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At 17:14 on 22 Jul 98, Scott J. Anderson  wrote in part:

> Do people find these hierarchical links useful, or are they an
> unneeded distractions?

For the mass audience of casual information browsers, the hierarchy 
that works best is visible least -- a transparent, dynamically 
driven unfolding of content rather than a statically categorized, 
almost antiseptic labeling of every potential route.

In fact, "hierarchy" is probably a misnomer for this Xerox/Mac/Win95
folder-style navigation scheme. Hierarchies stresses importance and
therefore depend upon specific content. Schemes such as the ones you
describe stress topical areas -- what things are "about," not what
they "are." 

Such organization is appropriate for information retrieval devices,
such as computer hard drives. It tends to be highly inappopriate 
for skimming and scanning -- a reaching out beyond your base of 
material you already know to find out new things about the world.

I have for some time used "categorical organization," which is what
you describe, as the exact opposite of "hierarchical organization."

Categorial organization is quite useful to intent information 
seekers. If you are certain that people coming to your site already 
will know exactly what they are looking for, by all means use 
categorical navigation. Just remember that intent information 
seekers account for only like 1.5% of all information 
consumers. The vast majority -- a majority that tends to be very 
dissimilar from people in the business -- are casual information 
browsers.

Two analogies: 

1. Your employment information. When you are looking for a job and 
sending out resumes to impress people with what you have done, you 
want to use hierarchical organization, stressing your specific  
accomplishments not merely itemizing the time spent at each previous 
job. Hierarchies let you focus the information so that its 
importance is understood. Once you get the job, however, your 
employment file will use categorical organization. People will 
consult it only when they have a specific question to answer. It 
therefore is organized more like a transcript than like a news 
report.

2. Your friendly neighborhood medical clinic. Which would you rather 
visit: a place that tells you to follow the orange line to X-ray, 
the green line to blood testing and the red line to the pharmacy, 
or a place that has a central reception area with doors leading 
directly to each of these and a human who tells you which to enter? 
Categorical navigation forces the consumer to look behind the 
curtain and follow the one way in which things are arranged, 
typically done for the convenience of those creating the service. 
Hierarchical navigation is consumer-based; it sends the customer 
directly where he or she wishes to go, and brings him or her back 
again, in whatever pattern happens to fit that consumer's individual 
needs.

What we are seeing online is a classic misunderstanding -- 
specifically, technological determinism. Because computers tend to be 
organized categorically, the belief is that this schema is 
appropriate for all computer-based activity. It is form dictating 
substance in the extreme. Within any technology, consumers behave 
differently depending upon their intent. They may even switch intent 
-- moving from casual browsing to intent seeking -- within a single 
visit. Proposing one schema as a useful simply because of a 
technological familiarity would be the equivalent of packaging all 
news in the manner of USA Today's national roundup.

In short, while configurations like the one your describe can have 
value for some readers all of the time and for a few readers some of 
the time, it basically amounts to an almost total abdication of 
consumer-based information design strategies in favor of a 
technological dweterminist gimmick.



              ERIC K. MEYER - meyer@newslink.org
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    asst prof of journalism - University of Illinois
visiting research scientist - Natl Center for Supercomputing Aps

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