iA

I think the other point of view, the anti-directory one, is well reflected in this review of OSX: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/mountain-lions-new-file-system/

The most notable saying is that "As soon as we have more than a handful of notions, or (beware!) more than one hierarchical level of notions, it gets hard for most brains to build a mental model of that information architecture."

Here is my ranty answer:

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My god. Who the HELL are those guys to be so dismissive of human brain?

I have a kid, he is learning ten words a day, and this little boy is not a genius: It is a normal human being in formation. He is also playing a lot with my old legos, and he is communicating better and better in two very different languages. I can tell you, dear "Information architects" that he can already handle more than one hierarchical level!

I have worked in normal companies before. By that I mean companies were people have meetings, get bored by many slideshows every week, and use excel spreadsheets daily. In this kind of companies, geniuses are not the norm. And all of these people, all of these common "brains" could handle easily "more than one hierarchical level".

So, dear "Information architects", please keep your stinky morgue to yourself.

Human brain is the most wonderful thing that can be observed in the world. Its capacities surpass anything we (human brains) can modelize with our other tools. A kid of 3 years is much better in all what matters than a computer.…

Having self-taught myself a lot about design, let me give you a few pointers.

The number one rule is that you have to start paying attention to the design of everything. Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" is a good start on developing this, and you really shouldn't miss it. But this applies to everything: when something's nice, figure out why. Notice typefaces, and form a mental library so you can identify them.

It's a bit of an odd path, but I'll also suggest, since you're interested in interactive systems, reading several great Human Interface Guidelines. Apple's OS X ones are my favorite (You might even want to get an older version, because they're a bit more general), but the Nokia Meego ones are worth a look too. Most others are too mediocre to teach you anything though.

Some other books I have to suggest:
Bringhurtst's "The Elements of Typographic Style." Definately read some kind of lighter treatment of type first, so you know humanists from geometrics, serifs from sans, high and low contrast, and so forth, but if you want to really get it, this is the book. If you go in knowing that some of what he's saying is opinion, this is the book you need to read.

The Universal Principles of Design: It's really not the best book, and there's some things, like the readability research, that's actually just complete crap, but it's an alright, quick overview of a few dozen concepts. If you understand the concepts in it, skip it, but as a first intro, you could do…

I try to keep my subscription to an absolute minimum since I like to leave some time for reading books. After a lot of culling, I'm currently subscribed to some popular feeds:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ (general web design / dev)

http://www.alistapart.com/ (long form web design / front-end)

http://dailyjs.com/ (Javascript / node.js)

http://createdigitalmusic.com/ (digital music / software)

http://www.creativeapplications.net/ (new-media art)

And a handful of unpopular ones:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/ (absolutely my favorite blog in the world – self-describes as "refactored perception)

http://www.tempobook.com/blog/ (same author as above, posts related to his last book)

http://worrydream.com/feed.xml (not really a blog, but Bret Victor writes some of the best long-form articles on interaction design around – read all of them)

http://www2.technologyreview.com/rss/video_rss.aspx (Tech Review videos, sparsely updated – mainly because the editor's interviews are awesome/hilarious)

http://idlewords.com/ (breathtaking travel blog from the founder of Pinboard)

http://www.loper-os.org/ (awesome / hilarious posts by a software heretic on the general terrible state of things in technology – keeps me in touch with Alan Kay-esque thinking)

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/ (the only contemporary art blog I like from a very dedicated Italian writer)

http://vagueterrain.net/ (occasionally published digital art magazine, themed topics, guest…

your general disdain for writers and editors

It's completely justified. For example: show me where in Poltz's long career as a writer and editor that he secretly squeezed in the years of UX, design, and development experience that qualifies him to make a statement about designing user interfaces.

The problem is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here or that it requires anything beyond their insight.

I admit that I'm not always happy with the result ... http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmological-supercomputer

This design doesn't incorporate many of the base standards for displaying long-form web content. Font size is way too small (should be 16-18px, 14px absolute minimum), column is too wide ("ideal" is 66 characters, though there's a wide range). A good starter article: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ There are many, many more.

Until that page is completely redesigned and returned to a readable baseline, it's difficult to discuss or test anything.

I think the real solution lies somewhere between not doing anything and just mindlessly peppering related articles at the bottom.

Something along the lines of how iA suggests publishers start using twitter[1] - the idea being you should make references to other works as part of your content, rather than an after thought.

I've recently started doing this with my own posts where I will link phrases to other posts (my own or others') that explain the concept in greater detail.

Traditional print does that by way of literary reference. Read any piece of fiction or good journalism and it will likely be peppered with plenty of references to other works. They just won't be something you can click because technology.

[1]http://informationarchitects.net/blog/sweep-the-sleaze/

There is actually a difference if we're talking about "adaptive layout" vs "liquid layout". In adaptive layout, the layout is adjusted in steps according to a limited number of sizes (various screen sizes, usually). While in responsive layout, the layout is adjusted continuously to every possible width.[1] When we're talking about responsive design, most example uses liquid layout.

Adaptive layout, though, is arguably better for readability. Optimal readability involves having control of the line-length of a body of text, which can be achieved with adaptive layout. In the case of liquid layout, line-length varies wildly over every width change, which is sub-optimal readability-wise.

[1] http://informationarchitects.net/blog/responsive-typography-the-basics/