General comments on 2009/10 assignment Part 2 for 26338, The Internet & Ecommerce

As with Part 1, the comments below don’t indicate that problems were common, they just collect together some
observations about areas that seemed to trouble some of you – refer to your individual feedback grid for which of
these sections are relevant to you, if any.

The Website justification document

The documentation generally pulled marks down by being weaker than the site itself. Perhaps the pressures of time
make this inevitable since the document can only be fully written after the website and many will leave most of the
work to the last minute (obvious by how few of you were keeping up with tutorial work). It may be that you don’t
entirely ‘get’ the difference between the word ‘describe’ and the word ‘justify’ because this was the feature that
discriminated between the weak and the good (there were no excellent).

Some students wrongly answered last year’s question rather than this year’s. Last year the assignment required 3
short sections, each about a different aspect of website decisions. This year, the assignment required the same word
count be spent on one aspect (IA structure). So if you answered last year’s question obviously only ⅓ of your work
(at best) would be relevant and you ensure that you cannot go into enough depth.

Last year’s question: Justify THREE aspects This year’s question: Justify ONE aspect & list reference
1. 250 words justifying contents;
2. 250 words justifying structure & navigation (IA) 1. 750 words justifying IA (structure & navigation)
3. 250 words justifying look & feel

Further, this year you were required to list the academic sources you had used and some left out the required list of
references, or listed the best practice websites from Part 1. References are materials that you directly use (for a
quote or to identify the set of authors who relate to a particular viewpoint); Bibliography is the list of additional
material not directly used, but that you’ve read and found helpful. In this instance, both MUST, of course, be about
information architecture. Do read the assignment brief (see page 17 in module handbook) to check that you are
tackling the correct question.

The Website itself

There are very many brilliant sites, but those which were less successful mostly were so because of a lack of content.

Where websites are weaker it is rarely for technical reasons (though many do lots of technically clever things it is
never required) but because of a lack of business insights. Sometimes they lack depth so that the actual nature of the
relationship with the customer remains unknown. This seems to be more a feature this year than in past years.
Despite the assignment instructions (and my advice) trying to make it clear that it is OK to sketch features in (just as
text if you wish) some of you seem to do things ‘fully’ or not at all. The depth in terms of CRM and the ‘commerce’ in
ecommerce is what discriminates between the competent and the superb.

Following the analysis stage, the exemplars should mean you start the prototyping phase with a good list of required
content (your content inventory). Therefore the concentration can be on information architecture decisions as to
how to organise this content (see comments below about why, for this year’s firm the ‘best’ site structures were
wide not narrow). Indeed, some of you took advantage of these exemplars to really turn around a poor part 1 mark.
But some of you seem not to have used the analysis exemplars at all.

So overall, three aspects discriminated the marks; the documentation; the depth and completeness of content; and
the integration of features.

Finally, it’s clear that some of you had not worked through the activities of Lab/Tutorial 8 at all, and had not used the
available marking grid for yourselves before submission. If you had used the grid for yourself, then many of the worst
weaknesses would have immediately have been spotted and fixed.
Narrow versus Wide site structures for this firm

Narrow, deep site structures will tend to maximise the number of clicks (ie pages) someone needs to go through
before they get to the specific content they want.
want Wide, shallow site structures will tend to minimise clicks by giving
direct access to more content.. In ecommerce terms fewer clicks = less chance to lose customers to boredom or
frustration. So in this instance, structures that give direct access to as many pages as appropriate = good; narrow
structures = bad. Further, exact schemas
schem (places, dates etc) are ‘easiest’ for the user in terms of finding content, so
direct access to date-based, location-based
based parts of the structure is better than ‘burying’ them one (or more) layers
down. For TIE this
his means, Newcastle, Whitby, should be at top level (not under Shops then Newcastle/Whitby); May,
June should be at top level (not under Events then May/June/).

Yet further,
r, whilst exact schemes are best (in terms of ease of finding info), next best is the task-based
task ambiguous
schema. For TIE, this means next best structures (and particularly their labels) should be about ‘doing’ something (ie
‘browse’ or ‘buy’ NOT ‘catalogue’ or ‘products’). Topic-based
Topic schemas (ie structures that group pages into being
about ‘things’) are the weakest approach in terms of how easy
easy it is for users to find their way.

Description versus Justification

Description can be where you start.. You can and should say what your site’s structure IS; and a diagram is the most
efficient way to do it. A list of pages doesn’t tell us what the site structure is. But even an effective diagram just
describes the structure,, it doesn’t justify it and so it is not enough to answer the question.
question Justify means gives
reasons. These reasons must come from IA I theory and how it applies to the specific needs
need of this business. It is not
justification to do things because you like them;
them you think they look best; you think they work best;
best they are simple
(meaningless word); they are clear (another meaningless word). Justification comes from evidence, ie trying tryin different
alternatives and working out which (and why) actually performs best. You could gather this evidence for yourself but
that’s tough to do so we draw on the investigation work done by others and presented to us in the IA literature.

Either of the
he diagrams below would be part of how to describe your site’s structure. But that does not justify it.
Most times structure 1 will be ‘better’ than version 2 (because V2 is narrow with less chance for direct access to
access, see above for why this is better for this year’s
content; whereas V1 gives us more scope for direct access,
assignment). But sometimes there are reasons for narrow, deep, ‘silo’ sites. For or instance when there are distinct
audience groups and so we need that ‘extra’ level to take people
people to specific sections of the site (eg, where Dell needs
to keep business customers separate from retail ones).
ones). Another example instance would be when we want to treat
our site as a collection of separate ‘mini’ sites that reference each other (to improve
improve search engine optimisation).

Site structure version 1 Site structure version 2

So by all means describe your site (and you must draw it). But then you must say why it is V1 (or V2, or whatever it
is) and why it is not the infinite variety of other 3D ‘shapes’ it could take.
Site Structure versus Page/Screen Layout

Page/screen layout (how things are arranged on the page) is NOT NOT NOT the same as site structure (how pages are
arranged into an overall 3D shape).

= Site structure
You have to be drawing (or talking about) something like
this to be describing your site structure.
It represents the 3D relationship between the pages that
exist within your site. It has to show all the pages. It is
this choice of 3D ‘shape that is the
th primary aspect of IA.
Navigation is the link between site structure and page
layout. Navigation
avigation devices are after all items on a page
and are how you move from one part of this ‘shape’ to
another. Navigation is the ‘doors’ into pieces of the
structure. So navigation items,, and the labels you give
them, are the subsidiary part of IA.
NB: I just grabbed a diagram at random; it has no
meaning for this year’s assignment but this particular
drawing shows the reader (& should alert you)
you that there
is no integration since pages don’t link across.
across

= Page/screen layout
If you find yourself drawing (or talking about) any part of
this then you are NOT talking about site structure.
structure You
are talking about page layout and that contributes to look
& feel rather than to IA. It is not part of the required
assignment documentation.
All the elements that make up any one page (of course
they will repeat on multiple pages)
pages such as search box,
logo, the table/grid layout, F-Pattern,
Pattern, inverted pyramid,
are all part of screen layout NOT site structure.