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Understanding
the VA HyperFAQ
An interview with
Basil White, the driving force behind the VA
HyperFAQ
Conducted via email by John S. Rhodes
(29-May-2001)
An Interesting FAQ Indeed
What is the VA
HyperFAQ? Why is it interesting? How is it different than other FAQs
(Frequently Asked Questions)?
The VA
HyperFAQ is an alternative navigation system for www.va.gov.
It indexes the top 50% of all hits to va.gov by asking simple yes-no
questions of users until the appropriate content is concise enough to list
on a single page of links.
In other places, you have said that this FAQ is an instance of a binary
tree? What does that mean? Why is that good? Are there limitations?
It's a binary tree
because all of the navigation to the final index pages uses yes-no buttons
in response to simple questions.
How did you build the VA HyperFAQ? What tools did you use? Specifically,
what technology makes the tool work?
I used EditPad, a
shareware ASCII editor available at jgsoft.com.
There's no database or scripting. The whole site is 440K, and indexes
2.5 million hits per month worth of hits. That's the power of binary
navigation systems: every additional question doubles the amount of web
pages you can index.
How did you map out the various questions and answers for the VA
HyperFAQ? That is, how did you do the information architecture since the FAQ
includes over 200 pages?
I asked our web
operations staff to schedule an automatic report of the top 200 web pages on
www.va.gov for every month. Every time
I update the HyperFAQ, I build a list of every page that made any of the top
200 reports for the last six months.
I print each page
to make sure that the pages are live and that I'm using the latest locations
of redirected pages. Then I read all of the content to try to form a
simple yes-no question that will allow me to divide the stack of web pages
as close to two even stacks as possible. For www.va.gov,
that question is "I'm looking for information about a benefit."
Then I read each
of those two stacks to try to form yes-no questions that divide those stacks
in half. I continue forming questions until each stack is small enough
to list as a brief page of links. A few pages belong on both sides of
a yes-no question. For those pages, I just photocopy the page and put
it on both stacks. These pages are rare, and duplicating them doesn't
seem to have a significant effect on the density or complexity of the
site.
Web Applications, Desktop Applications
The VA HyperFAQ
looks and feels like a desktop application. Users click on buttons and they
walk down a certain logical path. Was that intentional or is it a side
effect of the design or information architecture?
The intention of
the design was to minimize the cognitive burden on the user. The
HyperFAQ, like other FAQs on the web, are frequently used by people for whom
the primary navigation system has failed. For those people, you want to
minimize the cognitive burden. Structurally, there's no simpler
cognitive burden than a yes-no question. There are poorly-formed,
confusing yes-no questions, but those are the fault of syntax, not
structure.
On the heels of the previous question, do you think web applications
should operate like desktop applications? Why? Why not?
Personally, I
don't care if web applications function like desktop applications, online
help files, or the mechanical tic-tac-toe chicken at Coney Island. What's
important to me is that the application is easy to use and is
customer-focused. In the case of the VA HyperFAQ, that means indexing
content for the veteran as effectively as possible.
Lessons Learned
What
recommendations would you make for other people trying to emulate the VA
HyperFAQ? Lessons learned? Tips and tricks?
I've learned that
building interfaces based on a customer goal hierarchy not only improves
usability, but it actually eliminates rework, because all of the
non-interface changes to the product occur in the lower levels of the
design. Screen and command changes end up affecting Section 3.2.2.4 or
some other bottom-level section of the design.
I build products
in the context of goals. Goal 1, 2, 3 becomes Module 1, 2, 3, becomes
Chapters 1, 2, 3 of the manual. I've found no better way to reassure
customers that their goals are Number One.
How can people learn more about binary trees? How can people learn more
about building effective FAQs?
I teach a workshop
to Federal IT designers at Customer-Focused IT Workshop
(.doc link) which mentions how to develop IT products and their accompanying
rhetoric in the context of user goals. I also recommend the free and
low-cost resources of the Usability
SIG of the Society for Technical Communication.
What next?
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