Reflections on Behaviour Management Lecture

I found the lecture delivered by Paul Dix on behaviour management very engaging and thought-provoking, with aspects I both agreed and disagreed with. Behaviour management is key in ensuring class time is used effectively and students given the best opportunity to learn. The importance of behaviour management and discipline is reflected in the fact teachers’ powers are enshrined in law.  As Hart (2010) shows, the issue of behaviour management is of great concern and has been examined through a range of educational psychology theories, with the lecture focussing largely on the psychodynamic which itself is based upon on attachment theory.

A point which particularly resonated with me was the need for a teacher to establish relationships built on mutual trust with students. In so doing I believe a teacher is building a solid base from which to manage behaviour: a student is more likely to respond to a sanction from a teacher if they believe they are worthy of their respect and are somebody who they would be sorry to have disappointed. However, as Chaplain (2014) identifies, especially in relation to trainee teachers, there needs to be an appropriate distance kept to the students to ensure an appropriate level of authority is maintained and this is something I’m currently conscious of in my first school-based placement.

Another point from the lecture which I recognised was the mistaken belief amongst students that poor behaviour could be ‘cancelled out’ by a positive action, which I believe is perpetuated in class by putting names on and off boards and removing and adding golden time etc. In my experience within schools, this is something I’ve witnessed and which I do not feel really gets to the root of poor behaviour or ensures the whole class or individuals behave any better over a sustained period.

The need for a consistent and clear routine for behaviour was something which I particularly took note of in the lecture. Rogers (2011, 146) argues that the language around any sanctions for students displaying poor behaviour needs to be consistent and carefully managed and this is something I agree with. He states that the word ‘punishment’ and its connotations relating to bad behaviour should be replaced by the word ‘consequence’ which makes clear to students that ‘they are not simply pawns or victims when they do the wrong thing. We treat the students as if they are responsible for what they do and how they treat others.’  I believe students should be taught that there is a distinction between ‘punishment’ and ‘consequence’ from an early age.

An aspect from the lecture which I did not wholly agree with was concealing emotions when dealing with poor behaviour. In some respects this seems to run contrary to Paul Dix’s belief that a rapport needs to be built with children, which one would assume would be based upon an emotional connection. It’s my view that it is not harmful to show some emotion- within reason- when disappointed or angry, although this has to be proportional and controlled.

Overall I found the lecture very useful in prompting me to think more deeply about how I will go about ensuring an appropriate and sustainable level of behaviour in the classroom.

Chaplain, R. Managing Classroom Behaviour (pp. 181-201) in Arthur, J. & Cremin, T. 2014, Learning to teach in the primary school, 3^rd edition, Routledge, London.

Hart, R. 2010, “Classroom behaviour management: educational psychologists’ views on effective practice”, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 353-371

Rogers, B. 2011, Classroom behaviour: a practical guide to effective teaching, behaviour management and colleague support, 3rd edn, SAGE, London.

References

Andrew, R. 2007. The CSS Anthology: 100 essential tips, trick and hacks. Collingwood: Sitepoint.

Batley, S. 2007. Information Architecture for Information Professionals. Oxford: Chandos.

Belam, M. and Martin, P. 2011. [Online]. Tags are magic-Part 1 Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/developer-blog/2011/jan/10/tags-are-magic-1 [Accessed: 20 October 2011]

Belam, M. and Martin, P. 2011. [Online]. Tags are magic-Part 2 Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/developer-blog/2011/jan/19/tags-are-magic-2

[Accessed: 20 October 2011]

Belam, M. and Martin, P. 2011. [Online]. Tags are magic-Part 3 Available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/developer-blog/2011/jan/25/tags-are-magic-3

[Accessed: 20 October 2011]

Belam, M. and Martin, P. 2011. [Online]. Tags are magic-Part 4 Available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/developer-blog/2011/feb/02/tags-are-magic-4

[Accessed: 20 October 2011]

Cotler, E. and Goto, K. 2001. Web Redesign: Workflow That Works. Indianapolis: New Riders; Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

www.fontsquirrel.com [Accessed: 20 November]

Henick, B. 2010. HTML & CSS: The Good Parts. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly.

http://www.htmldog.com  [Accessed: 5 December]

Krug, S. 2006. Don’t make me think!: A common sense approach to web usability. 2^nd ed. Berkeley: California: New Riders.

