If you are a web professional like me and especially if you are in the User Experience field, with a title like "Information Architect", you may have had similar experiences while trying to explain to non-web professionals what it is exactly that you do. After much trial and error and not being satisfied with telling people that I am just "a web designer" (and then subsequently hearing requests to design their friend's website or to create another version of facebook for them for $200 and a slice of pizza), I have begun to just tell people that I meet here and there that "I draw boxes". Amazingly, I began to realize that every position and every title within the web and digital world, can be explained in boxes! Allow me to demonstrate:

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Last year, I visited the Noguchi Gardens in Astoria, NY. Although the architecture and sculptures from Isamu Noguchi himself were all very facinating, interestingly enough, I found myself most captivated by a little documentary that was being shown in the gift store. It was about a lesser known designer, Isamu Kenmochi (1912-1971), a Japanese industrial designer famous for his rattan chair design - a hand-weaved basket chair made in bamboo. The part that left me most inspired were the opening quotes by Kenmochi that encapsulated his design philosophy.

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Good user experience design is all around us. When something is designed very well, you don't think about it. You just run with it. And you are fustration-free.

As a user experience professional, however, I've trained my mind and eye to catch these sometimes small or even seemingly insignificant features from everything including websites, applications, devices and even dvd menus. Even then, If I am not careful, I like so many others outside of my field, am still capable of taking good user experience for granted.

Today, I was reading one of my usual favorite hoops blog - HoopsWorld.com. As a Knick fan, I've been following the summer long story of Carmelo Anthony's rumor of coming to the Big Apple. While reading today's story regarding that subject, I read a paragraph that I wanted to specifically share with my friends on my fantasy basketball league page. So I highlighted it, copied it and pasted it into the yahoo message board.

Right before I pressed "submit post", however, I caught something that was unexpected - as well as pleasant. It seems that the developers at Hoops World thought it would be nice to automatically include a "Read More at <link of article>" postfix after copied content for the user. I was almost ready to go into my step 3 of sharing the article by going back to the page and copying the URL in the address bar.

As a result, I was so happy with my new found web-feature that I decided to write an entire post about it. And below was the snippet I took along with the automatically created postfix. Thank you Hoops World!

"The Nuggets only won 17 games or something like that. I remember me saying, 'I hope Denver doesn't draft me. I hope Denver don't pick me.' At that time, Detroit had wanted me so everyone was thinking I was going to Detroit. I wanted to go to Detroit. I was like, 'Please, Denver, don't draft me! Please! Please!' Come to find out, they draft me. As I come out here, I'm like, 'I don't know nothing about Denver.' I tried to look on the internet and all I saw were mountains and I'm like, 'Oh shit, I can't do this. Man, I can't do this,'" Anthony said.

Read more NBA news and insight: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=17715#ixzz13TGXCY7d