SM2222: Information Design and Visualization

Organization Systems on Web

28 October 2005

The beginning of all understanding is classification.

- Hayden White

Where do you live?

What do you do?

Who are you?

Organizing information

• Our understanding of the world is largely determined by our ability to organize information

• Our answers reveal the systems of classification that form the very foundations of our understanding

• Classification systems reflect social and political perspectives and objectives

• The way we organize information influences the way people comprehend that information

The quest for order

• Classifying things - whether on the web, in a library, or in the supermarket - is about providing paths to information by showing relationships

• When things are where you expect them, they’re easy to find

• The Lord of the Rings is in the fantasy section, which in the fiction department, which is in the bookstore

• Then, how do we find marshmallows in the supermarket?

- The problem with knowledge is that it’s not made up of simple linear relationships. It’s a messy interrelated thing.

- The Lord of the Rings might not be in the fantasy section, but in with the classics.

- So the question is who’s to judge which of these relationship is more important?

Relationships are subjective

Relationships are subjective

CLASS EXERCISE : Take the following list of 9 items and ask 3 different people to organize them.

• Refrigerator

• Socks

• Dresser

• Living Room

• Dictionary

• Kitchen

• Milk

• Bookshelf

• Bedroom

By Alphabetical list

• Bedroom

• Bookshelf

• Dictionary

• Dresser

• Kitchen

• Living room

• Milk

• Refrigerator

• Socks

By Size

• Large – Kitchen– Bedroom– Living Room

• Medium– Bookshelf– Refrigerator– Dresser

• Small– Socks– Dictionary– Milk

By Room

• Stuff in Kitchen

– Refrigerator

– Milk

• Stuff in Living room

– Dictionary

– Bookshelf

• Stuff in Bedroom

– Dresser

– Socks

By Exact Location

• Kitchen->Refrigerator -> Milk

• Living room->

Bookshelf-> Dictionary

• Bedroom->Dresser->Socks

Organizing information is a subjective task

Because relationships are subjective. People will approach it in very different ways, often based on their own context, knowledge, and experience.

- That’s why there are many large web sites so difficult to navigate?

- And explain why can’t the people who design these sites make it easy to find information?

The challenges of organizing information

• We are becoming librarians

• Dewey Decimal Classification

• Anglo-American Cataloging Rules

• Internet provides users with the freedom to publish information

• We are facing severe information-overload challenges

000-099 Generalities100-199 Philosophy and Psychology200-299 Religion300-399 Social Sciences400-499 Language500-599 Natural Sciences and Mathematics600-699 Technology (Applied Sciences)700-799 The Arts800-899 Literature and Rhetoric900-999 Geography and History

Kilobyte (KB) = 1,000 bytesMegabyte (MB) = 1,000,000 bytesGigabyte (GB) = 1,000,000,000 bytesTerabyte (TB) = 1,000,000,000,000 bytesExabyte (EB) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

World Wide Web : 170,000,000,000,000 bytes

Information grew per year : 1 - 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

* Source from University of California at Berkeley in 2003

Why organizing information in useful ways is so difficult?

Why organizing information in useful ways is so difficult?

• Ambiguity

• Heterogeneity

• Differences in Perspectives

• Internal Politics

Ambiguity

• Classification systems are built upon the foundation of language. Language is ambiguous (e.g. 豬扒 ).

• When we use words as labels for categories, we run the risk that users will miss our meaning.

• Ambiguity results in a shaky foundation for our classification systems.

Ambiguity

• We also need to agree on which documents to place in which categories.

• Tomato is “a red or yellowish fruit with a juicy pulp, used as a vegetable: botanically it is a berry.” Is it a fruit or a vegetable or a berry?

• Classification is particularly difficult when they are abstract concepts, e.g. “alternative healing”

* Webster’s dictionary

Heterogeneity

• Heterogeneity refers to an object or collection of objects composed of unrelated or unlike parts (e.g. mix-vegetables soup).

• Homogeneity refers to something composed of similar or identical elements, a structured classification system (e.g. old-fashioned library card catalog).

• The heterogeneous nature of web sites makes it difficult to impose any single structure organization system.

Differences in perspectives

• Have you ever tried to find a file on a co-workers/friends’ desktop computer?

• The ways people organize and name files and directories on their computers can be maddeningly illogical.

• Labeling and organization systems are intensively affected by their creator’s perspectives.

• To design usable organization systems, we need to escape from our own mental models of content labeling and organization (org charts).

