[Sigia-l] Junk science or just lazy?

Frank Shepard fgshepard at gmail.com
Fri Aug 10 12:09:24 EDT 2007


Second thoughts: I just realized I may have misunderstood Ziya's
statement. There is a difference between insight gained, and insight
found. For the former, we would attribute insight to the person
counting the words (the analyst). For the latter, we would attribute
it to the text being analyzed. I was assuming the latter, but I think
Ziya implied the former. Certainly there is some insight to be gained
from tallying word frequency, but I don't think it will have much to
do with the question of whether a given text is insightful.

Frank

On 8/10/07, Frank Shepard <fgshepard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ziya wrote:
> "since when did word frequency counting become synonymous with
> analytical insight?"
>
> Eric responded:
> "Er...pretty much since the dawn of search engines. This is also why
> we include meta keywords in our code and tag clouds in our layouts."
>
> All due respect, but I don't think that citing the use of meta
> keywords offers much support for the idea that word frequency =
> analytical insight. Google stopped bothering with them for a reason.
> Besides, search engines don't claim to identify "analytical insight"
> anyway. Keyword frequency might indicate some form of "relevance"
> (c.f., AdWords and Adsense), but *this* relevance and insight are
> worlds apart. Otherwise, teachers wouldn't have to grade papers
> anymore.
>
> Best,
> Frank
>
>
> On 8/10/07, Eric Reiss <elr at e-reiss.com> wrote:
> > Ziya wrote:
> > "since when did word frequency counting become synonymous with
> > analytical insight?"
> >
> > Er...pretty much since the dawn of search engines. This is also why
> > we include meta keywords in our code and tag clouds in our layouts.
> >
> > What Rosenfeld Media did was certainly not junk science, but it does
> > leave some key questions unanswered. And that doesn't make it lazy
> > either, merely incomplete.
> >
> > The Achilles Heel in the current report is that none of us really
> > know how much (or little) the folks outside our precious community
> > actually use these particular words and concepts - including "UX". If
> > people don't use these words, then they won't appear in a search.
> >
> > What if they had the audacity to use other words to represent similar
> > concepts? After all, we muck about with terms like "site map," "site
> > structure," "hierarchy" and "taxonomy." Why should the "lay"
> > population be any different?
> >
> > I'm more and more convinced we're not all speaking the same language
> > yet. In fact, only yesterday, I was at a top-level meeting (read
> > polished conference tables and cufflinks) where I found myself in the
> > unfamiliar position of having to explain a "wiki." And these folks
> > knew a lot about e-commerce; they weren't total newbies.
> >
> > Let's face it, even "information architecture" isn't exactly a
> > mainstream term, despite the fact we've been ranting about it for
> > well over a decade.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Eric Reiss
> > FatDUX Copenhagen
> > www.fatdux.com
> >
> > ------------
> > IA Summit 2008: "Experiencing Information"
> > April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida
> >
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