[Sigia-l] Information-centered Design

[Coon, Sean]

Daniel wrote:
"In effect, the application, or single site, operates as a personal
decision support system."

"This is great, Daniel, and exactly my point. The fact that people use
the Web to make decisions should not be a surprise to any of us; we know
that people come to our sites for a reason. They are having an internal
dialogue with themselves that needs input from another source - viola,
enter the greatest resource tool ever, tada!, the Web.

However, the institutions now control the information that we need to
make these decisions. Should I buy a Honda? What does the Honda website
say? Of course you should! Will JCrew jeans get me more girlfriends?
That's what the site's photos seems to show. Wouldn't it be great if on
JCrew's site anyone could freely post comments about each article of
clothing! Ha! "This shirt is cut oddly, doesn't fit right." - Frank, MO.
Now that is info that helps me make decisions.

Now some will argue that such review sites exist and you *can* find them
if you *look*. My argument is, why should I have to look. We are
participating in the construction of the largest library in history, but
the info is spread out all over the place. Should we start thinking
about others as we build our sites? "How does the IA community classify
these types of clothing...?" "How does this review fit into all the
other reviews on the Web on this topic?" Should we ask JCrew's
management to link to these review sites? Why would they said no? :-)

Matt"

=========================

where it's feasible for the bottom line of companies to have such inline
feedback available, they'll make it so. no automobile site wants an open
message board available to dissatisfied consumers or pranksters to
dissuade a purchase of a $25,000 vehicle. it just doesn't make CENTS for
them. that's why independent site such as consumers exist; to better
inform the public of such decisions.

this is a capitalist society people. in this instance, we're talking
about sites that generate revenue. there are business rules that must be
supported, even if it doesn't meet every need of the user. retail is
often slight of hand; a promise of the impossible. it's not a library.