August 2000: Information Architecture and IA observances. Amazon gets it right again, and how *not* to do a survey

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August 2000

A weblog is a semi-daily record of thoughts passing through the blogger's head. In my case, I'm trying to keep it to ponderings on IA.

My name is Christina Wodtke. I'm an information architect. I recently got married and got a new job (no relationship to each other) and have just returned from Greece and France. My personal site is www.nothing-new.com. And it's true, I can't type, I'm dyslexic and blogger has no spellcheck. Warning: accidents will happen. Innocent words may be harmed in the making of this 'blog

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how not to do a survey

So I was reading up on cellphones on ZDNet and had a survey pop-up in one of those annoying JavaScript popup windows. It wasn't banner sized, so I let it load. It was in invitation to take a survey on internet usage. Why not, I think.

I follow a link to find out if I was eligible (I didn't want to take some long survey only to find out I wasn't eligible) It loaded the rules page and at the bottom of this there was a message: use your back button to return to the survey. There was no back button. Whoever coded the pop-up had loaded it with no toolbar. brilliant.

So I got back to the survey with a right-click, said yeah, I'll take it. the first question:
1. Have you used or visited in the past 12 months:
A. A community feature/site on any Web site?
B. A community feature/site on ZDNet?

I'm a web professional, and I have no idea what they are talking about. I guess simply typing this 'blog might be considered a community feature. Hello comunity.

Toward the end of the survey, they ask what I do professionally. There is no place for any sort of design. They have marketer, programmer, etc, but not even graphic designer much less interface/interaction/information design.

sigh

8/20/2000 9:02:28 AM

they get it

this is so right in so many ways:

They ask for feedback before launching something new
They sign the note with the CEO's name, not "your friends at amazon" or something equally impersonal and fake
They allow you to unsubscribe if it is an annoyance
They tell you which email address they send to to facilitate accurate unsubscribing (I have quite too many addreses)
Oh, and it's an improvement on the tab-creep they have now (not perfect, but better)

"Dear Amazon Customer,

We're writing to ask for your help. Over the last few months, we've
tested several new navigational systems for Amazon.com, looking for a
way to make it easier for you to get around our store. (By
"navigational system," I'm talking about the tabs at the top of our home page.)

We think we've found a winner--feedback from hundreds of customers in
our testing has already been very positive. But we wouldn't want to
make such a change to how our store works without first consulting
you to see what you thought. So we'd sure appreciate it if you could
take a few minutes to check it out. Just stop by:

http://www.amazon.com/new-navigation

Then please drop us a line telling us what you think. E-mail your
comments to newtabs@amazon.com.

Many thanks for helping us make Amazon.com the best store it can be.

Sincerely,

Jeff Bezos
Founder and CEO, Amazon.com

PS: We hope you enjoyed receiving this message. However, if you'd
rather not receive future notices of this sort from Amazon.com,
please visit your Amazon.com Subscriptions page and sign in using
your e-mail address and password:

http://www.amazon.com/subscriptions"

Please note that this message was sent to the following e-mail
address:

cwodtke@eleganthack.com

8/13/2000 4:09:42 PM

geek feed

HCI Resources: Bibliographies and Publications

8/10/2000 9:58:23 PM

get ready to rhumba!

Information Architecture 2000

8/10/2000 5:40:38 PM

just flashy

Article on making Flash user friendly:Flazoom.com - Making Sure Usability 'Fitts' Flash

8/10/2000 2:13:58 PM

trust me

Kristiina Karvonen has written several papers on creating trust in cyberspace from an HCI viewpoint. check it out!

8/8/2000 11:44:57 PM

an innovator

Finally, someone comes up with a radical new conceptual model

8/8/2000 3:05:00 PM

upside down

great article that explains why print has caused designers to design their pages upside down...
It also helps explain a phenomenon I've seen in user testing I call "land and scroll" Users come to a page and
--before it's even finished loading, as soon as they have anything vaguely resembling a page--
they scroll. I've seen a quick up-down "getting the lay of the land" and a permanent scroll-to-content, pusing the global nav, banners and logo off the screen. hmmm

8/6/2000 9:14:40 AM

whoops

hacker or careless employee? Tonight the PhotoWorks home page had a guitar playing dinosaur instead of their "step 2" on the homepage.

8/5/2000 10:03:01 PM

best practices:relaunches

My AltaVista : --The New AltaVista -- lets users try out and give feedback on the new altavista interface rather than launcing it on unsuspecting users, resulting in massive bailout and tons of CS complaints (most people hate change, even change for the better) There was a good Jupiter research report on this a while ago, with many tasty numbers, but you'll have to pay for it!

8/3/2000 8:20:16 AM

evil

I want to first point out that this has nothing to do with IA.
So You've Decided to be Evil

8/2/2000 9:15:22 PM

swoosh this

Refound 50 cups of coffee | swoosh no more. One of life's little pleasures is rediscovering a URL you thought you'd lost. Here a brave soul collects every logo featuring a swoosh. It's rather disturbing how many there are

8/1/2000 7:59:02 AM

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