Macfarland, D,S. 2006. CSS The missing manual. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly.

Morville, P. and Rosenfeld, L. 2007. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. 3^rd ed. Beijing; Farnham: O’Reilly.

Spool, J. et al. 1999. Web Site Usability: A Designers Guide. San Francisco, California: Morgan Kaufmann.

Turner, N. 2010. [Online] Wireframes are dead: long live rapid prototyping. Available at: www.uxforthemasses.com/rapid-prototyping/ [Accessed: 15 November 2011]

van Welie, M. www.welie.com. [Accessed: 10 November 2011]

Wodtke, C. 2003. Information Architecture: Blueprints for the web. Berkeley, California: New Riders.

www.w3schools.com [Accessed: 5 December]

Week 10

The group met for the final time this week to iron out any problems with the website, and to make a decision upon some of the final styling features. As I have touched upon previously, we decided to leave this decision until later in the process as we wanted to focus primarily on issues of usability rather than aesthetics. The group discussed issues such as the fonts we will use for out headers and text, and also how we will make use of our bespoke logo throughout the website. We have decided to use a font called ‘Cooper’ in the header section, along with our logo and aligned this to the left. I think this font and the logo compliment each other very well; like the logo, this font is not overly ornate or formal, and I think its rounded edges suggest openness and friendliness. The group also carried out a second round of user testing this week, using the same tasks for our respondents as in the previous round. The problems our users encountered in the first round of testing were not evident during this week’s. The amendments we have made to our labels seem to have had a tangible positive effect in aiding the retrieval of information, as our users identified the correct labels during each task. In an ideal world, the group would have carried out further user testing, but time constraints have prevented us from doing this.

On reflection, I have found working on the project both enjoyable and challenging. I have found working as part of a group an interesting and rewarding experience.  I think the group has shown a good work ethic, and I am reasonably happy with the result of our work. I think as time passed, each individual member of the group became more comfortable in voicing their opinions when discussing issues within the project, and this helped significantly in making good, robust decisions. Apart from one occasion, the group has worked well and avoided any serious conflict; I think this has been due to the nature of the characters in the group. I can appreciate that some conflict is not, in fact, always a hindrance, and in our case I think it actually helped that a problem was actually discussed in the open by the group and an agreement reached. From a personal point of view, I think I’ve improved my ability to communicate my thoughts and make decisions during the project. I have also enjoyed the feeling of responsibility and being able to contribute to a team effort throughout the project. Although our website does have some flaws, and is perhaps not the most advanced in terms of its coding, I feel we have achieved our aim in making it attractive, welcoming, and, most of all, user-friendly. Beyond some of the more specific technical skills and the knowledge I have gained, then, I think the skills I have learnt in working as part of a team on this project will serve me well in other contexts, beyond university. From a technical perspective, I think in the last few weeks my practical coding skills and my understanding of the conventions of HTML and CSS have improved significantly; my initial thoughts on the subject have changed over this period, and I have found the process of coding more enjoyable. I think through the topics covered during the module lectures, my own reading and the practical project, I have achieved a good knowledge of the processes and decisions involved in creating a successful, usable website. I personally believe there is merit in the discipline of Information Architecture, and agree with Morville and Rosenfeld’s (2007 p.17) assertion that there ‘is the need for professionals with specialized skills and experience, who know how to create useful, usable information systems within massively complex environments.’

 

