Information Architecture and Search
May 12, 2009
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s “Top 10 Information Architecture Mistakes” here is a useful list of issues to consider. What struck me as particularly useful was his second point “Search and Structure Not Integrated.” He wrote:
search and navigation fail to support each other on many sites. This problem is exacerbated by another common mistake: navigation designs that don’t indicate the user’s current location. That is, after users click a search result, they can’t determine where they are in the site — as when you’re searching for pants and click on a pair, but then have no way to see more pants.
Within the last 10 days, I have had four separate discussions with “search experts” who were in the midst of trying to use search to fix deeper information problems. One content management wizard told me in Philadelphia, “Search is not able to deal with the complicated information stored in an industrial strength CMS.” No kidding. You expect a third party solution to resolve the glitches in these linguini code monsters? A person at a big money consulting firm opined, “We see search as a Web 2.0 solution to our heterogeneous content.” Yep, and I see myself as 15 years old. Fantasy, sheer fantasy.
You will find Mr. Nielsen’s other nine points equally insightful.
Stephen Arnold, May 12, 2009
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