December 03, 2002

Information Needs Analysis

Louis Rosenfeld wrote a nice weblog entry on Information Needs Analysis:

Each user has a different type of information need depending on what he's trying to find and why he's trying to find it. If we can determine the most common information needs a site's users have, we can select the few best architectural components to address those information needs.

Lou then goes on to list types of needs and which IA methods can address these needs. I don't think its a comprehensive list, but it looks like a good starting place. At the very least, its good to be reminded that different types of content merit different methods.