[Sigia-l] Tools vs. Services

[Stew Dean]

Hi Roger,

I'm interesting to see what responses you get at this is a bread and
butter IA type exercise. I see there is a suggestion of paper based
prototyping involved, strikes me something you can resolve just by
asking a few people, do a bit of ethnographic research.  It really
depends if people know that the subject guides exist, how heavily they
are used (if all the time then usage outweighs a technically correct
taxonomy and put it on the top level as a menu item) and also how much
you want people to use them.

Using an IA 'craft skill' we can make an educated guess as a correct
solution. One word titles are always problematic as they don't have
enough context to describe what they are (as becomes very clear for
those who have ever done card sorting).

But to give you an answer the title services usually includes
descriptions of what an organization can do for you, high level
details with contact details, if it includes tutorials rather than
information about tutorials then you've diverged from what I would
consider to be in services (and what others would based upon some
experience).

If you kept you structure I would have to give the answer 'both' for
the course guides. If a course is a service offered by you then why
not put high level service information in the service section then
more detailed information under research tools (although it's unclear
why this section is called research tools and not just research).

Beware mixing the modes of content - putting interactive tools next to
research material next to high level guides for example only makes
sense if they all relate to the same category or section. I often
recommend an over lapping tree approach where you can view by, say,
the structure of your organization, by task and by content type - but
that presumes a large site.

In short you don't have to put things in one box, you can spread stuff
into multiple sections providing you create a clear forward journey
allowing people to find stuff where they expect it rather than where
an overly rigid taxonomy dictates it should go.

Cheers

Stewart Dean






On 01/05/07, Roger Zender <rogerzender at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm curious about this lists' response to an issue we're having...
> We're working on our library's new website sitemap.  We're working
> with consultants, and they have suggested a 5 tier sitemap:
>
> - Services
> - Collections
> - Research Tools
> - Who We Are
> - Connect w/ Us
>
> The problem I'm having is distinguishing between Services & Tools.
> I'm actually hoping to combine these areas (to accommodate our ideal
> design), but our developers think the distinction is clear and want
> to keep it.  For instance, they want us to put our Librarian-created
> Subject Guides under Research Tools, but I don't see why this
> couldn't just as easily be a Service.  Services already contains
> things like "Course Reserves" "Tutorials" and our pages on
> "Information Literacy."    Other items they have in Research Tools
> include "Refworks", our "Copyright" pages and our "Citation & Style
> Guides."
>
> I think we're really getting down to semantics here, so this question
> is more about the general difference between Services & Tools.  Have
> any of you struggled with this distinction?
>
> Thank you,
> Roger
>
>
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-- 
Stewart Dean