• One site does not fit all

Internal politics

• Politics exist in every organization.

• The choice of organization and labeling systems can have a big impact on how users of the site perceive the company and its products.

• Example: Should information resources provided by other departments be included in the main page?

• Focusing on create an architecture that works for the users.

How do we organize information successfully in web site?

Organizing information in web sites

• Organization Schemes and Organization Structures.

• Organization Scheme defines the shared characteristics of content items and influences the logical grouping of those items.

• Organization Structure defines the types of relationships between content items and groups.

Then what is all about Organization Schemes?

Organization schemes

• We navigate through organization schemes every day.

• Telephone books, supermarkets, and television programming guides.

• But some schemes are intensely frustrating (are marshmallow in snack aisle or baking ingredients section, both or neither?)

• Exact Organization Schemes (phone book) vs. Ambiguous Organization Schemes (supermarket)

1. Exact Organization Schemes

• Dividing information into well-defined and mutually exclusive sections.

• White pages is a perfect example. If you know the last name of the person you are looking for, navigating the scheme is easy (Chan is in the “C” section).

• This is called known-item searching, which refers to you know what you’re looking for, and it’s obvious where to find it. No ambiguity is involved.

• 3 frequently used exact organization schemes

Alphabetical organization

• The primary organization scheme for encyclopaedias and dictionaries.

• All nonfiction books provide an alphabetical index

• Phone books, department store directories, bookstores and libraries all make use of 26-letter alphabet for organizing the content.

Chronological organization

• Certain types of information are organized by the date and time.

• Example: Press release archives are obvious candidates for chronological organization schemes.

• The date of announcement provides important context for the release.

• History books, magazine archives, diaries, and TV guides tend to be organized chronologically.

Geographical organization

• Place is often an important characteristic of information.

• We travel from one place to another.

• We care about the news and weather that affect us in our location.

• Political, social, and economic issues are frequently location-dependent.

2. Ambiguous Organization Schemes

• They divide information into categories that resist exact definition and are muddy in the ambiguity of language and organization.

• Therefore, they are difficult to design and maintain. Remember the tomato? Do we put it under fruit, berry or vegetable?

• However, they are often more important and useful than Exact Organization Schemes.

• Because, most of the time, we don’t always know what we’re looking for and the correct label. We may only have a vague information.

• AOS has made an intellectual decision to group related items to support an associative learning process that may enable users to reach better results.

Topic organization

• Organizing information by subject or topic is one of the most useful and challenging approaches.

• Yellow pages are organized topically, so that’s the place to look when you need a plumber/ taxi-driver.

• Academic courses, departments, newspapers are organized along topical lines.

Task organization

• Task-oriented schemes organize content and applications into a collection of process, functions or tasks.

• A high-priority tasks that users will want to perform.

• Example: desktop software application such as Word Processors and spreadsheets.

• They are most common in the context of e-commerce web sites where customer interaction takes centre stage.

Audience organization

• It makes possible if two or more clearly definable audience for a web site, an audience-specific organization scheme may make sense.

• It also works best when the site is frequented by repeat visitors who can bookmark their particular section of the site.

• It breaks a site into smaller, a clutter-free page, audience-specific mini-sites to present only the options of interest to particular audience.

Metaphor organization

• It is commonly used to help users understand the new by relating it to the familiar.

• Example: we are familiar with the desktop computer with its folders, files and trash can/recycle bin.

• Metaphor can help users understand content and function intuitively.

• It can also generate new and exciting ideas about the design, organization and function of the web site.

Hybrids (Multiple) organization

• Many web sites successfully combine topics and tasks on their main page and within their global navigation.

• This reflects the reality that typically both the organization and its users identify finding content and completing key tasks at the top of their priority lists.

• As long as the schemes are presented separately on the page, they will retain the powerful ability to suggest a mental model for users

How is about Organization Structures?

Organization structures

• It plays an intangible yet very important role in the design of web sites.

• Movies are linear in their physical structure, Maps are a spatial structure, while web sites are Hierarchy, Database-oriented model and Hypertext.

• Each organization structure possesses unique strengths and weaknesses.

The hierarchy: a top-down approach

• All good information architectures is ha well-designed hierarchy or taxonomy.

• We have organized information into hierarchies since the beginning of time.

• Family trees and organization charts are hierarchical.

• Example: we divide books into chapters into sections into paragraphs into sentences into words into letters.

