[Sigia-l] Findability

[Cunliffe D J (Comp)]

Greetings,

Well this list doesn't seem to have become any more bland since moderation
:-)

Some small observations just to keep things simmering...

> From: christina wodtke [mailto:cwodtke at eleganthack.com]
> "Findability
> The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users
> can locate and relocate desired pieces of data or information in
> information
> dense environments."

Thanks Christina - I find these short punchy definitions much easier to
understand and to work with. In my own mind I have always thought of IA as
focussing on browsing behaviour, information scent, way finding, navigating
and so on with Information Retrieval at the other end of the browse/search
continuum focussing on search, precision, recall, relevance and so on.
However this distinction seems to be becoming more blurred as perhaps IA and
IR meet in the middle in interfaces which support integrated browsing and
querying, facetted queries and so on. Findability would seem to cover the
entire continuum, covering IR as well as IA.

I think it has been recognised for a while that in general users form poor
queries - they often don't understand Boolean operators, facets, use only
one or two search terms and so on. I wonder to what extent Web search
engines have dumbed-down search behaviour by typically presenting users with
a simple search interface and hiding the 'advanced' features. On the other
hand it may simply be that users would rather spend their effort sifting
through search results than formulating and reformulating a more accurate
query.

> From: Derek R [mailto:derek at derekrogerson.com]
> You see Chris (or bub, if you prefer), the people, for instance, who 
> built the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) took immense pride in their 
> work. They *knew* they were transforming the landscape. To them it was 
> a *historical event in transportation* -- which meant, Chris/bub, that 
> their efforts served a greater-good than just that of their immediate 
> family or employer.

> From: Chris Chandler [mailto:chrischandler67 at earthlink.net]
>Stop lying! [sic] At the very best this twisted logic might represent that
>of the robber barons who paid little more than slave wages to (mostly
>immigrant) desperately poor workers. 

Which nicely illustrates the point that it's all a question of perspective -
(assuming this railway in somewhere in America?) I imagine that the
Americans (oops - Native Americans) might have another perspective again.
These are precisely the sort of issues that cultural heritage organisations
have to face when categorising cultural and historical artefacts. Whilst I
accept Derek R's point that categories CAN be used to misdirect, mislead and
market, I don't see that this HAS to be the case. I am also still not quite
clear as to the practical nature of the alternative he is proposing. We also
have the possibility in electronic environments to provide more than one way
to access the underlying information - we can provide users with different
categories representing different perspectives.

> From: Derek R [mailto:derek at derekrogerson.com]
> Did I mention by the year 2020, the greatest disabling phenomenon for
> the health of the human race will be depression.
> 
> Do you ever wonder why, Gerry?

Because we will have found a cure for poverty, disease and famine? Well that
certainly cheers me up :-)

Daniel (yes the one with non-useful interpretations)