I consider myself a fairly conservative Information Architect. I tend to err on the side of caution, forgoing radical, but potentially innovative ideas in favor of more tried-and-true approaches. Over the years, I developed a simple mantra: “less is more.” I believed this because adding more stuff, i.e., features, functions, and options tend to confuse [...]

Wire frames are one of the most recognizable deliverables in any Web development project. They’re visual, substantive, and often serve as a blueprint for the actual site. Clients love them because it’s the first tangible proof that something is actually being created. However, wire frames can also cause lots of problems. Many clients don’t understand [...]

User names and passwords are an annoying but necessary evil. In the old days, the only password we needed was an ATM PIN. Coming up with a PIN was a chore, but it pales in comparison to what we have to go through today. Is this preoccupation with passwords really making us safer and is [...]

Why do clients hire experts and then ignore them? What’s interesting is that the Web seems particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon. Why is that? I attribute it to what I’ll call the “WYSIWYG Syndrome”  (WYSIWYG = What you see is what you get). The WYSIWYG Syndrome is a byproduct of several false beliefs: Daily use [...]

There’s been a lot written about how users view a Web page in the vertical axis, in other words, scrolling. Most of the data has been pretty straight forward. Generally speaking, content below the fold is going to get a lot less attention than content above the fold. Pretty intuitive, right? What is a little [...]