Card Sorts

Some quick resources to get the low down on doing a Card Sort. Remember it is as easy as it seems!

• www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide
• www.usability.gov/design/cardsort.html
• www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/detail/card_sorting_part_1

This article offers a critique of some of the pitfalls with card sorts

• www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2008/10/extending-card-sorting-techniques-to-inform-the-design-of-web-site-hierarchies.php

For me what’s interesting that card sorts are single tool used in part of a larger design process. Also interesting are the alternative activities esp. the findablity testing. These might be a better fit in situation where IA is constrained by other factors such as dealing with the inevitable politics of ‘my business area must have spot on the homepage’ or the existing IA is heavily entrenched.

Behavior Based Taxonomies

Found this interesting post on Behavior Based Taxonomies

This one is somewhat full on: Behavior-Based Taxonomy (BBT)
If you stick with it there is a great summary of BBT – basically a taxonomy based on “the actual list of search terms that people actually use when they search a site”.

Everything you ever wanted to know about “faceted classification”, including how make one!

There are two basic ways to make a faceted classification usable on the web: keyword searching or facet-based navigation.

Simple example of this at work would be an online mobile phone shop with options to view products via different facets: price, brand, features (MP3, Camerra, etc)

What to do with search logs

This is a great on article covering how you should be monitoring search logs – Interpreting Your Search Activity Reports

Also like that it points out the connections between search logs and more general usage logs.

Why old content is like sour milk!

Web content migration: disastrous strategy has a great analogy for the classic strategy “we’ve got to migrate everything into the new CMS”: pouring sour milk into a new jug! Not sure if the reasons for bad content are entirely accurate but still a good read.

Some interesting developments in search engines

www.bing.com
www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/02/microsoft-bing-will-it-fizzle-or-boom/
www.wolframalpha.com/

What are the elements of a well designed web site?

This blog post does a good job of breaking down the design of the two sites and using this to highlight some important aspects of what makes the Apple site ‘well designed’ As a number of the comments point out it is a bit of a Mac lov’ in but the principles are worth considering.

I like point 1 about simplifying the home pages down to navigation and small number of easy to focus on items. And point 2 about the value of flow is also interesting. The classic design flaw in most Intranets is trying to cram a lot of stuff on the homepage because everything is import. The result is often a cluttered mess which leaves many users confused.

Apple vs. Microsoft - A Website Usability Study