[Sigia-l] Findability

[christina wodtke]

> On the other hand 'findability' seeks to provide general categories of
> things grouping similar things (where similarity is relative to the
> categories used and perspectives taken) thus the user will find the thing
> they are looking for plus any similar things.

This is one interpretation, but not the one that was originally proposed nor
one that is useful.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/the_age_of_findability.php

If

"Usability
The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users
achieve specified goals in particular environments. "
http://www.tau-web.de/hci/space/i7.html

Usability is a goal for interaction designers, and something a user
researcher  can measure....

then Fundability is also a goal for design in information rich environments
and something that IA's can design for and hopeful can be measures by an
educated user researcher

We might define it as

"Findability
The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users
can locate and relocate desired pieces of data or information in information
dense environments."

Then we could talk about ways to achieve this goal, including LIS-derived
ways borrowing on classification, marketing informed ways based on
persuasion and technological supported ways such as search. THIS is where
are arguments should center IMO-- the issues, problems and potential in
these methodologies.

Currently I am leading the search design effort at Yahoo! and have spend the
last several months learning a lot about users in a search environment. (BTW
my title is currently Findability Specialist). One thing that these SIGIA
conversations have not taken into account (as far as I have noticed) is how
inarticulate users are when trying to form a search query. Disambiguation is
a key part of helping users successfully find. Categories often help users
articulate what they are looking for. We have to design systems to help
users find-- the alternative is mind reading and our technology is not quite
there yet.

I think often people who complain about categorization think search is the
alternative, but search is fraught with issues as well and a bad search is
worse than no search at all.

And I would not disagree that classification is a perilous business, wrought
with bias. But the alternative is an undiffereciated mass, and even anarchy
favors someone.

my 2 cents.