Incorporating semantic technologies into applications is more practical than ever, and so the uses – and range of users – have become very broad. As leaders in this industry find ways to incorporate these advances into new products, we have to be as innovative with the human element… the user experience.

How and when do you incorporate user experience design activities into your process? What questions are answered, and what value does it bring?

It helps to reflect on the role of UX through an example where it is second nature. We often use the metaphor of a dinner party to explore the intersections between user research, experience design, data design, and technology development.

Know Who’s Coming (User Research)

A successful dinner party is one that cares about the people who are there, and plans an experience that meets and exceeds their expectations. Are the people compatible socially? Do you know their interests and concerns? Have you learned if they have any allergies or diet preferences, so you don’t give them something they find unpleasant or harmful?

Read more

Dave Mccomb of Semantic Arts recently discussed how inspiration plays a part in designing ontologies. He writes, “It seems that there are three ways that ontologies are or can be related to applications. They are: (1) Inspiration. (2) Transformation. (3) Extension. To put this conversation in context, let’s go back to the ‘tic tac toe’ board [above]. What it is attempting to convey is that there are levels of abstraction and differences in perspective that we should consider when we are modeling. An application is in the lower middle cell. Data models are in the middle square. Ontologies could be anywhere. An ontology is a formal way of representing a model. And so we could have an ontology that describes an application, an ontology of a logical model, even ontologies of data or meta meta data.” Read more