'Mobile First' Doesn't Mean 'Mobile Everything'

I was reading about a presentation by Ethan Marcotte on re-designing the web-site for the Boston Globe so of course I headed over to have a look.

Redesign of UIC Admissions & Records Website

As if I didn't have enough to do over the holidays (see below), I redesigned the website template for UIC's Office of Admissions & Records.

Basically what I did was to bring the thing into compliance with the University's new top-level website which they changed at the beginning of the school year.

The holidays are always a great time to do something like this (since basically no one's looking) so you can believe I worked my butt off to get this done on time. 

Update on Redesign of LeoKlein.com

Well, this is taking me a hundred years.

I'm happy to say that I'm at the stage where I've developed the comps and cut the graphics in a layout that's remarkably consistent from IE7 and FF2.0 to my mother's ancient version of IE5 on her equally ancient iMac.

I've got a little more graphics work to do on 2nd tier pages -- plus I have to put together the portfolio gizmo (powered by Javascript). If I can get this all done by July, all I can say is hallelujah!

In any case, you can judge the results so far (and if you wish drop me a line) by going to www.leoklein.com... [2008]

The Expert User Is Dead

The problem with interface design in libraries is that we don't go about it as if it really mattered. If we cared, we'd pay more attention to people like Marissa Mayer, interface designer at Google, when she says, "Google should be 'what you want, when you want it.' As opposed to 'everything you could ever want, even when you don't.'"

How is that for a concept? Meanwhile in Libraryland, the murmuring continues about "Google-ization" and the dangers of appealing to the lowest common denominator. You'd think taking care of our users--our customers--in a manner in which they are accustomed to is beneath us. This is a recipe for going out of business.

Everyone talks about user-friendly design, yet bad design happens. Why? Information architect Jesse James Garrett lists this as the most common misconception: "We know our users--they're just like us."

Not so, say Jerilyn Veldof and Karen Beavers, two librarians testing the effectiveness of online instructional material in Minnesota. "Librarians," they report, "need to be more conscious that their own mental models are not the only ones." They conclude that "students view the research process as something to hurry through in order to get to an end--the articles and books required for their project."

They're busy

Klein, Leo Robert. "The expert user is dead: we must design library web sites to welcome all users." Library Journal, vol. 128, no. 17, 15 Oct. 2003, p. S36 [link]