Louis Rosenfeld LLC ©2002 Louis Rosenfeld LLC. All rights reserved. 1 Vilfredo Pareto, His Highly...

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC

©2002 Louis Rosenfeld LLC. All rights reserved.

Vilfredo Pareto, His Highly Useful Principle, and Information Architecture

Web Site Strategy and Tactics WorkshopAnn Arbor, Michigan | September 20, 2002

Louis Rosenfeldwww.louisrosenfeld.com

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


Who I Am

Independent information architecture consultant (Hewlett-Packard, Ford, CDC, SAP)

Co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O’Reilly, 1998; 2002)

Co-founder/president, Argus Associates (1990-2001) Regular contributor to CIO, Internet World, and Web

Review magazinesLecturer at University of Michigan, speaker on

Nielsen/Norman Group UX tourBiases

• Fortune 500 consulting• Librarianship/information science background

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


The Infinite Flexibility of the Web:Providing information in many ways

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


Yes, we can provide information in many ways

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


Uh-huh, many, many ways…

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Sometimes things can get out of hand

Originally from http://www.geocities.com/rickvonsloneker/amazon.gif

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An Expensive Problem

More information architecture means higher costs • Information architecture development is expensive• Information architecture maintenance has a high

overhead

More information architecture doesn’t necessarily mean greater benefit to users

Too much information architecture = bad information architecture

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Pareto’s Principle:a.k.a. the “80/20 Rule”

80%

20%

"A minority of input produces the majority of results.”

(www.paretolaw.co.uk/principle.html)

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Pareto’s Principle:Information architecture applications

Useful IA guidelines (not rules)• 80% of your site's users belong to 20% of the site's

audiences• 80% of users' information needs are served by 20%

of the site's content• 80% of users' navigational needs are served by

20% of all possible architectural components• 80% of users' information needs are addressed by

the top 20% of all searches• 80% of IA effort should be invested in 20% of total

architecture

Many others likely

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#1: 80% of your site's users belong to 20% of the site's audiences

All users

Audiences

sweet spot

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


Sweet Spot:Serve most important audiences

“Important” can mean different things

Example: UMBS site• Important = most numerous (e.g., students,

prospective students)• Important = most influential (e.g., administration,

sources of grants)

Serving 100% of audiences is unrealistic

Useful approaches: • Stakeholder interviews• Demographic tools

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#2: 80% of users' information needs are served by 20% of the site's content

Information needs

Content

sweet spot

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Sweet Spot:Focusing on important content

Develop plan for content assessment, including content value criteria: popularity, currency, accuracy, authority, etc…

Invest effort in making top content more accessible; e.g.:• Top content: manually indexed + automatically

spidered for searching• Lower value content: automatically spidered only

Useful approach: content analysis

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#3: 80% of users' nav. needs served by 20% of all possible IA components

Users’ needs

IA components

sweet spot

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


Sweet Spot:Support most important means of finding

Determine major information needs; e.g.:• Known-item searching: provide search system

that supports narrowing results, A-Z site index• Orientation: provide site-wide taxonomy, table of

contents• Research: provide search system that supports

broadening results• Task completion: provide contextual navigation

brint.com is good example of what not to doUseful approaches: persona and scenario

development, user interviews, user testing

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


#4: 80% of users' info. needs addressed by the top 20% of all searches

Most common searches

All searches

sweet spot

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Sweet Spot:“Best Bets” for common searches

Useful approach: search log analysis

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Louis Rosenfeld LLC


#5: 80% of IA effort should be invested in 20% of total architecture

Most user interaction with IA in these five critical junctures, so focus on them

1. Main page: deemphasize investment in favor of following four junctures

2. Search interface: go beyond shrink wrap3. Search results: present appropriate result

components; configure result ranking or clustering to meet users’ needs

4. Browsing/navigation page (e.g. “taxonomy”): 5. “Found” documents: provide appropriate

contextual navigation (i.e., “where to go next”)

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Want More?

This presentation:• www.louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/020920-umbs.ppt

Pareto’s Principle:• www.paretolaw.co.uk/principle.html• www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Discussion of the 80/20 Rule and IA: • louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000122.html

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Contact information

Louis Rosenfeld LLC902 Miller AvenueAnn Arbor, Michigan 48103 USA

[email protected]

+1.734.663.3323 voice+1.734.661.1655 fax

Louis Rosenfeld LLC ©2002 Louis Rosenfeld LLC. All rights reserved. 1 Vilfredo Pareto, His Highly...

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