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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: June 30, 2002 WebWord Comment -- A few people have recently told me that they would like me to categorize the information that I post on WebWord. I think it is a good idea. Movable Type makes this possible and I am willing to turn it on. However, rather than just make up a bunch of categories, I'd like your help. What categories make sense to you. How would you categorize the information you see on WebWord? Post your suggestions. I'm listening.
Reader Comments...
These are the categories that Christina uses: Accessibility I would probably subtract: Apropos of Nothing, Art, Pondering, Workflow, Maintenance, The Medium, Information Design, Interaction Design, and Experience Design. I think I would add the following: WebWord Comments, Employment, Tools, Ergonomics, and Programming. This would give me the "final" list: Accessibility What do you think? Posted by: John S. Rhodes on June 30, 2002 08:34 PM
Here's a simplistic suggestion. I was afraid of overdoing it so I put 2 levels. I'm assuming each posting could be placed under 1-3 categories. WEB WORD TECHNOLOGY
Do you watch WWF wrestling? There's a character called The Rock who asks people questions like, "what's your name?" and just as they begin to answer, he interrupts with a loud, "it doesn't matter what your name is!" Similarly, let me say this: "it doesn't matter what Christina uses!" ;) Is your content identical to her blog's? If not, then you need to do your own content inventory and see what categories are best suited for your blog. Go over the posts of the last two weeks or one month. Draw up a list of categories. Do on an online "card sorting" exercise by asking your readers if it makes sense to them. What happens if you decide to post something that doesn't fit into one of the categories? Simple, just add it at the time. Straight off, I can tell you that "Multiple" doesn't belong, since MT 2.0 apparently allows multiple categories for one post. Does "usability" overlap with "user-centred design"? Are "research" and "documentation" a part of "programming" and "usability" too? Questions, questions... (I'm happy to see you're taking all my suggestions, John :) Posted by: MadMan on July 1, 2002 12:10 AM
Let's make this easy. Group #1: Stuff that interests me Give me a check box next to each article so I can mark stuff I want to save for later retrieval. Consider it a substitute for a bookmark, because I only bookmark the really serious stuff that I'll want 6 months from now. Give me a WebWord shopping cart. Amazonify me! Posted by: Jack on July 1, 2002 12:51 AM
MadMan, I used Christina's categories as a starting point. Seemed reasonable to me. Also, I did review the material that I posted for the last several weeks. That is how I decided to delete categories and add others. Fair enough? And by the way, thanks for the idea of categorizing in the first place!
Junk? What junk? No junk here. :-) I would do a lot more with WebWord if I had unlimited resources. It is getting time for a re-design of WebWord. That really strikes fear in me, but the old design is getting stale and does not capitalize on some JavaScript goodies and CSS.
JS, I would like you to keep the WebWord summaries unclassified. The reason is, I scan WebWord for things that add interest to my day and may expand my range of experience. I often find things that interest me that may belong in categories that I might not bother to browse. Keeping the form free makes me read and makes me think. Can the user have the choice? -Ben Posted by: Ben Hunt on July 1, 2002 06:03 AM
I like the idea of some simple categories so it's easier to find items of interest when I return to webword.com. Macintouch.com used to be the same style as WebWord until Ric Ford added in some simply categories grouping his daily content. The "redesign" made a huge difference in my ability to simply scan and find the nuggets I'm looking for. jonathan
John, ya I know. A "shopping cart" just seems like something blogs - or perhaps all web sites - should have. It would be an alternative to bookmarks. When you revisit a web site, you should have the ability to pull up pages you've designated as important. I use Amazon's shopping cart and "save for later list" that way. Regarding classifications... I say, continue to display the front page links UNcatergorized, but archive the links into categories. Can that be done? Categories primarily assist people who want to look through old content. Posted by: Jack on July 1, 2002 10:15 AM
Jack, Not sure how the whole categories thing even works in Movable Type. I've got my hopes up that it'll be easy and painless. I'll definitely keep your feedback in mind. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on July 1, 2002 10:19 AM
John, setting up categories in MT is relatively easy, but make sure you enable the category archives first. Do you know any programming language? I *think* you know some Perl, right? I ask because I had some ideas. As for classification, I think not enough is written about death by over-classification. I'd rather have some overlap between categories than have categories that have only 2 or 3 links in them. I think you should keep it simple - 5 to 10 categories at most. That should be broad enough to cover everything, and yet help keep things organised. I'll post some suggestions soon. Posted by: MadMan on July 1, 2002 01:17 PM
I agree with Jack about the categories, don't let them affect the home page (apart from possibly showing the categories each item is in, and making them links to the archive), they're primarily useful when browsing archives. I don't think WebWord needs anything too radical in terms of redesign, just some careful tweaking to improve the look a bit and use CSS & JavaScript sensibly.
I wasn't planning on changing the design of the WebWord home page based on categories. I might add something to the left-hand navigation, but the body area will remain unchanged, I think. We'll see. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on July 2, 2002 06:29 AM
Here, I've come up with a short list of categories that should cover all your needs without being too narrow: Accesiblity
MadMan, I like your list and it was very close to the final one I was working on...so I combined them. Accessibility
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