The April 21 Alertbox is about keeping it simple - not a simple user interface, but simple media for the content.

In short, the fancy audio and videos are not worth the effort.

This reminds me of the old-time Alertboxes - nothing too surprising, but good to keep this article handy so that I can reference it the next time someone gets gung-ho on the rich media.

there is literally a wealth of fascinating presentation material and cutting edge theory of experience design to be found in the collected talks available online from the Doors 7: Flow conference

this one by London's Design Council on Humanising Technology was particularly intriguing

Design Council's Humanising Technology effort

Design creates space for common language between disciplines.

One company we are working with is developing highly complex software for large businesses in the energy industry. The company moved from being knowledge consultants in the industry to developers of a new technology that will allow real time financial modelling. Even before they have a UI the small, highly specialised team realised that there was no shared representation of the technology and therefore different perceptions of the benefits it will bring.

Just stumbled onto this tools called Huminity that creates a contacts management web of all the people you know. I thought it would be interesting for folks interested in social networks.

Article in InfoWorld about vendor efforts to capture content at point of creation.

In an effort to strengthen control over collaborative content inside enterprises, content and knowledge management tools are fortifying integration with e-mail and business applications to capture content at its point of creation.

The CDS looks very interesting. The organization is concerned with using digital media to enable people to tell their stories. They provide some case studies for work they've done. Inspired by Victor's recent thoughts on story telling, I wonder if anyone has approached the CDS to discuss the intersection of digital story telling and IA? Seems like an opportunity for some knowledge sharing. I'm mainly interested in story telling at the moment becausing I'm working on personas.

Related to this topic is Richard Toscan's Visual vs. Verbal Storytelling, which compares the story telling approaches in Antonioni's film The Passenger with Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden. I am not familiar with either. Is interesting to see the breakdown of opening sequences for each of these stories described in terms of sensory media. I actually minored in cinema studies, but tended to shy away from analysis of story telling, especially with regard to textuality, but I've always been interested in how messages are communicated. I guess that last comment seems contradictory :). I wonder, are people who are into this story telling stuff also into Barthes and textuality? I recall the discomfort of actually having to read that literature.

[Thanks infodesign and xblog]