The uncanny valley is a term from the world of robotics, which states that when something appears almost perfect, it can cause a negative reaction*. Or, to be more precise:
The uncanny valley hypothesis holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.
Source: Wikipedia
I’m talking about the uncanny valley in regards to creating prototypes, so revulsion may be too strong a term; but I think the principle still applies.
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I work as an Information Architect / Developer, and I’m a big fan of comics. For my IA work I refer frequently to the work of Jesse James Garrett, especially his Elements of User Experience book, and as a fan of comics I recently read (again) Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.
I’m not saying that to boast of my geek credentials, but to introduce something I never imagined I’d find: a connection between the two.
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Today is my penultimate day in my current job; next week I’m going on a trip to Spain, and when I get back I’m starting my new job at the award-winning Preloaded agency. My focus will be shifting away from client-side development and onto information architecture; it’s a fantastic challenge for me, and I’m very excited about working on top brands for a top agency.
I’ve been slowly introducing IA into my role over the past three years, and so this is a logical step for me to take. I’ll be sad to leave my current agency, but delighted to be moving to somewhere I’ll be able to focus on what I think are the next hot topics on the web: findability & usability.
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I’ve been doing quite a lot of site mapping recently, and looking for a way to escape the standard boxy top-down view. In searching for examples of different ways to present the information, that are pleasing to look at but still immediately convey meaning, I found a number of interesting examples.
Below are the pick of the results, along with a few that don’t quite work, and some old standbys. I wanted to include images to illustrate this, but in most cases the license didn’t allow.
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