Week 9

The group met this week to discuss the progress we have made so far in coding our pages. At this point, I believe we have made good progress and already have a significant amount of content on the website. On a personal level, I have become quicker and much more productive in the construction of code, and feel much more accustomed to HTML and CSS. One problem which I think has arisen is the fact that some of the group have diverged from the wireframe designs we’ve previously produced for our different pages. As we have largely been coding specific pages on our own, there has perhaps been a tendency to seek work-arounds or more straight-forward ways of doing things than adhering to the designs we have set out; for example, some of our page layouts have been designed by using HTML tables as opposed to CSS which is how they should be ideally styled. I think this can be partly attributed to the fact that the group is relatively inexperienced when it comes to coding. Also, there was some disagreement when the group met about a page which had been designed differently to how it was previously agreed, which could have implications on its usability. Eventually this problem was resolved, and it was decided the group should try to follow our previous designs. This has been the most pronounced instance of any serious disagreement heretofore. Another issue I have had some problem with is the quality of my own work and whether or not I am going about my coding in the right way, or indeed, whether there is a ‘right way’. Although I’m more productive and the code I’m creating is producing results and content on the page, I am unsure about whether my methods would be considered rudimentary or bad practice in a formal working environment. I feel like I have learnt a lot in a short space of time, but believe my breadth of knowledge could still be improved further.  I have consulted a number of texts such as David Sawyer Macfarland’s ‘CSS The missing manual’(2006) and Rachel Andrew’s ‘The Essential CSS: 100 essential tips, tricks and hacks’ (2007) about creating pages, tags to avoid and layout but still am unsure if some of the decisions I have made are the right ones. I have found Andrew’s text particularly useful in creating pages as she uses straight-forward instructions and screen shots to explain how to produce certain effects. Like a lot of the other texts I have referred to during the course, it is written in an inclusive, friendly way and has proved very useful as a quick reference, as the index features a host of ‘how do I?’ questions, which are answered throughout.

Using some of the user journeys we created in previous week, the group have carried out some user testing on the website. As Krug (2007 p134) identifies, even minimal user testing can have a significant effect on a project: ‘One person told me that after his team saw the recording, they made one change to their site which they later calculated had resulted in $100,000 in savings’ The most interesting issue to come out of this research was our labelling and its effect. One of the users was asked to find information relating to visiting a specific windmill, she eventually succeeded in this but commented that the term using ‘us’ and ‘visit us’ confused her as she thought ‘us’ could refer to a Sussex Mills Guide office or HQ, as opposed to a windmill. Our ‘History’ label was also questioned by another user, when she clicked this to find information regarding past events, as opposed to our ‘News’ label. She commented that ‘History’ could be referring to the Sussex Mills Guide itself or previous events organised by the group. The label is, in fact, about the general history of windmills. As a result of these comments we have agreed to amend our labels to make them clearer. Although our labels are being made clearer, we may have to sacrifice their simplicity and brevity for ones which are longer and more descriptive, but which do not look quite so attractive in a tab. The process behind decision is a good example of the tension between usability and aesthetics. This user testing has proved instructive, and we intend to carry out some more in the forthcoming week. On a commercial project this user testing would be an ongoing, iterative process, carried out at a number of different stages, but our group has unfortunately lacked the time to implement this.

 

Week 8

This week the group met, bringing in the wireframes for all of the website’s pages, based on the template on which we agreed in the previous week; doing so has helped crystallise in my mind what our website will look like. As in previous weeks, the group had further discussions regarding some design amendments and the labelling of content; for instance, in the ‘educational resources section of the site, we agreed we needed to alter the labelling of tabs, some of which were imprecise, with wording such as ‘what subjects apply’ and ‘how can you visit’. We also discussed whether or not to have these tabs at all, deciding in the end they were still required for housing this information. The group made this decision as we want the site to have a clean, uncluttered appearance, in contrast to the website upon which ours is based, which requires the user to scroll a long way down its pages to retrieve information. The education section also originally featured a section for sharing pictures; we discussed whether or not there was any logical reason to confine this function to the section of the site intended for school parties. In the end we decided this didn’t make sense and agreed upon creating a link to a Sussex Mills Guide Flickr page, where pictures could be uploaded by all users of the website. The group also discussed the subject of fonts and looked over a number of options available from www.fontsquirrel.com; however at this stage we decided it was best to concentrate on the building of the website before making a decision on our fonts. This will be an important decision as the font, like the colour scheme, goes a long way to conveying to the user what the website is about and what it stands for. Also important in creating an identity is a logo, and one group member created a design which we agreed fitted in very well with the style of the website. The design is modern, simple and not overly ornate; even though our website is essentially concerned with historical buildings, we did not want a logo which was too old fashioned or gave the impression to visitors that the website was outdated. Although visual design is of importance for the reasons I’ve identified, I feel its effect on the usability of a website is perhaps minimal, as Jared Spool et al. found: ‘The long and the short of it is that-except for link colours-we found no graphic element in this testing that made a big difference for the search for information, positively or negatively.’ (Spool et al. 1999. p 86)

