[Sigia-l] New Book

[Clifton Evans]

Hello all!

Long time no chat. I've been awfully quite on the list for a while as  
I've been up to my ears working, doing a masters degree and finishing a  
book, Usable Shopping Carts.

I'll just make this a quick note as time is important. The book is a  
series of practical tutorials with online source files for building a  
shopping system. It may very well be the first book to include IA and  
Development. My contribution is the first third of the book on doing  
practical IA and UI. Jon Stephens and Jody Kerr wrote the chapters that  
follow mine on how to build a shopping system, from database design to  
security.

The example product is a shopping site for buying music and concert  
tickets. The book itself was published by Glasshaus, the interaction  
arm of the Wrox and Friends of Ed publishing family. I have been told  
by my co-workers that the code is quite good if you intend to build a  
small to medium system. But honestly, there's no need to sell the book  
here, just take a look at if you are interested in eCommerce, teaching  
how to practice IA within a development project or even just fascinated  
by books on IA.

Here's the link.. and a copyright free book snippet below.. enjoy it!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1904151140/ 
qid=1042651982/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-3664437-3993619?v=glance&s=books

Clifton Evans
Information Architect - Object1
http://www.object1.com
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Creating UI Specs
There are a number of ways to put these together as they have had a  
long history in traditional software development. When you are working  
with the web, a number of the more traditional software approaches will  
work well, but they may be too complicated, inflexible or technical for  
web based projects. That being said, if the product is fairly  
application oriented and will have traditional GUI elements, it is  
justifiable to look into the older methods.

Keep in mind that if you are reading this book these older methods will  
only help you so much because you are developing a Content-Based web  
application and not a Task-Driven desktop application.  What is the  
difference, you may ask? Content-Based applications are oriented  
towards supplying a user with content and Task-Driven applications  
allow users to create and modify documents. Either type of application  
can be online, though the majority of internet products are  
Content-Based systems. Because of this, it is important to remember the  
difference when creating an online application.

What you will need to get started on UI Specs is an understanding of  
what the standards are in writing these documents. You will also need a  
good knowledge of who is staffed on the technical side of the project  
and what these people need to know about the interface. There is no  
right way to do UI Specs but there are a few standards out there and  
there is definitely a wrong way. In order to avoid this, let’s just say  
you don’t want to assume anything. It very important to do some  
research and to ask a lot of questions about what sort of information  
the developers will need. Don’t leave any stone unturned. And make sure  
to let them know that they can come to you and ask any questions, no  
matter how trivial.

To give you an idea of the sort of documents that are standard in the  
industry and what developers will want to know, I’ve included a few  
links to UI Specs and a few tutorials on how to do them correctly..."

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