SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: Architecting Sites for Mult
Re: SIGIA-L: Architecting Sites for Multiple User Groups
From: Kim Ladin (kim_at_hotstudio.com)
Date: Thu May 31 2001 - 15:18:02 EDT
At 10:05 AM 5/31/01 -0400, Michael Dolenko wrote:
>if your users may in fact shift between groups, it might be
>preferable to adopt the single navigation approach for those days when a
>user Group A member decides she feels like user Group B. One of the
>often-missed advantages of the Web as an information medium is that
>audiences can self-segment depending on their specific, of-the-moment needs.
Amen to that!
In my experience, it's less common for a site's audience to be so rigidly
segmented that each user group needs an entirely different site. When users
start crossing boundaries - or when you need content to work in two
different sites and your CMS isn't fabulous - the multiple structures start
to become unmanageable.
Another question is: how do you help people self-segment? This is often a
difficult task, requiring more extensive testing than small-sample
usability studies. In particular, there may be group labels commonly used
within the client organization - or within the industry press - which have
a very different meaning for actual users.
An alternative approach to trying to "name" audience segments is to
facilitate self-segmentation based on task. For example, "beginners" are
likely to want to "learn" or "get started," whereas more advanced users
might want to "Search the Knowledge Base."
-Kim
kim ladin
director o' information architecture
hot | making the complex clear
852 folsom street | san francisco, ca 94107
415.284.7250 x16 tel | 415.284.7255 fax
www.hotstudio.com
===========================================================================
List archives are available at:
http://www.listquest.com/computers/tier2/computer_misc.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo_at_asis.org with the
appropriate command from the list below in the body of the message:
subscribe sigia-l
subscribe sigia-l-digest
unsubscribe sigia-l
unsubscribe sigia-l-digest
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2
: Sun Nov 23 2003 - 22:54:41 EST
|
