[Sigia-l] Counterintuitive

[Listera]

Eric Reiss:

>> So you are saying the more rigidly designed a site, the happier the
>> user?
 
> I question your use of the word *rigidly designed*.

You inferred a positive relationship between traffic markers and
safety/efficiency. I am asking if there's then a concomitant relationship
between structure and user satisfaction.

> If you don't think well-structured sites that follow some basic rules of
> categorization are better than the informational hodge-podges that populated
> the internet in the mid-90s,

The question (my question, anyway) is not between 'well-structured' and not
'well-structured'. It's about the relationship between structure and user
satisfaction. Is it a linear relationship, as you seem to suggest?

The traffic example was an inverse relationship, a counterintuitive one,
where less structure, as it were, was claimed to have produced more user
satisfaction. Internet, that very model of chaotic co-existence world over,
is another example.

> then I wonder why you're spending time on an IA site.

To see if we can move beyond clichés, even when it means we have to deal
with counterintuitive phenomena.
 
> Let's face it, not all sets of guidelines are bad.

Yes, but they don't call'em 'guidelines' for nothing. You don't go to jail
if your page doesn't validate, for example.

> Personally, I'm rather fond of the 10 Commandments - and I'm not even
> particularly religious.

Which brings us back to the basic proposition: you don't have to believe in
the Ten Commandments to be a good citizen and not everyone who's fond of the
Ten Commandments is a good citizen. Imagine that. Life goes on.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba