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From:
Rodney Fuller <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Rodney Fuller <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 30 Apr 2001 16:38:48 -0400
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David M. Brown wrote:

 > Albert Liao wrote:
 >> ...my philosophy has always been to build navigation systems around the
 >> most basic HTML behavior (plain old intelligent HTML linking,
categorizing,
 >> and well written content that leads the users along)...
 >
 > We've been making this point for years.

But we also need to learn that most content is not adaptable to search
(i.e. can NOT become "well written content"), and design robust and
forgivable navigation accordingly. As I mentioned before in apparel
e-commerce we find that few users use search--MANY fewer users
than most people have predicted. The reason seems to be that search
results (using the best tools available) are worthless.

Two examples should be enough: We have one site that we are constantly
trying to improve the search tool on. People didn't use it until we made it
forgivable and content sensitive. And even then the increase in use wasn't
great. The reason why we had to make it content sensitive was that the
products required it. For example if you type in the word "thong" on our
site you will see products/events from 5 separate categories (shoes,
underwear, swimsuits, records, and store events). And heaven help the
user who types in the word "skirt," or even "calvin klein skirt" because
they will see pictures of bed skirts if they are looking for evening
wear and
formal skirts if they are looking for bed skirts--we had to fix it, but all
additional fixes since have not increased use.

Rodney

--
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Rodney Fuller, Consultant ~ Chief Information Architect
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Knowledge Strategies Group
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