, the portuguese sailer that first circumnavigated the Earth. As a computer is somewhat limited, yet powerful computer (especially if you consider the public for which it was conceived), it comes with 1Gb memory and 60Gb of hard-drive, webcam, ethernet port, wifi, 2 usb drives and a card reader. As far as I know it will come pre-bundled with both Caixa Mágica (Linux) and Windows XP. Some argue that it makes no sense, other will say that wouldn’t make sense if was the other way around, well… I have mixed feelings, if part of me hates the idea of seeing yet another generation succumb to the M$ governance, I’m also wise enough to say that there’s no perfect world and to leave our kids struggling on a system different from the one their fathers use for instance just for puristic reasons, doesn’t seem an option too… Plus, I’ve started with Windows (less than that actually) but just see where I stand today

One of the downsides I’ve realized immediately regarding hardware/software was the fact that contrary to the OLPC project, this project is essentially a kids version of what is the grown-up PC playground. The Hardware doesn’t seem to have been designed or even adapted to (except in size) for children. When you first look at the running operating systems, especially windows system which is dependent on a parent control skin sort of (easy desktop) makes it even more obvious and in my view of it leaves much to desire in terms of kids usability. Kids generally hate children stuff, especially if it’s stupidified. At this stage it’s just an opinion based on the reaction of some of the kids to which I’ve introduce it, I would need to conduct more tests with children to make this assumption a final conclusion. By the looks of it seems to me as if it’s just a matter of time, before they’ll downgrade to a real OS and then again that might just be the key idea

I’ve took some more photos in case anyone is interested, just follow the link: Magalhães@Flickr and you’ll find some more shotsfrom it.

In a sentence it’s an amazing jump, let’s just see where we’ll end up

2P @ Burgos, Spain

Pedro — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:00:34 +0000

A short movie clip made by Mike Plonsky (http://www.skatecam.es) back in June during our visit to Burgos, Spain

Mind the Gap

Pedro — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:44:33 +0000

The slides from my presentation at this past weekend BarCampPT 08, which are basically my personal notes from a workshop I took in HCI at the university of Madeira.

32

Pedro — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:15:41 +0000

It’s 1975, and this Man is about to show You the FUTURE!

Pedro — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:46:56 +0000

(Just click on the image to see some slides out of the past!)

SHiFT 2008

Pedro — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:36:57 +0000

The dates were already set, 15-17th Oct, but today with the new website we’ve also opened the registration process only opened today, so if you’ve been waiting for it, it’s your time to save a seat.

The speakers list is still open, but we’ve uncovered some of the key speakers for this year’s edition and we’re very proud to have them with us. During the coming days we’ll put up more and more of them, so that everyone knows who’s joining us at SHiFT.

If you wanna take a step further, there’s an open call for presentations, open to all participants, so anyone can still get their share of participation. If you know someone who’s interested in sponsoring this project, please let them know about our Sponsor Plans.

Any information or comments, please forward them to info @ shift . pt Hope to see you all in Lisbon, next October.