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Findability is simply how easy it is to locate or navigate to an item or piece of information. Much of the time, "findability" is discussed in the context of searching for information on the Internet, where it is a huge challenge; in the online world, if you can't find it then (for you) it might as well not exist. But findability also applies to physical containers of information, such as books in a library, or even to physical objects themselves (for example, finding things using GPS or RFID). In this age of data constantly swirling all around us, finding what we need also requires us to not find what we don't need -- filtering through all the InfoNoise, before it drowns out the signal of the relevant information we seek. So we must ask the question: What makes information worth finding? 1. It satisfies my information need well enough. 2. It's not more trouble than it's worth to get it. It sounds simple -- I know what I want, so why doesn't it just appear? Let's look more closely... 1. The information satisfies my need well enough - not someone else's needs - for my specific purpose (conceptual or practical?) - at this particular time (I may need something different next time) - in my particular context (surfing the net at home for fun, or under a big deadline at work?) - contains enough useful info to be worth my while (not just a "passing reference" without substantive content) - from an authoritative source I trust - in a language or style appropriate for my need (academic or for kids?) - in a format most useful for this need (text, image, audio or video?) - no legal or financial barriers to my using it (copyright or licensing?) - and I didn't miss anything too important (Recall) 2. Not more trouble than it's worth to get the information - the interpreter (search engine, human librarian, whatever) speaks my language at my level - confirms to me that it understands my question - doesn't make me guess or learn its terminology - doesn't give me results that seem unrelated to my question - helps me make good choices - I can tell what each choice (menu item, result returned, book offered, whatever) means, and how it differs from the other choices - asks me to clarify my intention ("did you mean...") - offers useful ways to change and narrow my search, because good searching is iterative - most of all, I didn't have to wade through too much junk to find this information (Relevance) For more about findability, please see my presentation "Content Findability in a Portable Content World" which I gave at the 2008 Content Convergence and Integration Conference. |
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Copyright © 2008 Lise Kreps, Relevant Information
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