[Sigia-l] Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing for the Scent of Information - Jared Spool

[Rick Cecil]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Derek R
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing for the
> Scent of Information - Jared Spool
>
> Definition: "Information Scent" -- The *subjective* sense of value and
> cost of accessing a page based on perceptual cues; Scanning;
> Perception, being, arrangement.

What do you mean by subjective? Is it subjective to the site visitor? Or
subjective to the web site itself? Both?

> 'Information Scent' seeks to answer questions concerning the interests
> of visitors to a Web Site, and predict their paths through
> the Web Site
> *given their interests.*

Does it, though? Or is it more about identifying the strategy that site
visitors use to find information. Users know what information they want
from a Web site, and they use specific tactics for scanning the site to
find that information. Information scent is less about predicting what
users want--for by the time you are creating the various information
scents, you should already have outlined what site visitors want--and
more about providing users with clues so that they can access the
information that they are looking for. Thus, information scent has two
sides:

a) How users find what they want by scanning content, selecting links,
using navigation, etc.

b) The trail of information created by site designers when they
construct the information architecture and visual design. The content,
links, and navigation that lead users to different pieces of
content--presumably content that the user is interested in--whether it
is the exact piece of content they were looking for or not...

I like Stuart K. Card, et al discussion on the topic:

Information Scent as a Driver of Web Behavior Graphs: Results of a
Protocol Analysis Method for Web Usability
Stuart K. Card, Peter Pirolli, Mija Van Der Wege, Julie B. Morrison,
Robert W. Reeder, Pamela K. Schraedley, Jenea Boshart
http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/uir/pubs/pdf/UIR-R-2000-13-Card-CHI20
01-WWWProtocols.pdf

> In short -- the only way to know a user information-need is to known
> that need, specifically. There is no golden ticket, or short-cut,
> despite marketers efforts to *lead* you to that conclusion. The user
> *must* have to choose themselves (particularly). This is the only way
> which is genuine, capable, and real.

But the only way a user can make a choice is for the site to present
them with it--and for the visitor to be able to find it. Marketers
cannot lead a user to a decision, though they can influence that
decision.

> In other words, if we know *what it is* a user wants, we can
> give it to
> them, it being known. If we do not know what a user wants, just giving
> them something (consumerism) can NOT presume to have
> fulfilled the need.

Agreed. I wonder, though, are you using the right definition of
consumerism? After all, isn't consumerism about advocating consumer
rights?

> [ Consequently, 'findability' works this opposite way (which is false)
> by proposing that 'if we can give it to them (make it findable) it is
> what they want' -- an end, marketing. I will continue to expose this
> falsity until the people who purport to call themselves IAs drop this
> term, and its meaning, from their vocabularies, or show/prove me to be
> wrong. Presuming something is absolutely useful to a person
> just because
> it is available/for-sale is *marketing* and not information
> architecture. ]

But isn't the art of Information Architecture in merging business
objectives with user goals? Our focus cannot be solely on the user's
needs because what the user wants does not always align with business
objectives. This is not to say that we should force site visitor's into
a situation that they are uncomfortable with, just to say that sometimes
visitors expectations are unrealistic or are not in line with the site's
business objective.

Further, how does findability propose that "if we can give it to them
(make it findable) it is what they want"? As I have come to understand
it, wayfinding and findability are two sides of the same coin.

Wayfinding has to do with how a site visitor wades through all of the
information in a site to find what he or she is looking for. This is
simply another term for Information foraging, also used in the Stuart
Card, et al article mentioned above.

Findability has to do with how easy/difficult a particular item is to
locate.

Look at it this way, wayfinding and findability are the two sides of
information scent. With creating the findability, the site designers are
laying the scent for users to follow. In wayfinding, the user is
deciding what scent(s) he or she needs to follow to find the specific
information he or she is looking for.

Tossing in my .02

-Rick