[Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.

[Stewart Dean]

Hi Peter, 

Quick reply.  I've enjoyed the responses but I have to say that in terms of RSS it's not a case of if it's easy it's a case of why bother?  Why will users use RSS instead of a website?  I can see the benefit for mobile devices and have RSS as standard on my phone. 

I'm sure there are some who browse sites as RSS feeds,  but they point are they are a minority.  The concept of feeds is just not really that clear to the average internet user or even enticing.


Stew Dean




----------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:37:25 -0400
> From: petervandijck at gmail.com
> To: markb at luxworldwide.com
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.
> CC: stew8dean at hotmail.com; sigia-l at asis.org
> 
> I disagree with about half of this.
> 
> "My xx" and "sitemap" are standards. Why fight them? RSS is being made
> much more user friendly with the new Firefox and IE - it works. Users
> get it, they're not dumb.
> 
> Cheers :)
> Peter
> 
> On 10/26/06, Mark Bardsley <markb at luxworldwide.com> wrote:
> > Stewart,
> >
> > Well said. I agree with much of what you write. Further comments below:
> >
> > 'My anything'
> > - Agreed. We can only hope that "My shopping cart" or whatever does not
> > become so ubiquitous that users get confused by "Your shopping cart".
> >
> > 'Site Map'
> > - If it is an index, alpha would be nice. However, many site maps are maps
> > because they show relationships between pages that are in a sense based on
> > distance (click numbers, etc.). You still navigate a site so I have no
> > problem with site maps and think the term might make more sense the slightly
> > more uppity "index".
> >
> > 'Card Sorting'
> > - Agreed. Card sorting could be a valuable exercise for rare cases where
> > there is a lot of content that needs to be categorized, faceted, etc.
> > perhaps for the first time. One thing to think about in deciding on card
> > sorts is: could subject experts, especially with library science backgrounds
> > do a better job than a bunch of users who might not know how to define the
> > domain terms well? It's all well and good to say that the user's needs
> > should come first but what if what the user needs is help categorizing
> > things effectively? (I'm probably sticking my neck out on this...)
> >
> > 'Eye Tracking'
> > - Agreed
> >
> >
> > 'Web 2.0 and RSS'
> > - I am not exactly sure why web 2.0 and RSS are lumped together. I do agree
> > that the user's needs should be addressed as we move (if we do move) toward
> > more interactive site design (or are you referring just to rss and
> > "mashups"). If what you are getting at is that we should rename RSS then
> > sure, I don't think many users know what it stands for or does, except of
> > course for the user who use it. Now that I think about it though, sites like
> > Google News use something like RSS (if I'm not mistaken) without mentioning
> > it and it is intuitive to customize the news interface.
> >
> > 'User Profiles' AKA Personas?
> > - Agreed. Unless they are based on actual research it is difficult to put
> > much faith in them.
> >
> >
> > Mark Bardsley
> > Information Architect
> > Lux Group, Inc.
> >
> > ------------
> > When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
> > *Plain text, please; NO Attachments
> >
> > Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
> >
> > Most presentations/papers and posters have been loaded to the IA Summit 06 website:
> >
> > http://iasummit.org/2006/conferencedescrip.htm
> > http://iasummit.org/2006/posters.htm
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> 
> 
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