[Sigia-l] mixing apples and oranges and tomatoes

[Tanya Rabourn]

It seems to me that the first conclusion people come to when faced with
this problem is just as Julie and George suggest:

Julie Francis wrote:
> ...then it seems to me that the best solution is to put the information in
> both places.
>
> Why?  It best meets both the user's and the company's goals.  To put it in
> one place risks the end-user not finding what he/she is looking for.  And
> that ultimately hurts the company.
...

George Olsen wrote:
> * Unlike grocery stores, in digital space we *can* put products in more
> than one location. So why limit ourselves to One True Organizational
> Structure based on models that face different constraints.
<snip>
> That's what database-drive sites are all about -- one bit of info being
> able to displayed in multiple places.
<snip>
> I actually tend to agree with the client that it's a useful redundancy
...

However, isn't it at odds with this bit of research:
"Toward Usable Browse Hierarchies for the Web"
http://www.microsoft.com/usability/UEPostings/HCI-kirstenrisden.doc

It would also seem to me that good navigation is based on learnable
categories. If users encounter redundancy wouldn't that confuse them and
hinder their attempts to figure out what features make something a member
of one category and then where to look for the item that they want? (Keep
in mind I'm not talking about some sort of forced learning of a taxonomy,
but the sort that we naturally do everyday when meeting new concepts and
sorting them into our own taxonomy of knowledge.)

If you put an item in more than one spot for someone who isn't in your
primary user group, I think you would risk confusing your primary user
group for the sake of the minority.

Also, if you abandon the idea of mutually exclusive categories, where do
you stop the redundancy? I know this is forcing it to the absurd, but, at
some point you would have every item under every category because someone
at some point might look for it there. O.K., I know we're just talking
about the tomatoes. I know, you have it under control, you can stop
anytime, well maybe we should put the lemons in both spots too...

So what's really necessary, as a couple others suggested, is not to put an
odd item in more than one spot, but to put it where your particular users
would expect it. If the categories you've chosen in a given facet are
based on your particular users' mental model, then it should be possible
(as well as necessary) to determine the features of that item that are
important to your users given the current context of what they are doing.
Using those features (but not taking into account every feature of an item
as if trying to get at the "true aboutness" of it) wouldn't you then be
able to categorize it? And wouldn't doing so result in a site that's
easier to navigate?


-Tanya
___________________________________
Tanya Rabourn <rabourn at columbia.edu>
[User Services Consultant]
AcIS R & D <www.columbia.edu/acis/rad>
tel: 212.854.0295