Glanceability

Glanceability   [excerpt from Lorcan Dempsey's weblog]
May 08, 2007
http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001347.html

Glanceability is about enabling "users to understand information with low cognitive effort". And further: Glanceability refers to how quickly and easily the visual design conveys information after the user is paying attention to the display.

These quotes are from a paper Designing glanceable peripheral displays by Matthews, Forlizzi and Rohrbach at Berkeley. [abstract html] [full text pdf].

I went looking for further information about glanceability after I came across a mention of it in Tony Hirst's blog:

However, whilst the visual component to radio is not just using limited to scrolling liveText displays, nor does it mean moving wholesale into television: the key is to support glanceability, a beautifully evocative word referring to the ability to look at a screen and capture the information you require at a glance. [OUseful Info: Learnin' from Virgin] 

Broadly speaking, it seems to me that effective ranking, for example, supports glanceability, as folks will focus in on top results and may forego individually inspecting each member of a result set. And of course, one of the issues with library websites is that they have low glanceability: they require quite a bit of cognitive effort to figure out what is available where as they present a...

Joomla - cms web management

CIL-07
http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/04/17/computers-in-libraries-2007-day-2-rhumba-with-joomla-using-a-cms-to-build-community/

CIL - information-design-for-the-new-web

David Kings notes from CIL 07

http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/04/16/computers-in-libraries-2007-day-1-information-design-for-the-new-web/

Web Opac -- Webpac Pro

Need to begin serious work on Webpac Pro.

Plan:

• Review latest info on CSDirect
• Make sure I have latest downloads
• Check for wwwoptions files for sites that are good
• Check for my experimental briefcit files
• Check IUG clearinghouse for webpub.def examples

In addition, ask other librarians to take a look at Encore at ACRL.

Ban the word "re-design"

Interesting thought from Louis Rosenfeld via David King. It's not that we don't do this, it's just that we may not think about it this way. The RSS feed from David's site is short and can be quoted here. (http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/02/20/design-for-your-audience/)

Louis Rosenfeld has started a 5-part series on Information Architecture. Part one includes this:

Step #1: Ban the word “redesign” from your meetings.
Step #2: Determine who your most important audiences are.
Step #3: Determine each primary audience’s 3-5 major needs.
Step #4: Make damned sure your site addresses each of those needs.

Great words of wisdom, I think! Now… who are your library’s most important audiences?