[drupal-docs] Information architecture and labelling

[Kieran Lal]

Hi, I was reading up on Information architecture for designers, by  
Peter VanDijck last night.  He has volunteered to help us out if ever  
gets some free time.  I was reviewing organization schemes,  
categories, and labels.  For organization schemes I selected task  
based because the community organizers who use CivicSpace tend to be  
interested in organizing their community.  I spent some time thinking  
about how to categorize the 60 modules in CivicSpace.  I'll probably  
do some thoughtful prototypes and possibly a card sort to help  
organize all these modules.  Djun and I have also been talking about  
doing a card sort for all of Drupal contributions as well.

When I got to labeling  there were some key pieces of advice:
1. Use the same labels as the target audience uses.
2. Ask users what they call things.
3. Focus on clarity of labels.
4. Don't use your internal organization scheme for labels.

I started reading Robin's Drupal newsletter this morning and in  
particular the review which was a comparison between Wordpress and  
Drupal.  Then I started reading the comments.

"I tried out both drupal and wordpress, and came away with wordpress.  
This was mostly due to trackback and pingback ability which was  
lacking in drupal. Also, the lingo used in drupal did not make sense  
to me, nothing seemed intuitave. More importantly, there where no  
definitions of the concepts. Frustrating. WP is much better at this.  
My 3 cents."

"I had a previous Drupal version installed once but was not very  
intrigued by the way the system was setup. I just did not “feel” the  
system and that is a very important aspect for me if I plan on  
working with any system. It has to be intuitive and pleasant. That is  
not a criticism towards Drupal as I had no difficulties setting it up  
and testing it a bit here and there. It’s merely a matter of  
individual preference and personal perception and Drupal felt strange  
to me. "

If you come across some anecdotal evidence of users being confused by  
our labeling please send me a note or post it to the list.  At some  
point I'd like to find a more formal way to determine what our  
labeling should be as our user base moves away from programmers and  
system administrators.

Cheers,
Kieran
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