Laszlo Systems provides a platform to develop Rich Internet Applications, and announced at Web 2.0 that they have . That means that there’s an open platform for developing RIAs that doesn’t require any knowledge of Flash itself - just a new markup language similar to XHTML, XUL, etc.

Google has launched their in public beta. The most interesting thing is that rather than being a desktop application, it simply adds another tab to Google’s search results, and displays indexed desktop content from email, Office documents, etc.

Peter Morville spent some time in the library this summer looking for research related to information architecture. He just published a , categorized by broad topics like navigation and search. Useful stuff, but heavy reading at times.

Lou Rosenfeld , this time focused on search.

Donna Maurer has an insightful post comparing the task-orientation of HCI to the we see on the web. Trying to apply a task-centric perspective to the problems of looking for unknown information seems to cause a lot of the friction between "old skool" human factors types and more web savvy newcomers.

A while ago on the aifia-members list, asked about social classification generated by the informal user tagging in Flickr, del.icio.us, etc. In his reply on the list, coined the term folksonomy to describe these informal classifications, and Gene’s sparked a lot of .

One thing that really strikes me about social classification is that it’s user-centered bottom up classification. Most bottom up classification is document or . Social classification provides insight not just into content, but into users and context as well.

UIDesigner points to , a must-read article for UX types looking to communicate business value. The key take away for me, something I’ve had a gut feeling for, but never articulated, is that the value of an ROI exercise is in the process, not the result.

This underscores some of the , where the process and discipline of measurement and accountability are what distinguish one organization from another, rather than simply projected outcomes.

UIDesigner has an interesting in developing information architectures.

I’ve asked before: what are alternatives to card sorting that let us go beyond the superficial? I still haven’t heard any definitive answers though.

Gene Smith has collected quite a few . If you can’t get to one of , or if you’re wondering if you should go, this is a great place to wrap your head around EIA.

Lou Rosenfeld offers up his set of . Much more useful for evaluating findability than Jakob and Rolf’s original usability heuristics that were developed in DOS days.

Jeff Veen and Darcy DiNucci recently offered a . Jeff sums up lessons learned in the report with his article .

Smart cookie Victor Lombardi is as a consultant. If your organization is looking for design management thinking, would be an excellent idea.

There’s a problem with endless copied and pasted pseudo-data in wireframes - if the numbers in the shopping cart don’t add up, or clients struggle with lorem ipsum, what’s an IA to do? Fake data can distract stakeholders and take valuable time away from examining core functionality. Dan Brown offers a in the latest Boxes and Arrows.

Michael Angeles has a for information architects looking for work. If you’re in the market for an IA job, particularly if you’re new in the field, go read it now. Caroline Jarrett’s recent take on has similar themes with some other tips mixed in as well.

Andrew Ottwell’s makes me want to .

Malcolm McCullough’s new book…is a readable and timely contribution to current interaction design. Using ideas drawn from architectural and design theory, cognitive science, and philosophy, McCullough significantly extends current ideas about pervasive computing and so-called experience design, while building on the foundation of traditional task-centered interface design. It’s the best current book on interaction design, and should appeal to both designers and theorists.

Thanks

“The is a cross-organizational, multi-disciplined effort to establish a standard for all public broadcasting content (radio and television), in order that metadata might be more easily exchanged between colleagues, software systems, institutions, community partners, individual citizens, etc. The Project will be a “touchstone,” a single, streamlined standard to which other database structures, including those of PBS, NPR, major producing stations, and other asset/content management systems will be “mapped.” It can also be used as a guide for the onset of an archival or asset management process at an individual station or institution.”

Gary Feldman at Cheskin shares some . This quote sums up the problem - becoming a "betamax first mover loser". His examples are Tivo (a great innovation) and satellite radio (a paid version of something you already have). The main difference between the two is that Tivo doesn’t integrate into the TV / Cable experience - buying a Tivo requires extra effort - while satellite radio is an option at the dealership.

The key insight for UX is that it’s the integrated experience that matters - not just the one specific product we might be working on.

btw, Cheskin’s is consistently insightful and refreshing.

Christina Wodtke and friends (including yours truly) are organizing a .

At a glance:

• Oct. 1-3
• At Asilomar, in Pacific Grove, CA
• No cost beyond travel and lodging
• Only 40 spots, so discussion stays personal.

It’s a great opportunity to mix with other IAs and look at the future of the practice. Hope to see you there.

A List Apart offers a in the page that were searched for by the user. You can to see the script in action.

It’s a summer of soft launches as the . The IxDG (I’m not sure what the x is for, except to say it’s not info design) is modeled along similar lines to . Props to those involved, though I think there’s some wheel reinvention going on - with tools, job board, and resource library being carbon copies of AIfIA initiatives.

The duplicate intitiatives (and the spread of UX related organizations in general) point to the fact that we’ll hit organizational fatigue in the UX space and need some consolidation. Right now we have a lot of groups doing some similar things (AIfIA, ASIS&T, UPA, CHI, STC, AIGA ED, HFES, IxDG, possibly some InfoDesign group in the near future…). Picking a professional organization to join or initiative to volunteer for requires travelling a crowded, even claustrophobic, space for the UX practitioner who crosses boundaries between interaction design, IA, info design, etc.

My personal preference is for , so I get benefits across the orgs even if I only belong to one or two. And I’m also biased to favor the younger organizations like IxDG and AIfIA - while they don’t have as much infrastructure, they are tailored to today’s practitioner.