I tend to be with the search camp on this one. It, of course, largely depends on who the primary users are and what their goals are (and what the primary business goals of the site are). If the idea is to provide users with a way to find the music they love and play it/buy it easily, search is the way to go. Those users probably know the artist, know the spelling, and don't need the assistance provided by an alphabetical list.
I also don't agree that an alphabetical list helps with discovery, it's an index. Just as you wouldn't turn to the index of a book to explore new areas of the book, I'd bet most users would use an alphabetical list as a shortcut for finding artists that they are already familiar with. Search (with predictive text) provides this in a quicker way, I'd think. I'm also not sure a list provides credibility, necessarily. If the goal of the site is to become the exhaustive resource for music, then raising quantity to the forefront is important, but what if the idea is "the most selective music site out there - only the best, no fluff". At that point, pointing out that you have a ton of artists is counterproductive to the brand positioning. Besides, the message of quantity can be communicated in many more ways than a list. If it were me, I'd go with the search as a primary finding mechanism, with recommendations throughout based on the user's primary goal (do most users want to explore by genre, location, etc?). That provides findability and discovery, in their respective places. Justin Davis Madera Labs www.maderalabs.com ________________________________________________________________ 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
