Keith Instone

Thanks for all the messages-of-support about the upcoming Catalyze webcast about UXnet. See my other blog posting for links to some of the things we will talk about. The Catalyze marketing engine is impressive, so I think there will be plenty of attendees. I will post a version of the presentation here (and other places) afterwards. See you on the webcast tomorrow.

I will be spending Thursday, April 26th, on the campus of Kent State University, hosted by the wonderful folks at IAKM. I will be meeting with various groups throughout the day, but at 4pm will be my main presentation, an update to my "Applying information architecture to university web sites" (first presented at CASE V). I will also be meeting with the Usability I class in the evening.

A joke term we used when planning the event was Keith Instone Day - and that term stuck. I am kind of embarrassed to have my own day at KSU, but I do like the idea where experienced professionals spend a day on a local campus and share their expertise with students (and others).

I am also on the IAKM Advisory Board. Spending a day there seems like a good way to strengthen those practitioner / researcher / educator bonds (something I think IA needs more of).

Also, Karl Fast, who I worked with at Argus, will also be on campus, as he prepares to join the IAKM faculty. With Samantha Bailey also coming, another Argus Alum, it really should be Argus Associates Day.

I will be a part of the panel "The State of Web Site User Experience in 2007", along with Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus and Stephanie Rosenbaum on February 21st. This will wrap up the second day of presentations at Internet User Experience 2007, a conference in Ann Arbor.

This panel explores the user experience that is most prevalent on web sites today and debates the highest impact options for making improvements. The panelists, each of whom is involved in web design, explain how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with the state of web site usability today. Attendees will walk away with a sense of purpose and focus on the highest impact improvements for today and the future.

Dave runs these panels about once a year; I am glad that I could return after participating in 2003. I wonder what I will say! And how will I make sure folks come away with a "sense of purpose...for today and the future."

My ibm.com colleague Will Smith and I presented at NEOUPA on September 20th: ibm.com - Experiences of the User Experience Design team. An update to our Internet User Experience presentation from earlier in the year.

We told lots of stories about what it is like working on the IBM web site, from year-long re-designs to day-to-day maintenance and everything in between. Great questions from the audience - hard to remember all of the topics but some where accessibility, search log analysis, standards vs. guidelines, Web 2.0, politics.

I participated in the panel "Setting the IA research agenda" at the IA Summit in Vancouver yesterday. Great talks by the panelists (of course), but more importantly, excellent participation from the audience and a good birds-of-a-feather at the end of the day. See my presentation, background information, and other notes.

In a few years, will this panel be seen as an important kick-off to an IA research agenda, or will it be seen as just another event where we talked about "IA research" but did nothing about it?

I presented "ibm.com re-design and standards" last month at Internet user experience (Ann Arbor, Michigan).

Leave a comment (with your email address) if you want a copy of the presentation. Here is a simple outline.

• Evolution of ibm.com over the past 10 years
• 2004 project: OneXperience
• Standards site: IA before and after
• Page elements
• Automation tools
• Relationship with other corporate standards
• Special events: Lenovo
• Business as usual
• Challenges ahead

I presented at the CASE V conference in Chicago yesterday. I went into detailed IA issues such as specific-to vs. relevant-for audiences, org-chart-itis, faceted browsing and navigation frameworks. Actually, there was so much good discussion on the audience organizational scheme (central to university sites) that I barely got to cover the rest.

Attached (way) below is a PDF of my slides. Here are links to items covered in the presentation.

"The difference between a good website and a great website happens before you begin coding"

I presented at the SEOMUG Spring <br> conference yesterday. This talk focused on work products and methodologies for IA and UCD.

I only had 45 minutes, so I had to breeze thru things. Hopefully the book references will help people who want to learn more.

"Task-based navigation," Poster presentation with IBM colleagues at the 2005 IA Summit, March 2005. Download - warning, very large file, may want to save to disk.