Where do you want to go?

Following the focus group we ran last week we have been using the results to prepare a preliminary draft information architecture for the site. Our client was disappointed with the turnout at the focus group. However, from our perspective it was a success; we were able to gain many insights into how the audience uses the site and what they really want when they visit the site. These nuggets are invaluable in adding meaning to the survey and interview research we have already completed. The interaction between participants gives a perspective that doesn’t come from speaking with individuals.

It takes the emphasis away from the “clever” information architecture and taxonomy ideas and puts it firmly on the content itself.  There are some recent posts exploring this theme.

In his post on goal based retrieval, Joe Lamantia discusses common goals of information retrieval (e.g. reviewing summaries of items, understanding contexts and situations) and the different modes of retrieval or interaction that would meet these goals.

Maish Nichani has written about the idea of focussing on the users’ target content in his excellent post “Taming your target content”.

This approach is helping to define the vague content types mentioned by the audience e.g. “news”, “updates” to something more specific, with the surrounding context to add deeper meaning to a single piece of information.