The new Freeview website is now live and is looking so much better than it was previously. I was part of the team that assisted in the redevelopment of the site and was in charge of developing the Information Architecture for the new site. Hopefully the new visual design and structure will be welcomed with positive feedback!
Just a quick tweak to existing functionality really, rather than a full-blown addition to the site. I have just finished tweaking the MooFlow functionality used for my Flickr feed in the blog section of the site and included it on a dedicated photos page so that users can scroll through my photos and enjoy a more immersive experience.
This morning I integrated a cool little piece of functionality into the blog section of Hungry Browser. In a nutshell the functionality allows me to listen to my music on my MacBook Pro through iTunes and seemlessly publish what I am currently listening to on this website. Users can click on the image for each album and will be taken to Amazon where they can purchase the album/track.
The reason for integrating this was to effortlessly share the music I am listening to with others, without having to log in to a web-based service such as last.fm.
There are two parts to this functionality, both originially developed by Brand Fuller. The first part is the iTunes integration where you install a plugin to export the music you are listening to into an external XML file that can be uploaded to your website. The second part (which I have adapted) is a PHP script that looks into the XML file and then takes the data and outputs it as HTML.
In conclusion a nice little bit of functionality.
I came across these interesting data visualisation projects whilst working on the IA for the redesign of the Freeview website. There are some great ideas here involving the presentation and manipulation of data objects. As IA is very much about communicating ideas to clients and teams I am hoping to use some similar presentation techniques on future conceptual IA.
For more info about cool data visualisation experiments and projects check out: visualcomplexity.com
Over the past few months Amazon have been tweaking their existing site to improve the design and user experience. They have done a good job, but I couldn’t help but notice that they have only gone half the way to using Web standards in their redesign efforts. Here’s a little (non-exhaustive) summary of what they are missing:
Amazon still provides a great online shopping experience, but you have thought that if they had gone to the trouble of redesigning their site they would have taken a few lessons out of Yahoo’s book and gone down the full Web standards route.
Redeveloping the front-end code and optimising the user interface.
Part of the discovery IA whilst working on the Freeview redesign.
Part of the IA toolbox I created whilst at Grand Union.
Part of the IA I created for the Heinz website redesign pitch.
Part of the IA I created for the Freeview website redesign.
Wireframes for the launch of the new Sony HD website.
Restructuring Digital UK ready for CMS migration.
Examing the UXP elements of the Freeview website.
Where and when to use IA deliverables.
When should IA be inolved in a web dev project.
IA and web strategy for BT Vision
IA and web strategy for BT Anywhere
IA and web strategy for London Capital Group
Online versions of the videos I've produced over recent years. Select a link to launch the video (you'll need to turn on your audio).