[spam] RE: [spam] RE: [Sigia-l] Online card sorting tool WebSort

[Victoria Hodgson]

Hi Marcel,

I should have been more thorough in my description of the purpose of this 
card sort.

I was attempting to determine what the top navigational categories should be 
for a specific set of intranet applications, based on card-sort input and 
usage statistics (from the old intranet) from four different business 
organizations/related job-function groups within the company.

The engineer's initial response was correct in how those items applied 
solely to him. If I was building a navigational system only for this 
individual, it might have worked until his tasks changed and we would have 
to re-sort between his "useful to me" and "[junk]" categories.

The more useful responses (for my purposes) included making categories of 
items that were more broadly applicable to viewpoints/conventions shared by 
groups of people in the company that likely shared similar kinds of tasks.

The engineer eventually provided me with three complete sorts in addition to 
his original two categories: items sorted by the kind of 
information/functionality the intranet applications provided, items 
sorted/grouped by pertinence to tasks often performed (in his section of the 
company), and items sorted by the business units responsible for the content 
presented by the applications.

I hope that clarifies the original post.

Thanks,
Torrie Hodgson, MLS


>From: "Marcel van Mackelenbergh" <marcelvanmackelenbergh at home.nl>
>Reply-To: <marcelvanmackelenbergh at home.nl>
>To: "'Victoria Hodgson'" 
><torriehodgson at hotmail.com>,<donna at maadmob.net>,<sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: RE: [spam] RE: [Sigia-l] Online card sorting tool WebSort
>Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 19:39:30 +0100
>
>Wouw, what an exciting discussion this turns out to be!
>
>	His assessment was thoroughly correct, but nearly entirely
>useless for
>	my purposes. *grin*
>
>	After an hour and a hoagie sandwich, I had a much better sort
>from him
>	complete with five categories (all of which could be mentioned
>in
>	polite company.)
>
>Torrie, others,
>
>How can you tell it went "much better"? How can you tell it was a
>"useless" piling?
>
>I know right is subjective but I want to know how you can tell it has
>been a 'useful' grouping (categorization) of the information.
>
>Maybe my questions seem trivial to you but they are so important to me.
>I am trying not to flood this email community.
>
>Marcel
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf
>Of Victoria Hodgson
>Sent: maandag 8 maart 2004 17:01
>To: donna at maadmob.net; sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: [spam] RE: [Sigia-l] Online card sorting tool WebSort
>
>My favorite ever card sort response:
>
>A long-time mainframe software engineer took about 10 seconds to deal
>the 40
>cards into two piles. He then pointed to each pile in turn and said,
>"These
>are things I care about, and these are [expletive deleted]."
>
>His assessment was thoroughly correct, but nearly entirely useless for
>my
>purposes. *grin*
>
>After an hour and a hoagie sandwich, I had a much better sort from him
>complete with five categories (all of which could be mentioned in polite
>
>company.)
>
>"Right" is so subjective.
>
>Torrie Hodgson, MLS
>
> >From: "Donna Maurer" <donna at maadmob.net>
> >To: sigia-l at asis.org
> >Subject: [spam] RE: [Sigia-l] Online card sorting tool WebSort
> >
> >But we're not asking users to come up with the 'right' categories. We
> >should be asking them to describe why they have put things together
> >in a group so that we can understand the underlying patterns and
> >ideas.
> >
> >Donna
> >
> >On 6 Mar 2004 at 8:15, Marcel van Mackelenbergh wrote:
> >
> > > Peter,
> > >
> > > Whenever we create a category we should make sure people immediately
> > > understand what is meant with it. For example, "car" is clear,
> > > "vehicle" is less clear but also "Goldwing Valkyrie" is less clear.
> > > So "clearness" is not about whether it is more or less concrete but
> > > it is about understanding. Understanding or "What is clear?" of
> > > course depends on your target audience.
> > >
> > > The point I tried to make is that creating metadata is a skill,
> > > which is not learned right away. I find it very hard to come up with
> > > the right categories and I am still improving myself. How can we ask
> > > people, who understand less about metadata, to come up with the
> > > right categories? Shouldn't we analyze our target audience, come up
> > > with good requirements and then test it on our target audience?
> > >
> > > Cu
> > >
> > > Marcel
> >
> >------------
> >When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
> >*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
> >
> >Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
> >________________________________________
> >Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
> >Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Learn how to help protect your privacy and prevent fraud online at Tech
>Hacks & Scams. http://special.msn.com/msnbc/techsafety.armx
>
>------------
>When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
>*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
>Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>________________________________________
>Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
>Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get it now! 
http://clk.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/