Video: SXSW interview with Peter Morville

The extraordinary Liz Danzico interviewed Peter Morville at SXSW. If you want to dig into some Ambient Findability goodness, there are 3 flavors of QuickTime video of the event.

Nathan Shedroff interviewed re: experience design

Jared Spool's U.I.E. Tips interviews Nathan Shedroff regarding information design: www.uiconf.com/8/articles/shedroff_interview.html

The interview is kind of a basic introduction to the discipline of Experience Design.

(The interview is available on the User Interface 8 conference website.)

O'Reilly interviews Krug and Rosenfeld

Even if you've read separate interviews with Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug, and even if you've read the other joint interviews they've done, this interview at O'Reilly is worth reading, if only for Steve Krug's great analogies:

I sometimes think the best analog for my job is a "show doctor"--the person who comes in while a Broadway show is still in out-of-town tryouts, watches the whole thing, and says, "I think it would work much better if you moved the cowgirl dance number to the start of the second act, and killed the love ballad altogether."

But, humor aside, Lou and Steve both have some good things to say, and it's not just a sales pitch for their seminars or a regurgitation of past interviews.

More info:

• Steve's workshop
• Lou's workshop
• Lou's comments on this interview
• Another interview with Lou and Steve

Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture v-2 interview

Adam interviews Karl Fast, John Zapolski and Jeff Lash to address some unanswered questions about the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture and to discuss what it has accomplished thus far and where it's going.

Steve Krug Interview

Tom pointed to the since1968 interview with Steve Krug.

An interview with Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld

Meryl K. Evans interviews Lou and Peter on Digital Web.

Nathan Shedroff: The v-2 interview (2/2)

Part 2 of Adam Greenfield's interview with Nathan Shedroff.

Interview: Maryam Mohit, Amazon.com

Mark Hurst interviews Maryam Mohit, V.P. of Site Development at Amazon.com to find out what makes that company one of the leaders in customer experience online and off.

For us, it's a combination of listening really hard to customers, and innovating on their behalf.

I never knew about Amazon's butterfly ballot joke.

Nathan Shedroff: The V-2 Interview 1/2

If IAs (and others) want to be taken seriously and gain back some of the stature they've lost in the last three years, they should start with turning down the volume on the entitlement and righteous indignation, and opening their eyes to a lot of other people who know a piece of the evolving puzzle that is called the customer marketplace.

Adam Greenfield interviews Nathan Shedroff to talk very candidly about Experience Design and Information Architecture. It's part 1 in a 2 part series that's turned out to be a lively debate with significant clashes occurring between the concepts of experience design and information architecture. Shedroff offers some succinct definitions that characterize ED as an umbrella encompassing a lot of smaller roles. I've tended to accept this classification to some extent, but found Shedroff's perceptions of the smaller roles (and the people who inhabit those roles) to be rather unclear at times (IA is not Information Design in my opinion) and condescending at others. It is interesting to read his perceptions of IA, however, particularly with regard to the growth of the field, the ability of IA's to view projects within a broader context. I disagree with those opinions as well.

At one point Shedroff also mentions Information Theory, stating that more IAs should be conversant in it. I found that amusing. I know that many of us come from LIS backgrounds, so there is no doubt that many IAs have some knowledge of that literature, but am wondering how they factor that into the work they do. For me, the experience of studying and working on Information Retrieval is informed by a lot of IR literature, but as a generalist, I rarely point to specific theories in order to make decisions. Shedroff also mentions Wurman, but I have no idea what Wurman has to do with Information Theory. Maybe this has to do with the fact that he lumps information architecture with information design.

In any case, it was a very open conversation -- with opinions that should be aired in the public in this manner. Looking forward to part 2.

Eric Miller on the Semantic Web

Peter V. pointed to this interview on New Breed Librarian with Eric Miller, which provides a concise definition of the Semantic Web and examples of how it would be realized in applications.

Thanks, Peter. I found the examples helpful as I still attempt to grok how this will be used in the real world. Thanks Eric for reminding me to link to it. Duh.

A Visit with a Digital Architect

Online Journalism Review interviews Matt Jones.