1. Streichen Sie alle Stoppwörter im Text. Wenden Sie bitte anschließend das ausgeteilte Regelwerk auf den unten stehenden Text an.
2. Wird stets die korrekte Grundform abgebildet?
3. Lassen sich die Regeln verfeinern?
4. Welche Indexierungsprobleme werden durch diese Vorgehensweise gelöst?

Metaphor Exploration

A good metaphor can go a long way in helping users understand how to use and navigate the site. However, no metaphor is perfect, so don't feel that you have to adhere rigidly to just one. You could take the best parts of several metaphors and roll them into one (or you might not find any useful metaphors at all).

Three types of metaphors are useful to site design:

Organizational metaphors

Organizational metaphors rely on the existing structure of a group, system, or organization. For example, if you are creating a site to sell groceries, your metaphor could be a supermarket, where products are grouped logically by type (canned vegetables, dairy products, cereal, snacks, household items, etc.). Beware that copying the organizational hierarchy of your client company is usually not a good idea - grocery customers couldn't care less about a supermarket's corporate structure.

Functional metaphors

Functional metaphors relate tasks you can do on the site with tasks you can do in another environment. Photoshop, a graphics program, relies on a lot of functional metaphors: You can figuratively "cut," "copy," and "paste" graphics on a computer - as though you were using real-world scissors and glue.

Visual metaphors

Visual metaphors are based on common graphic elements familiar to most people in our culture. If you are designing a music site that allows users to play songs, you might want to use the traditional "start," "stop," and "pause" icons found on CD players everywhere.

To begin exploring metaphors, gather your people and brainstorm ideas. Review and evaluate each metaphor. Try to map out the major sections of the site by connecting elements from the content inventory to each metaphor.

Quelle: John Shiple: Information Architecture Tutorial, Lesson 4
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gekürzt Ulrike Spree 10/2000