IA Summit 2004

Notes from Jared Spool's Sunday talk

Some various notes from Jared Spool -- an entertaining and informative talk (email Jared for a copy of the slides)... I've tried to condense my notes to cover just the highlights...

• Research in progress, not done yet, just presenting what they're in the midst of working on and hopefully wil have more soon


• "FAQ stands for stuff we don't know how to organize"


• FAQs are often "things we think you might ask"


• Current knowledge -- what users currently know, and target knowledge -- what users need to know to accomplish their goal. Interested in the space/gap between the two, designs have to fill the knowledge gap.


• Tool knowledge: what users know about how to user your app
  examples: mouse tutorial, filling out a form, printing a PDF, the mechanics of online filing (Expert vs novice -- almost always talks about "tool" knowledge)
  
• Domain knowledge: examples (for online tax program): tax-specific terminiology (dependents and exemptions), what qualifies as a deduction, how do you share expenses with a divorsed spouse?


• Imagine a graph with domain knowlege on y axis, tool knowledge on x axis, both go from novice to expert.
  
  
  
  • bottom left: little tool knowledge, little domain knowledge
  
  
  • bottom right: lots of tool knowledge, little domain knowledge
  
  
  • top left: little tool knowledge, lots of domain knowledge
  
  
  • top right: lots of tool knowledge, lots of domain knowledge
  
  
  
  
• plot where you think your users are... especially if you have personas, you can plot them on this chart... you might see that there are clusters of users


• Research: Monitoring online discussion groups -- started with groups for chronic illness -- parkinsons, autism, etc. 3000 messages


• When someone can't find what they're looking for on a site, where do they go? In the world of chronic illness, they go to online discussion boards and post a message, hope someone can help them.


• Are there patterns in the questions that are being asked? Yes... we were able to identify 14 buckets... (I didn't get all 14, so if someone who did can post in the comments...)


• After we were done with chronic illness, we turned to tech support boards -- and we found all 14 types of information. Same question -- take out a medical word, put in a geek word, and you're there.


• Did the same things with places where people talk about investments -- same 14 questions


• What we're hoping to come out of this is a framework for the different types of content you need to make sure that people can find what they need on your site