A couple of great blog posts by Peter Merholz – Emergent IA and Gene Smith – How do people co-create information environments? touching on topics surrounding emergent IA. There is also some follow up discussion in the IAI mailing list.

As designers look towards user research for the objective truth, Christopher questions the motives behind the research. He follows with a series of articles, the first of which discuss user research as a pseudo science pointing to absolutes that do not exist. He continues the discussion stating that tools such as eye tracking provide results that are already apparent to good UI designers. His latest article explains that a value of user research is often to cut through the politics and convince stakeholders to make good design decisions. His upcoming article: “Research as Bullshit”

If you haven’t already seen Getty Images' 10 Ways, it’s worth a look. Getty collaborated with 5 designers to create some very creative interactive experiences. They attempt to capture the compelling visual language of photography.

I’m not too sold on them as educational tools but they are neat interactive pieces none the less.