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, but for this first attempt at resolving some of the issues, I decided to just go for it.