[Sigia-l] Findability

[Gerry McGovern]

I think the concept of findability, as written about by Peter Morville and 
Christina Wodtke, is very useful. In my opinion, a core task of information 
architecture is to organize content. I work for clients who want to 
organize content from a commercial context. They want people to quickly 
find and buy their products. They want staff to quickly find information 
that will make them more productive.

I think Christina makes a very important point when she states:

>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.

Jared Spool's work at UIE has found that some ecommerce websites are 
eliminating search, and depending solely on a clear 
classification/categorization structure. Other studies have found that most 
people search in a very simple way, using one of two keywords.

Many times, a person is not exactly sure what they need. In fact, there was 
a study by Xerox Park which found that 75 percent of the time people did 
not have a specific object in mind when searching. Rather, they were 
"content gathering."

In a commercial setting, information architecture must serve the needs of 
the business. It should guide people and help sell to them. Information 
architecture is about organizing content, and that's what organizations are 
about -- organizing things.

Gerry McGovern





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