Personal Blog

Using primary-noun method to determine categories

I had attended Science and Art of Effective Design module at HFI, Mumbai in Jan 2010. We were taught to use a method to determine what categories suit the most for your website. However, as it happens in most of the cases, this method came from the course book and went into it again. yeah! I am one lazy ass!  So whatever, until recently I never tried to use this method. It’s called as “Primary Noun” method. Your task her is:

1. Write down the name and function of your website
2. Take a pen and paper and write down whatever comes into your mind whenever you think about your website. of course nouns
3. Find pairs of similar nouns and either merge them or eliminate them
4. Go on until you are left with 7-9 categories
5. Go back to first point and again try to match if these nous indeed manifest your vision
6. Freez!!!!

So while working on one of my other websites, I though to give a shot at this method and see where I land-up at? Following is the outcome of this exercise and I am pretty sure I can still fine tune this further. However, it is just refined upto 2 levels.

TechDecibel.com

1) Softwares – Niche Softwares

2) Operating Systems – Microsoft OS
- Linux
- Fedora
- Mac OS etc..

3) Green Technology – Renewable Energy and anything that can be tagged under “Green”

4) Future Technologies- Anything that is in design/prototype/test/demo phase and very interesting

5) Innovations @ Work  – Technological Innovations (Not restricted to Computer and IT. Cover anything and everything)

6) Tech Updates – News & Latest releases

7) People – People who have been there done that and considered Gurus in their technical domains. Their story/review etc etc..

Mobile – News
- Andriod, apps and marketplace
- iOS/Apple, apps and marketplace
- SAP SUP

9) Games Reviews

Let’s see how this turns up

Ameya