[Sigia-l] sitepath diagramming - comparing biased views?

[Eric Scheid]

In Christina's Blueprints for the Web, there is a section on developing site
path diagrams. In brief, it's an informal sketching of which
pages/areas/functions different kinds of users traverse.

The discussion in the book is brief (though useful), but ... some questions
arise:

1.  personas -- would here be a good time to include the various user
personas in the diagram, and not just different users as defined by arrival
rhetoric ("gift buyer", "newsletter reader", "job hunter", etc)

2.  ethnography -- when doing user research, what are the ways we could
discover the different paths users might have in mind already? Should we
restrict ourselves to only observing current practice with existing sites,
or ask the users to describe an imaginary visit? Finally, how much weight
should we apply to the paths we discover this way, especially the "imaginary
visit" narratives (cv. black vs. yellow boomboxes)

3.  alternative POVs -- is it worthwhile to ask other stake holders for
input, such as asking marketing which paths they either (a) imagine users
would use, or (b) which paths they prefer they use (eg. visiting the current
special offer page on arrival, or diverting to "other recommended products"
on checkout)

4.  comparing paths -- at this point, the IA may have in hand multiple
variant paths: an expert user's preferred path, marketing's preferred path
for expert users, casual/curious visitor's path, etc. Any tips on how to
present this multitude of paths (without really scrawling up the page), and
hence how to spot critical differences of opinion as to how things should be
done?

Last question: can we have a show of hands if you've used this technique?

e.