Week 4 - Lesson 4 Readings & Take Aways

Assigned : READINGS - This week, read Chapters 7 - 9 from the "polar bear" text.

Book: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web 3rd Edition, by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld, ISBN 100596527349

(page 116)
Types of Navigation Systems

Global Navigation/local navigation/contextual navigation
Where Am I/whats nearby/whats related to whats here
Where Can I Go/where an I go/where can I go
Sitemap/categories
Index/A, B, C
Guide/Steps

(page 122)
Navigation systems should be balanced=flexibility/no clutter

Too many navigational aids can bury the hierarchy and overwhelm the user

Site-wide (Global)
-intended to be present on every page
-at bar on top of page
-direct access to key areas

(page 124)
Local navigational systems

-helps users explore the imeediate area

(page 126)
Contextual Navigation
-specific to page or document
-points to related products or information

(page 127)
Embedded navigation
-global, local and contextual usually reside on all pages
-combined can be efficient but independently can use up alot of real estate

(page 132)
Supplemental navigation
-sitemaps=table of contents
-site indexes
-guides
-wizards
-search
-personalize/customization
-visualization

(page 142)
-social navigation=actions of other users
-search logs, user statistics, databases
................................................................

TAKE AWAYS
Chapter 8

SEARCH SYSTEMS

(page 145)
-anatomy of a search
-make searchable
-retreival algorithms
-search interface design

(pages 146-148)
-Does your site have enough content?
-Will investing in search systems divert resources from more useful navigation systems?
-Do you have the time and know how to optimize your site's search system?
-Are there better alternatives?
-Will your site's users bother with search?
-Search helps when you have too much information to browse?
-Search helps fragmented sites
-Search is a learning tool
-Search should be there because users expect it to be there
-Search can tame dynamism

(page 150)
Search is not an IT thing
-servers
-platform limitations
-configuration
-search is there for users

(page 157)
-search zones-homogenous content reduces the apples/oranges effect
-choosing what to make searchable
-audience, content type, role, subject, topic, geography, chronology, author, department/business unit

(page 154)
Index for specific audiences

-select content components to index: body , title, URL
-some are visible and some are not

(page 158-159)
Alogorithms
-search engines find information in many ways
-pattern matching=compare user's query with an index
-recall=relevant to the documents retrieved
-precision=relevant to the documents recieved
-automatic stemming=other terms that share the same root(or stem)and if stem is strong it may produce a great deal of documents

(page 160)
document simularity=algorithms will convert that document into the equivlant of a query/stops words stripped out such as the, he, she, is

(page 161-162)
Query Builders
-invisible users, inhance the querys performance
1. spell checkers
2. phonetic tools
3. stemming tools
4. natural vocabularies and thesauri

(page 163)
Display
-rule-display less information to users who know what they are looking for and more information to users who are not sure what they want

(page 168)
-sort by alphabet
-sort by chronolgy
-ranking by relevance, popularity,users ratings, pay for placement

(page 176)
-printing, emailing, saving results=bookmark
-save things for future retrieval

(page 191)
Where to learn more information texts:

Modern Information Retrieval by Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto

Concept of Information Retrieval by Miranda Lee Pao-out of print/amazon

On Search, the Series by Tim Bray-father of XML
http:/www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/30/OnSearchTOC


...........................................................
TAKE AWAYS
Chapter 9

THESAURI, CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES, AND METADATA

(page 193)
-website is a collection of interconnected systems with complex dependencies.
-a single link can be part of a sites structure, organization, labeling, navigation, searching systems
-metada and controlled vocabularies = lens to view the network of relationships between systems
thesauri design=bridges gap between past and present

(page 194)
-metdata=data about data
-metdata tags are used to describe documents, pages, images software, video, and audio files and other content objects for purposes of improved navigation and retrieval
-controlled vocabularies=subset of a natural language
-list of preferred terms=authority file/broader/narrower

(page 195)
-synonym ring=connects a set of words taht are defined as equivalent for purposes of retrieval

(page 197)
-Precision and recall ratios - chart

-authority files= a list of preferred terms or acceptable values/does not include variants or synonyms

(page 199)
i.e.
CT, Connecticut, Conn, Conneticut, Constitution State

(page 200)
-preferred terms helpful when user switches from searching to browsing

(page 201)
Classification schemes
-hierarchical arrangement of preferred terms=taxonomy
-example DDC list begins with top 10 then drills down into great detail within each section

(page 203)
Thesauri
-book of synonyms
-contrasting words and antonyms

(page 204)
-specialized technical language can provide efficiency and specificity when communication among experts

-preferred term (PT)= acceptable term, acceptable value, subject heading, descriptor

-variant term (VT)=entry term, non preferred term

-broader term (BT)=parent of the preferred term

-narrower term (NT)=child of the preferred term

-related term (RT)=connected to preferred term by association

-use (U)=as tool for indexers

-used for (UF)=to show full list of variants on the preferred terms record

-scope note (SN)=specific type of definition of the preferred term

(page 209-213)
Thesauri
-Classic Thesaurus=at the point of indexing and searching
-Indexing Thesaurus=controlled vocabulary indexing, consistency, efficiency
-standards=construction of single language/guidelines monolingual

(page 221)
Faceted Classification
-Ranganathan-idealist=5 universal facets to be used for organizing everything:
-personality
-matter
-energy
-space
-time

(page 222)
Use common facets
-Topic
-Product
-Document type
-Audience
-Geography
-Price
(figure 9-27 and 9-29 page 223)