My card sorting book is underway!

Although I have no doubt that you can pick up a lot about
users by
touching and smelling them, it doesn't do much for the
credibility of
our profession not to have some kind of model for extracting
the type of
information we're looking for.  Imagine trying to sell an
expensive
IA/IR project to an exec against several other
"good-idea" projects when
all you have for backup is touchy-feely stuff.  They call
that
"anecdotal" and don't even count it as data,
let alone basis for
organizing an information retrieval system.  

nick *

-----Original Message-----
From: Listera [mailto:listerarcn.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 12:36 PM
To: SIGIA-L
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] My card sorting book is underway!

Fred Beecher:

> Card sorting won't be an anachronism until people stop
using the Web 
> to find information, which I can't imagine ever
happening.

Can you elaborate on why you're equating card sorting with
info access?

> What techniques do we use to determine users' mental
models when we're

> designing for rich applications that focus on
manipulating something 
> other than "information."

On a muggy Tuesday afternoon I'd wager that nowhere in the
iPod/iTunes/iTMS chain card sorting was used in any
critical/conceptual
way. 

I find the notion of structuring dynamic applications on the
basis of
info categories a bit...anachronistic.

To put it bluntly, I start with the goal/task/flow at hand
and reverse
engineer the process. In fact, the more transparent and
invisible the
info/data structure the better the flow/application.

As to users' mental models, I find nothing better than
observation and
engaging users in a free-flowing conversation to discover
patterns and,
most importantly, insights into what they need/want beyond
what they say
they need/want. I want to see/hear/smell the user. I want
their
give-and-take, body motions, gestures, pauses. They tell me
oceans more
than card sorts.

----
Ziya

Usability >  Simplify the Solution
Design >  Simplify the Problem

------------
When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
*Plain text, please; NO Attachments

Searchable Archive at http://www.in
fo-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

________________________________________
Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-lasis.org
Changes to
subscription: http://
mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l

------------
When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
*Plain text, please; NO Attachments

Searchable Archive at http://www.in
fo-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

________________________________________
Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-lasis.org
Changes to subscription: http://
mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l

My card sorting book is underway!

Thread: My card sorting book is underway!