Lost in Information Architecture video transcript

In this video sequence the visual shows a screen capture of the Beijing Olympics website as the user browses. In the bottom right hand corner there is a small video image of the users head and shoulders as they look at the web page.

The user begins by looking at the homepage. It has a lot of information in the right hand column which does not seem to be important or relevant.

As the user navigates to the sports page he is presented with more unimportant information. He selects an individual sport and the link takes him to a pop-up window with a completely different page structure.

Moderator: Find out information about your favourite Olympic athlete

Participant OK, Alright.

Moderator: Who is your favourite?

Moderator: Would that be the badminton player?

Participant Yeah, Dan Lin I think?

Moderator: Yeah

Participant But I can’t remember his name exactly.

Participant But should I try to find out should I?

Moderator: Yeah

Participant Now how do I do this?

Participant Um.. Sports and Venues

Participant Volunteers

Participant Yeah, Sports and Venues.

Participant That’s lovely, that should be more up there.

Participant Not very good is it

Participant They should have the athletes there shouldn’t they

Participant Should have the Athletes like Dan Lin and so on.

Participant [laughs], that’s good isn’t it.

Participant Like Teletubbies

Moderator: See, you almost went straight...

Moderator: ...well you did go straight to the pictures didn’t you?

Moderator: You went to the stadium, and you...

Participant They should have the favourite Athletes here I think

Participant Who’s going to look at that?

Participant You don’t know which one is he...

Participant You don’t even know who it is...

Participant There he is... [laughs]

Participant You see this Sports and Venues

Participant Maybe they should have that there you know

Participant And that, you know, you touch it and...

Participant pictures appear

Participant I still can’t find it

Participant I wonder what this is

Participant This might be an idea

Participant You see that should be further up there.

Participant This should symbols

Participant Huh!

Participant There is a bloke, I wonder if it is Dan Lin?

Moderator: OK, What’s happened there?

Participant It’s a lady

Participant don’t know who she is really.

Participant This is badminton

Participant But it’s not the person I want

Moderator: What do you think of this page?

Participant It’s not very good because it doesn’t say who she is...

Participant Or what’s her name is or who the competitor are..

Participant It’s just a picture

Participant So it’s not very good to be honest