It was a fantastic quarter for the company and I’m especially thankful for the word of mouth advertising network. In the past three months we’ve been working on:

• Auspice Corporation - defining the user experience and designing a browser-based application for both mobile and desktop delivery that will be used across the cable industry.
• Harvard University - delivering a top-level assessment of a large-scale query tool.
• Harvard University - defining the user experience and delivering a comprehensive top-level information architecture and content mapping strategy for the entire finance division.
• CSO (CSOonline.com) - designing the user experience and developing a standards-compliant set of front-end templates for the new CSOonline.com
• Vantel Pearls - delivering enhancements to the back-end order entry process and delivering a booking report for demonstrators.
• Apex Properties - continued the design and development of a new corporate Web strategy

The new quarter looks to continue with great success as we respond to RFPs for major learning institutions and corporate marketing divisions. We’d love to hear from you and look forward to helping you solve any user experience problems.

Quite possibly beneath every site map or content plan we’ve ever done lives a piece of information that doesn’t belong where it is. We obviously did not do this on purpose.

We set out, of course, to put things in their place and without any bias other than their content requirements. How is it, then, that content or links end up in a random place? Is it because it was overlooked? Probably, it’s a case of the “parent trap”. The parent trap occurs when a piece of information is lacking enough substance to make it either on its own or fit better into a higher level category. In some cases, it may even be that this rogue information belongs as not its own section, but within another page or piece of functionality.

It would be easier to lump things into categories and let users drill down and find it, but that is clearly not our job. Our job is to stop a potential parent trap.

Create Methods to the Madness

As you facilitate a session with your client to dig deep into foreign content, make sure that you’re asking the right questions:

• Are you going to match this content to a function?
• Will the content be used for cross-promotion? If so, where in the application or site will it need to link?
• What is the relative nature of this content to its parent tree?
• Can this content be misconstrued to another meaning when found by a new customer/user?

Often times, by digging deeper in your content or navigation schema meetings, you’ll get to the bottom of the placement for new or uncategorized information types.

And, if you get stuck, make sure that you do a review before you hit the construction phase of your engagement in an effort to cut down on the cycles and revisions.