[Sigia-l] Classification is an essential skill

[Christopher Gomez]

>It is not my intention to alienate others, or to create enemies who, in
>the long run, will undermine our shared interests. I come from a
>tradition of 'rebel angels,' so to speak, and following
>ethnomethodology's program, I often 'breach' to get to the 'real'
>bottom-of-things. 

My understanding of enthomethodology is that there are certain "limitations" to the overall understanding of groups and their dynamics. And a number of your posts throughout SIGIA, Derek, fail to help me understand what you're really going on about. Please don't get me wrong, here. I'm just trying to understand your arguments better.

Ethnomethodology is the understanding of the conventions that underlie day-to-day activities and actions. Info acquired is used to enlighten and inform rather than explain. So in some sense... I don't see why an IA needs to focus a whole bunch of her/his peace of mind to understanding what every users wants. Understanding conventions requires you to categorize or classify or compartmentalize or package or group or put-into-a-great-big-yellow-box some of the findings.

Based on my understanding of ethnomethodology, it's still based on collective analysis... so classifications are necessary, somewhat. You can't do collective testing, if you can't classify. And people will have to admit the fact that they classify vitually everything and every action.

E.g. of thought process:
On no... this public toilet is a mess... most public toilets are a mess anyway... oh well this won't happen if I'm at home... God, I need to take c**p real bad... God, I hate this public toilet.

How often do you think people think this way:
Oh wow... it's a mess... I wonder if I drive down another 80 miles to the next gas station down the highway, I'll get a cleaner toilet.

As lame as the example above sounds... think about it...
The assumption someone makes about public loos is really (and unfortunately) based on a thought process that chooses to classify. Sometimes the assumptions are good ones, and so it's classified as a great user experience. And other times... it's a assumption that deems a negative mental classification.

As much as it's important to understand how things become ordered or classified, I think it's far crucial to first see if the classifications are valid. Maybe certain things have to be ordered/classified differently?

Dang, I think I've lost everybody on the list, now.

Best wishes...
Christopher Gomez.