[Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.

[Stewart Dean]

Hi group,

There are a few things I want to get off my chest.  Now I may be wrong about these but I obvously think I'm not. Here's a list. 


'My anything'.

Forgetting about the myth of personallistaion for a while,  why do people put 'my' on a website.  I was using Google Docs and in who created the document it said 'Me'.  

In the way I view interaction it's a  conversation, with those that have created the site talking to someone.  The only exception being when a site contains almost exclusively user created content (MySpace being the most noted example of this).  

So please it's  Your and You.  The site is having a conversation with you so when it refers to the user it is logical for it to be you and your. This is more so the case when you consider account sections, tools for users etc.  The site is the user's servant, the user did not create the site.  Google should be telling me 'you' created the document.



'Site Map'

Nah - that's not a map, it's an index.   Site Index just says what it is better. And add an alphabetical one if you can. Books have indexes, why shouldnt sites?


'Card Sorting'

I've seen workshops on this and so far can't see the use of card sorting for the majority of websites.  I can see the benefit for the creation of hierarchy of information that is one removed from functionality, for example the organisation of shopping categories, essentially the group of similar kinds of information.  But I see card sorting and things like navigation mixing like oil and water. I even heard that someone suggested using card sorting to validate the main navigation?  Validate - are you being serious? 

Here's the problem.  You have cards with titles on them. You've just thrown away most of the useful context for the user, well done. It's like trying to make a car ergonomic in design by giving the person cards with 'steering wheel',  'gear stick' and 'wind screen wiper' on them.  The importance of these items depend on how they work in context not in an arbitrary process on removed from the reality of what it is you are creating.  


'Eye Tracking'

Simply put, you can see what the user is looking at but not what they are seeing.  You need to know what the users are thinking and the best way is to talk to them.  Eye tracking is snake oil as far as I'm concerned.  If your user experience consultant suggests eye tracking - fire their carpet bagging arse. Are you listening Jakob? 


'Web 2.0 and RSS'

Now in concept I like it, user generated content and all that are a great idea.  The transfer of visual style to cleaner sites and the adoption of CSS are all good.   What is not so good is a lose of vision of the users.  Users don't get RSS,  and they shouldn't have to.  RSS is a technical solution that users need not care about.  There are savvy users who understand what all those buttons do, know what a folksonomy is and like tagging up things - but they are a small minority.


And lastly...

'User Profiles'.

This is jack, he's 22 and he drives a Ford.  Great - so there is a real user  called jack?  Apparently not.  The problem with may profiles I have seen is they have nothing to do with the real information.  They are marketing profiles full of assumptions and prejudice and therefore useless in the pragmatic world of building a web site.

What is more useful are direct quotes grouped in an intelligent way with the minimum of added ingredients.  I know clients love the while 'This is Jack' stuff but the problem is in the end they'll end up knowing jack about the real end users.

I have seen amazing intelligent user requirements created through a mixture of research techniques and I've seen some awful ones that left me thinking 'how much if this is real?' and 'how many users didn't like X'? I could name names. Keep user information real!.



My Name is Stewart Dean.  I am a user experience consultant. I think it's time to revisit some of the 'best' practice ideas out there.

Feel free to email me directly about why I'm wrong snipping out the sigia-l tag in the header so it doesnt get filtered. 


Stewart Dean
Empathy Digital