[Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.

[Turmite]

Stewart,

In some recent tests to develop a new IA we found a very strong
preference for having a "My" section that is distinct from the rest of
the content on the site. Essentially, the mental model includes a
generic area and a personal area.
The generic area includes all information that is not specific to the
user (e.g., about the company, product/service information, etc.)
The personal area contains all the functionality and information
specific to the user (e.g., account numbers, billing info, list of
past services/orders, etc.)
'Generic' content can be made personal by the user 'bringing' it into
the 'My' area, but they are otherwise separate. (This can be something
like a list of bookmarks - "these are the generic articles that I am
interested in keeping handy.")

So while the designer may be having a conversation with the user, the
user may not be communicating back - they may be looking to perform
actions, transactions, or view information...performing My Actions and
acting on My Information.


Now as for Site Indexes, if the site IA and navigation is well
designed - do we need them at all - aren't they redundant? :-)


-Haim


On 10/26/06, Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com> wrote:

> '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.
>