A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

2 

Ambiguous. Here the information requires classification; again taking the examples 

of books, the Dewey decimal system is an ambiguous classification scheme since the 

librarians classify books into arbitrary categories. Such an approach is common on an 

Information 

organisation 

schemes

The structure chosen to 

group and categorise 

information.

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Part 3  Implementation

e-commerce site since products and services can be classified in different ways. Content 

can also be broken down by topic, by task or by audience. The use of metaphors is also 

common, where the website corresponds to a familiar  real-  world situation. The Microsoft 

Windows Explorer, where information is grouped according to Folders, Files and Trash, 

is an example of a  real-  world metaphor. The use of the shopping basket metaphor is wide-

spread within e-commerce sites. It should be noted, though, that Nielsen (2000a) believes 

that metaphors can be confusing if the metaphor is not understood immediately or is 

misinterpreted.