[Sigia-l] Findability

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Peter Van Dijck
> 
> > I see a similarity between maze navigation and category
> > navigation.  When navigating categories you don't know what is at
> > the next level until you get down to that level - same with maze
> > navigation.
> 
> the whole point of using good labels and other techniques (like
> showing some of the subcategories - see Yahoo) is that the user
> *does* know what sits within a category.

That sounds so much like that of a category creator, "My categories
are so *obvious* that users know what's in the categories." But what
is obvious to one person may not be so to another person.

Furthermore, we can control our effort, but not the result when it
very much depends on another person's perception. Good category
creators try their best to make the category meaning obvious. But
users' perception is NOT under the category creators' control.

Saying that "user *does* know" is therefore ignoring the users who
have yet to show up and the fact that their perception is NOT under
the category creators' control.


> Unlike a maze. Link scent.

Two persons navigating a maze and come across two entrances: one at
the center; another at the far end. For whatever reason, they take the
entrance position as a clue. After all, scent is just the "imperfect,
subjective, perception".

Thus, one person may perceive that being at the center is a clue that
such entrance is the most likely one leading to a success. But another
person may perceive that being at the far end is the clue. Thus, both
navigators picked up scent but made very different decisions.


Boniface