PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 22, No. 5, Sept. 5, 2002

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"Site-seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability," by Luke Wroblewski (John Wiley & Sons, 2002)

Wroblewski’s approach derives from his academic and professional experience at the UI, where he combined the study of arts and technology and now works as an interface designer at the university’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Contributing to the content and design of the book were Illinois art and design professors Nan Goggin and Jennifer Gunji.

"My main motivation in writing this book," Wroblewski said, "is to emphasize the importance of the visual aspects — a different approach than what’s out there."

In the book, Wroblewski maps out three areas he deems essential to good Web design: presentation, which includes fonts, image and colors; organization, from the site’s structure to writing and content decisions; and interaction, which considers the behavior between users and systems.

For more information: www.lukew.com/folio/writings/site_seeing.html

"The Hundred Greatest Stars," by James Kaler Copernicus Books, 2002)

For more information: www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler

"The Design of Innovation," by David E. Goldberg (Kluwer, 2002)

Goldberg and his students are working on computer programs that implement the ideas of this book, and they have recently filed for a patent on one program called the hierarchical Bayesian optimization algorithm (hBOA). hBOA solves or optimizes problems requiring thousands of decisions in minutes and future versions will be able to evolve computer programs without specifying individual lines of code or computer instructions.

For more information: www-doi.ge.uiuc.ed

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