INLS
180 Day 19 Notes
March
19, 2002
Big Points
IA
fuzziness
It is
crucial to be able to sell one’s ideas and beliefs (open source solution?)
Questions
What are the professional
requirements to be an IA?
IAs in education? Future?
We are all IAs in some respect—this
is too broad.
Why would companies hire IAs to
apply common sense?
Future of IAs?
How do new values (e.g., link types,
multiple indexes, etc.) get phased in adopted?
Anything on ethics of IA?
DNA structure? [consider the levels
of structure—sequence, 2-D bonds, 3D shape, combinations)
Some
general observations
a) The bottom up approach to
learning (reverse engineering).
b) Distinguish classification
(creating bins)and cataloging (using bins)
c) Semantic versus syntactic
markup (most did syntactic for books, semantic for TV)
d) The role of hierarchy in
structure
e) The role of expectations in
how we do these tasks (perhaps indicated by the variance in approaches for the
different assignments)
1. Books
Consider
generic tags that work for many books in a genre versus tags specific to a
particular book.
If
you were given the tagged structure of a book without any content, could you
guess its genre?
What
if we showed the size (e.g., number of words) of every tagged chunk, would this
help in guessing genre? Would it help
in other ways?
Could
you imagine a set of structure indexes? (e.g., an index for typographic forms,
others for space, time, people, events, themes, etc.)
How
might these help in understanding (beyond search)
2. Video
Most
people used semantic structuring rather than syntactic
Few
people considered audio. How might you
tag the synchronous channels? Of those
who did, most created special hybrid tags (e.g., visual shot with talk, visual
shot with music, etc.)
What
does the length of a shot mean? Is it a surrogate for relevance?
Consider
not only the length of a shot, but how these lengths vary across the entire
segment (e.g., patterns in the shot lengths to affect gist,response). Are there staccato and euphonious ‘phases’?
Also,
what goes on in a shot adds to the frenetic or calming effects.
How
to handle forward references (e.g., news to come when we return, previews for
next week's sitcom or drama, etc.). How
might these be tagged? How do hyperlinks work in video?
3. Websites
My
estimation is that some of you are visual dominants and some text dominants and
this influenced your assessments. What
draws your eye? (motion, size, color, shape)
What
are the tradeoffs between curved and angular layouts?
Some
of you reported clockwise, some counterclockwise viewing of LC dome.
The
‘sectors’ could be ‘wireframes’ for the underlying information architecture on
a page
Sectors:
LC:
R (range)=1-25, 5 4's and 11 5's
AM:
R=3-29, 6 6's, 7 3’s
FS:
R=2-14, 7 4's, 15 5's
BLS:
R=3-26, 5 23’s,
UNC:
R=1-28, 13 4's, 8 6’s
SILS:
R=2-14, 13 4's
Should
visual links (either text or icon) be repeated on page?
If
there are lots of links, how are they ordered or clustered?
Links:
Site:
links(number reporting this number of links), etc. singletons not
reported
LC:
R= 8-28 27(11), 26(8)
AM:
R=28-33 31(18)
FS:
R=12-80 15(22)
BLS:
R=42-192 139(4), 140(5)
UNC:
R=28-66 29(9), 28(11), 30(10)
SILS:
R=35-60 50(12)
Are
genre-specific styles emerging (e.g., university sites all give audience
options)?
Search
sites
Depth
of indexing in Yahoo (e.g., art)
Default
search terms controversial
Portal
versus search, directory versus analytical search, ads, special
services/personalizations. Advertising and business model
Interaction(s):
forms (fill in), menus, mouseovers, animations
Several
of you tried reloads, different browsers, did controlled queries, etc. to get
more in-depth views of the pages.
What
is the purpose of a website? Generate interest? Provide information? Sell
products? Entertain?
Do
you want to be entertained by your bank?
4.
Comparisons across media
What
does structure tell us about meaning?
Does this vary by medium?
Where
are the opportunities?
Tibbo, H. (1995). Interviewing techniques for remote
reference: Electronic versus traditional environments. (Beth Getz)
Roloff, M. E. (1981). Interpersonal Communication: The Social Exchange
Approach. Chapter 1, Social Exchange: Key Concepts, p13-31. (Michael Fernandez)
Dewdney & Sheldrick Ross (1994). Flying a light aircraft: Reference
service evaluation from a user’s viewpoint. RQ 34(2), 217-30.
(Will Durland)
5. One-minute
paper
What was the big point you
learned in class today?
What is the main, unanswered
question you leave class with today?