[Sigia-l] The A>B, B>A problem

[Dwayne King]

Donna,

Please see responses below.

On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Donna Maurer wrote:

>
> But there are many, many situations where we are stuck with a 
> particular technology
> or solution. There are a lot of content management systems that are 
> centred on a
> simple hierarchy and that's it. There are lots of organisations that 
> can't afford to
> implement the best faceted solution. I also haven't seen the outcome 
> from any
> usability testing showing that faceted browsing implementations are 
> well understood
> by the people using them.

I wasn't replying to Peter's original post, I was replying to Billie's 
post which contained the following.

"...Some users need to access content by topic, across all regions, and 
some need regionally-organized content. ... the same user does not 
always need to slice it the same way, depending on the project s/he is 
working on ... both user approaches *are* equally valid ... I do have a 
dependency on a single tree structure - the structure of how the 
content is currently organized on the system (and in the database) ..."

If Billie has limitations with the Content Management System, then 
yeah, there's a problem there, but the database was the issue that was 
brought up, databases and content management systems are not the same 
thing. And regarding databases I'm sticking to what I said, that if 
it's not normalized to the point that you can adjust the query, it has 
serious problems.

On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Donna Maurer wrote:

> And if you have been involved in user-centred design, you should know 
> that you can't
> ask people directly 'how would you like to view this data'. In most 
> cases, people can't
> articulate how they would like to work, and can't imagine the future 
> well and how they
> would use something. You can observe how they currently work and use 
> that
> information to inform your decisions.


I am involved in user-centered design and all of the usability testing 
we've done has shown that if you ask the user the right way, they can 
articulate how they would like to work. On a direct from grower flower 
site I worked on we found through user testing that their organization 
of the site by flower type was ineffectual for over a third of the 
users test (interestingly, most were men) and adding the ability to 
"shop by occasion" not only increased user understanding of the site, 
but increased sales. At key times in the year we also added, not as a 
nav item, but as a prominent promotion, "Gifts that will arrive in X 
days" where X counts down to a given holiday (73% of the users that buy 
use the "X days" when available." I'd be interested to see your data on 
users not able to articulate why they are at a site, as my studies, nor 
any that I've come across have led me to that conclusion (note: that's 
a sincere request, after writing it seemed that may come across as a 
challenge as opposed to honest interest).

I think it's worth noting, wine.com, the single largest wine shop, asks 
their users to browse by: Region, Type, Winery and Price. ()

On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Donna Maurer wrote:

> I think that Peter already knows something about facets (if you don't 
> know Peter, it
> might be worth reading what he does know about facets before telling 
> him how to use
> them ;) All he wanted to know was if we already had a way to describe 
> the problem...
>
>

I am aware of Peter's work and it's obvious from his posts on this list 
that he's a very smart and informed guy. Again, I'm wasn't responding 
to Peter with the post you quoted, I was responding to Billie, who had 
brought up a specific problem.  Peter was asking for a name and in 
previous post, not the one you reference, I was trying to express my 
concern (probably ineffectually) that if both hierarchies are valid, 
then both should be used. I worry that giving it a name may start to 
imply a solution rather than a problem (if this concern is valid is a 
whole additional topic).

So, in answer to Peter's question, I've never run across an official 
name for the opposing hierarchies. If we can make sure it stays a 
problem and not a solution, how about NOSE (no outright superiority 
exists)? Actually, perhaps it should be "a NOSE Problem", just to be 
safe :)


On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Donna Maurer wrote:

> I know that it is nice to share, but sometimes it is worth reading the 
> question first ;)
>
>

I'm not sure what it was about my post that pushed your button, but if 
you'd like to discuss off-list, please shoot me an e-mail.


>
>
>
>
> Donna
>
>
> On 5 Nov 2004 at 15:34, Dwayne King wrote:
>
>> I'm still going to fall back on asking the user how they want to view
>> the data. Having it in a database is all the better, as long as the
>> data is normalized it won't matter how you request it. If it's not,
>> tell your DB admin that you want your money back, w/o being able to
>> request the data by different metadata really defeats the purpose of
>> having a database.
>>
>> I know the original question was just to come up with a name for this,
>> but I'm really having a hard time understanding why this is an issue.
>> In the example Billie is pointing out, it is specifically stated that
>> the user has different needs each time they visit, why force them into
>> a model that doesn't fit their needs?
>>
>> It's easy to do and make for a better user experience, so why not?
>>
>>
> -- 
> Donna Maurer
> blog: http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/
> work: http://steptwo.com.au/
> AOL IM: maadmob
>
>
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