One of my favorite blogs right now is Creating Passionate Users, by authors of O’Reilly’s Head First series.
Yesterday’s post led me to Choice = Headaches at the blog Joel on Software. The entry is about the obscene number of ways to turn off a Windows Vista machine (up to 15 by Joel’s count), but it’s really about interface design, user experience, and choice, and there is a lot in there that we librarians would be wise to take to heart.
I’m fascinated by LibraryThing’s new UnSuggester, unveiled Sunday along with their “real” recommender system. UnSuggester gives you opposites instead of similar titles.
For example, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky overlaps least with Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins overlaps least with Wild at Heart: Discovering the Passionate Soul of a Man by John Eldredge.
It could make an interesting collection development tool–or at least a fun way to expand your horizons a bit, even if you don’t read the opposites.
You can read more about UnSuggester and BookSuggester (the actual recommender system) at the LibraryThing Blog. And you can try them out for yourself even if you don’t have a LibraryThing account.