Update:Remora UI Review/Mockups/Home Page/categorization 2007-07-10/

AMO's current categorization scheme:

Issues with the current scheme:

• Top level-categories
  • potentially too few to really divide up the add-on space
  • too much jargon used (what's an "extension"? what's a "plugin"? How do they differ, other than in terms of their implementation?)
  • in the end -- a combination of these first two: not a lot of top level differentiation and what there is is done along non-end-user-oriented lines
• Second-level categories
  • Extensions
    • this is where it really starts to split up -- arguably, these could be top level divisions (see apple dashboard widgets as an example); perhaps some of these can get pulled out to other top-level categories once those categories are revised
    • category names use too much technical language
    • divisions, as at the top level, are along technical lines in some cases (interface customizations?)
  • Search Engines
    • should these be broken in sub-categories?

• General thoughts
  • within the extensions breakdown, it looks like there's been an effort to have the categories be user task-oriented, which is, generally, laudable. We may need to have a blend of task and architecture orientation, though, given that what people are looking for are extensions to a piece of software. In other words, while nobody is going to come to the site thinking "I want an add-on for my content area!", someone may well come looking for a toolbar, or something to help them with tabs.
  • it would be worth going through an actual "fit all the current add-ons into categories" exercise, along with this top-down approach
  • also worth looking at the top 20 or so add-ons and see how findable they are if a person were looking for it in the categorization

Initial Reorganization:

Really, I ought to have gone through a more systematic approach to the categorization (ie. card sorting, or some other method of taxonomy), but for this first attempt at resolving some of the issues, I decided to just go for it by rewriting some of the category names be clearer and moving some around. All of this will have to be validated with the list of actual add-ons.