[Sigia-l] People as scanners, browsers, scowsers and searchers

[Louise Hewitt]

Mark Richman:

> Links are grouped beneath headings, or sub-categories. The object of the redesign was >to promote use of categories and sub-categories to find information. 

I did some similar work for a large and diverse company and found that
the best tool to get people to use the cat-subcat method was to put a
lot of work into the taxonomy in the first place. We user-tested the
terms and heirachy with a range of employees at every level and every
stage.

In addition, the rearchitecture work placed greater emphasis on the
category selection area.

>People used the categories and headings but read several links
beneath each heading as >well.

I think this is rational behaviour, and we all do it all the time.
When you read the TV pages you take a quick look at the summary as
well as the title of the prog. However well designed your labels,
unless the choices are very flat and obvious (eg. Animals, Plants,
Minerals - and even then, where would you look for a fungus?)
including sub-cats can help the user make the right choice. but how
many? I'm still undecided about this and think it has to be considered
in context. Some users will take a list of subheadings and scan them
as if they were a complete list - getting lost if their chosen
category is not there. However, putting all of the categories on the
page might just be crazy-love in design terms and mean that no-one
gets any of it. Ah, the complexity.

Which brings us neatly to your suggestions...


>Browsers:
>Make the category headings stand out more so they HAVE to get noticed
on first glance
>Don't stagger headings on the page, but align the category page
headings so they are on >the same horizontal line to they are easier
to take in at a glance.


Yes, not so sure about the horizontal - I don't think that users read
screens like they read books, but definitely make some clear
distinction. I find that this:

HEADING
  sub cat, sub cat, sub cat, subcat
  subcat, subcat, subdog.

works better than this:

HEADING
  subcat
  subcat
  subcat
  subcat
  subdog


>Scanners/Scowsers
>Make sure that the category headings are VERY easy to understand at a glance
>Do quick tests to determine how users perceive which headings are
clear and which are >vague... and fix the vague ones.

Yep too, even it means having a phrase instead of a single word. V
important to understand your audience though. A botanist would look
for dog under CANINE, but a child might look under PETS.

>We just had a thread where someone gave recommendations for improving
the search >experience. Anyone care to add to these or comment on
scowsers?

The only thing I would add in terms of increasing the awareness and
use of categories in the searcher group would be to make the source
category clear when presenting the search results, and perhaps some
option like "search for other results in 'DOGS'" next to their result.

Good luck, welcome to my personal brick wall.


Lou


Louise Hewitt
Freelance Content Professional
louise.hewitt at gmail.com