on IA for the WWW, chapters 14, 15, and 16

As the unfortunate victim of convoluted government websites and their poor search functionality, I consider Morville & Rosenfeld’s case for ethics in IA to not just be about intention but results. Similar to their example about Amazon’s unintended editorializing in response to ‘abortion’ queries, I noticed that information demonstrating necessary steps for American visa application for potential international workers were not easily found on either the Department of State site (http://www.state.gov) or the Immigration Services site, (www.uscis.gov). Even if the correct pages—because a visa application requires multiple pages to find the application process, timeline, correct visa type to apply for, and contact information for local consulate office—are all found, and in order, understanding the information presented, especially if not a native English speaker, looks to be a herculean task. As the Web is more and more often the first stop for information-finding, issues of labeling and categorization that Morville & Rosenfeld bring up will become even more important. Imagine the negative associations that could be built by nefarious folks at Google, for instance, if Google searches for our president were skewed to return terrorist propaganda, or sites filled with conspiracy theories (which, arguably, could be terrorist propaganda). I don’t imagine that many users would be so immediately think negatively as a result, but I do think that consistent categorization in this way—or categorization in this way that is a user’s introduction to a subject—could have a negative impact.