The hierarchy: a top-down approach

• Hierarchy is ubiquitous in our lives and informs our understanding of the world in a profound and meaningful way.

• Users can easily and quickly understand web sites that use hierarchical organization models.

• It is able to develop a mental model of the site’s structure and their location within the structure, this provides context that helps users feel comfortable.

Plants

Flowers Trees

Conifers Deciduous

Annuals Perennials

The hierarchy: a top-down approach

• But it is important to consider the balance between breath and depth in your taxonomy.

• Breadth refers to the number of options at each level of the hierarchy.

• Depth refers to the number of levels in the hierarchy.

• If a hierarchy is too narrow and deep, users have to click through an inordinate number of levels to find what they are looking for.

• If a hierarchy is too broad and shallow, users are faced with too many options on the main menu and are surprised by the lack of content.

Page A

Page B

Narrow and Deep6 clicks from A to B

Broad and Shallow10 main page options for 10 content items

Consider the balance between breadth and depth taxonomy

• We should be sensitive to people’s visual scanning abilities and to the cognitive limits of the human mind

• The number of links you can safely include is constrained by user’s abilities to visual scan the page rather by their short-term memories

• Recognize the danger of overloading users with too many options

• Group and structure information at the page level

• Subject your designs to rigorous user testing

Microsoft’s Main page

• Roughly 67 links

• Global navigation (5)

• Primary Taxonomies (47)

• Marketing (5)

• Downloads (3)

• Search (4)

• Support (3)

Yahoo Hong Kong’s Main page

• Roughly 88 links

• Global navigation (7)

• Yahoo’s products (32)

• Advertisements (17)

• Marketing (8)

• Search products (19)

• News (5)

The database model: a bottom-up approach

• It is defined as a collection of data arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval.

• A simple flat file database: an individual contact and record. The record contains several fields, such as name, address, and telephone number.

• In a computer-based contact management system, we can search and sort using other fields.

C

Name : Jane Chan

Address: 101 Nathan Road

Phone: 1234-5678

Fax: 8765-4321

Email: Jane@cityu.edu.hk

A Relational Data Base

• Data is stored within a set of relations or tables

• Row in the table represent records and columns represent fields

• Example: au_id & title_id fields within the Author_title table act as keys linking the data stored separately in the Author and Title tables

An entity relationship diagram (ERD)

• Metadata is descriptive information about data and documents (such as origin, size, formatting or different characteristics of a data)

• Metadata is the primary key that links information architecture to the design of database schema

• By tagging documents and other information, we enable powerful searching and browsing

• Content Management System (CMS)

Hypertext

• A highly nonlinear way of structuring information

• The items/chunks of information that will be linked and the links between those chunks

• But it presents substantial potential for complexity and user confusion

• Because hypertext links reflect highly personal associations

• It can’t create a mental model of the site organization. Without context, users can become frustrated

• Hypertext is rarely a good candidate for the primary organization structure

Recap the Organization Systems

• The first step in transforming data into information is exploring its organization – Nathan Shedroff, Experience Designer

• Exact Organization Schemes vs. Ambiguous Organization Schemes

• EOS are best for known-item searching, while AOS are best for browsing and associative learning

• Think about the organization structures that influence how users can navigate through these schemes. Should you use a hierarchy, structured database model work best?

• Keep in mind that large web sites typically all three types of structure.

How we organize information, whether it’s on the web or in a library, is a balance between how information “want” to be

organized and how users want to find it.

Case study: Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial – “The Wall”design by Maya Lin

Title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Location: Washington, D.C.,

Year: 1982

Material: Black granite

Dimensions: 246 X 10.5(h) feet per each wall

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• Approximate 58,000 dead soldiers who officially died during Vietnam War

• It is originally a statistical chart of deaths over time during the period from 1959 to 1975

• The organization is critical to the shape, form, and evocative nature of the memorial

• The soldiers’ names be listed by date of death rather than alphabetically

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• Because war veterans would find their story told, and their friends remembered, in the panel that corresponded with their tour of duty in Vietnam

• Alphabetical listing would make the Memorial look like a telephone book engraved in granite, destroying the sense of unique loss that each name carried

• It generates the connection /emotional and relationship that was inherent in the organization

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The names on stone triple-function:

• To memorialize each person who died

• To make a mark adding up the total

• To indicate sequence and approximate date of death

Name Rank Service Birth Date Death Date Home Town Panel Line Number

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Directory of Names