[Sigia-l] Everything Else - was: The category of "Miscellaneous"

[Dave Collins]

>web, but I think that the general information architect's reflex of
"Everything-Else categories are bad" is a bit dumb. I have the feeling
"Everything Else" is an important category, that can come in quite handy
once we understand its properties a bit better.

Aside: A glance at the data-to-noise ratio of this particular thread is
near 1.0, which is impressive. It is quite apparent that posters to this
board have an education on such topics approaching the scientific (I
guess that's what IA *is*). I am but a layperson, so I wade in with due
caution.

It seems to me that Miscellaneous works great from the creator's POV,
but I can't see how it works at all from a user's POV. If a user is
looking for a resource, what about that resource would *ever* direct
them to a miscellaneous bucket to look for it? It seems, by definition,
a behaviour sprung from failure of info organization (I give up, I'll
look everywhere).

Still, I can see some mitigating factors: once a user knows it's there,
the issue of going looking for it becomes moot (not 'mute' ;) ). And I
suppose a Misc is not so bad in a small list, where the user may only
search fruitlessly for a short time before stumbling across the doc.

I'd be interested in hearing the rationale for Misc in terms of
examining a user's actions required to complete her task.