Table of Contents

Why I wrote this book
Who this book is for
How this book is organized
A woeful tale




The root problem of ineffective communication
The first branch: heightened and misaligned expectations
The second branch: negative relational dynamics
Fixing the problems


The discovery of grayscreen prototyping
Synthesis of three disciplines
Finding a process that works
The problem with documenting
Defining technical specs non-technically
What didn't work
HTML "grayscreen" prototyping
We were really on to something


Enabling a deeper understanding of a site
Integrating a broad range of insight into a site
Effectively translating technical specifications
Encouraging and facilitating multiple iterations
Maximizing the skills of the designer
Emphasizing structure, content and functionality
Facilitating content creation and delivery
Clarifying scope
Saving time
Increasing quality
Establishing solid relationships


Creating grayscreen prototypes rapidly
Keeping them simple
Keeping them non-visual
Making them thorough


Step one: establishing structure
Step two: representing content
Step three: defining functionality
Database field definition
Guessing
Using templates
Using "includes"
Content collection and organization
Approval process and policy
The role of the project manager




A definition of information design
Importance of information


Don't construct decoration
Erase
Good questions
The fallacy of "professional" testing
Design


Establishing site categories
Labeling
Navigation systems
DHTML drop down menus
A caution when using drop down menus
Searching a site
Determining the usefulness of a search
Searching with too many criteria
Boolean operators
Ranking search engine results