On Jun 17, 2008, at 3:25 PM, Diana Wynne wrote:
I rely on alphabetical order at the bookstore and the library. Makes me crazy trying to find non-fiction titles when I don't understand the classification system (oh, this is California history, not travel).
Oh, really? I've never seen an alphabetical bookstore or library. Most libraries use some sort of cataloguing system, ala Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress. In some sections, such as fiction, it's then alphabetical by author, but as I stated before, that works because there is only one name.
Bookstores divide their content by sections. Again, some sections are alphabetical by author, but some are by other means. For example, the cooking section is often subdivided by cuisines, diets, or styles. Biographies are divided by the subject, then by the author.
It would be neat to see a completely alphabetical library or bookstore. It would likely be unusable, by both the customer and the folks required to keep it alphabetical.
Ditto for record stores, when I still bought music in physical form.
Again, unless you shopped in a record that didn't have much a selection, I doubt this was true. Most stores were organized by genre (R&B, Pop, Classical). Within genre's, they were sometimes alphabetical by artist, though some sections, like show tunes, would be organized by other content.
However, within a given artist, it's unlikely the individual products were organized alphabetically. Most likely, it was random order, though some of the larger collections would order by date of release.
But being able to search by name obviates much of the need for this.
That's one of the great ironies of all of this. In those cases where alphabetization works, search also works really well. When alphabetization doesn't work so well, search accuracy also starts to decay.
So, I still contend that alphabetization, for the most part (but not always), is akin to random order.
:) Jared Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
