The information snowflake – consuming, collating, commenting, collaborating and creating from I, Distributius, Via: elearnspace
Nice visual description of information lifecycle

By looking at each of these facets, we can start to understand our own use of information or that of other people. Where are the flaws or weaknesses in our own information snowflake? Why would a new information tool help us to process each facet more effectively? When designing a tool that crosses facets, how can we minimise the disruption between user experiences of each activity? Which facets are we particularly good at? Which could be improved?

Learning Conversations From Dusk and Dawn

There is a little know learning theory called Conversation Theory. In brief, it states that learning is about ‘conversations’ and that effective learning design enables these conversations (I apologies for this awful over-simplification, I think I can hear the sound of someone turning in their grave). There are 3 types of conversation:

1. Conversations with the self
2. Conversations with the world
3. Conversations with others

While I may not subscribe to the specific details of this approach, I find it a very useful framework for thinking about learning design. IMO, a good learning experience encompasses all three types of conversation. The more ‘conversations’ we enable for the learner, the more effectively they will learn. I do not believe all of the conversations need to be provided by a single medium (e.g. an e-learning course might not enable all 3 conversations, but the criteria might be met by also including discussion groups, mentoring and some face-to-face training).

The Big Web Design Details List by D. Keith Robinson
Some of the items from the great list -

• Are buttons fully clickable? I see semi-clickible buttons all the time and they bug the heck outta me.
• Are fly-outs functioning properly? Easy to click? Spaced far enough apart? I find these hard to use all the time, but when they’re done well they don’t frustrate me though.
• Does content maintain a good default line length and font size (especially for small serif fonts) for reading?
• Does the content print well?

User Experience is More Than Design – Jeffrey Veen

Clearly, both Apple and Sony understand the importance of the bottom circle; the desirability of their products is undeniable. But desirability from a design perspective is only part of the equation. Clearly, Apple understood that bringing the same deep commitment to user experience to the technological and financial aspects of the product were also required. If you have an iPod, it shows every time you use it. Plug it in and iTunes launches. You’ll see that it has the same attention to detail as the hardware, with consistency in interaction and labeling. Your gadget will automatically sync, so now all the music you’ve ripped or downloaded recently can come with you. It uses Firewire, so it takes no time at all. Click on the iTunes Music Store and the same interface takes you through the intuative shopping process.

Via: UI Designer

Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds : a Slashdot Interview

It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language. It is my intention that free textbooks from our wikibooks project will be used to revolutionize education in developing countries by radically cutting the cost of content.

Those kinds of big picture ideals make people very passionate about what we’re doing. And it makes it possible for people to set aside a lot of personal differences and disputes of the kind that I talked about above, and just compromise to keep getting the work done.