[Sigia-l] Findability

[Thomas Vander Wal]

Jon --

You are spot on.  Findability is about the user being able to find 
information which they are seeking.  There are some that have twisted 
findability to have something to complain about as a pastime.

 From an Economics perspective the optimal state is one that has a free 
flow of information to allow the consumer make the best decision. 
Findability is a concept to help the providers of the content understand 
how the user thinks and what information the user is seeking.

Example: If my uncle want to buy a new car and feels it is important to 
himself to only buy a car that has side-impact airbags (as his neighbor 
was put in a wheelchair from a side impact auto collision) he wants to 
know if a car comes with these airbags or can be properly fitted with 
these airbags.  If my uncle can not find the information on a site about 
car X (even though the information is available) he will not be 
interested in car X.  He may find his second choice, car Y, lists the 
information or where to find this information and my uncle purchases his 
second choice car.  Here the findability or lack of findability of 
information is a factor.

Findability is a concept that is relatively easy for our clients to 
understand.  This is a light approach to help clients understand the 
need for better information architecture, whether that is a better 
taxonomy, thesaurus, metadata, search, augmented search, etc.  There are 
many tools that we use to help provide the user access to information 
that they wish or need to find.

Many of us provide services to organizations that are not profit driven, 
but create and provide volumes of information.  Findabibility as a 
concept helps these providers of information a user centered approach to 
the information being used.  Often the hindrance to using information is 
finding information.

All the best,
Thomas

Jon Hanna wrote:
> Why is this called findability?
> 
> When I first saw this thread I assumed "findability" refererred to "the
> ability to be found". This doesn't appear to be what you are talking about
> (with the exception of Derek R). Rather you appear to be talking about the
> ability to find on the part of the user (hence the ability to be searched on
> the part of the system).
> 
> Am I missing something?
> 
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