The group has already clearly seen the benefits of external CSS sheets as we have designed the navigation, header and footer areas for all of our pages and defined certain style rules- such as font sizes and the effect of the different header settings- which can now be reused throughout the website, aiding consistency. This week I have begun the coding on the pages the group agreed upon when we met. Having never coded before, I have been spending a lot of time on www.w3schools.com and reproducing the exercise undertaken in the lecture. Despite having a reasonable grasp of the basics of HTML and CSS in theory, I still feel ill-equipped to bring a notional design into life as a functioning webpage. I have consulted various websites and books such as www.htmldog.com, www.w3schools.com and Ben Henick’s ‘HTML and CSS: The Good Parts’ (2010) to try and address this problem and broaden my knowledge. I have found the websites more useful to refer to, in particular w3schools.com as it allows the user to practice using various tags and shows the effect. I have struggled with understanding parts of Henick’s book and I feel it has perhaps emphasised gaps in my knowledge rather than helped me at this stage.  I am also mindful of trying not to lower the standards set by other members of the group, who I feel are more proficient in their coding at this stage. Therefore I am not enjoying this stage of the project quite so much as the more theoretical and design-related parts.

Week 7

During this week the group brought in some more wireframes for our website pages, discussed some possible revisions and also agreed on a template for our main navigation and header section of the website. The group came to an agreement that would we use a green colour scheme for this navigation, similar to that used by the Arundel Castle website (www.arundelcastle.org), which we evaluated in our competitor review, as well as the National Trust (www.nationaltrust.org) .We decided this was an appropriate colour as it reflects the historical/heritage angle of the website, and is more suitable than the red and black colour scheme used on the original Sussex Mills Group website, which is actually similar to that used by the London Dungeon (www.the-dungeons.co.uk). Due to the nature of our website, and the amount and variety of material it will contain, we felt that it would be sufficient to use just horizontal main navigation. We thought that adding a secondary navigation would be superfluous and confusing for a user. This week we also again discussed our labelling of links and the overall tone of the website. As we want the site to appear welcoming, lively and inclusive for the visitor we thought it appropriate to try and use verbs in our links and search boxes, such as ‘go’ and ‘visit’ rather than more passive language. As well as the colour scheme, we have decided to use a template page for the ‘visit a windmill’ page of the website; on this page the user will find visitor information about different Sussex windmills which will be presented in the same format in every instance, with tabs housing information regarding facilities, history and directions. I feel this makes the site easily usable, with the user knowing what to expect when they are seeking information about another windmill during the same browsing session, or when visiting the website on a different occasion. On these pages we will also plan to make use of icons to denote available facilities; this will help give a good visual effect and serve as a quick, clear reference for users seeking this information. A suggestion was made by a group member that a clickable photo stack, in the shape of a windmill sail, could be employed to lead the user to some of the windmills’ visitor information pages. I think this is an interesting concept from an aesthetic point of view, but feel it may be confusing for a user and compromise the sense of hierarchy on the site if only some of the visitor information pages are accessible through this method instead of via the ‘visit a windmill’ link in the main navigation.

Week 6

The group lost time to discuss the project in the workshop this week as the time was dominated by practicing coding. I have had no previous experience of coding, so found the method of going through a worksheet together as a group and with reference to a worksheet helpful. My initial impressions are that coding is something which is perhaps best learnt through trial and error and a lot of practice. To a beginner, the appearance of the HTML code and CSS is quite daunting, and the prospect of creating web pages using this format feels like it could prove to be a significant challenge in the forthcoming weeks. Following the lecture I made use of the www.W3schools.com website to consolidate and expand upon what was taught in the lecture.

This week I have also browsed on www.welie.com, a UX pattern library, which allows the visitor to view real examples of best practice for a range of website features. I have found this website very useful as it suggests reasons and explanations for using a particular function. For instance, there is an explanation of how to design an effective search results page, with Amazon’s version given as one example, and which I have actually based one of the group’s ‘search results’ wireframe upon. The website gives examples of a multitude of other functions too such as navigation, purchasing processes and user feedback forms. www.welie.com also gives examples of different types of website, and the sorts of content and function they could contain. I have found the example of a museum website useful, as there is a list of likely user tasks provided and typical site sections: http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=museum Although our website is not actually about museums, these types of website share some key aims with ours: promoting material, providing news and visitor information, and offering educational resources, so I feel this website has been useful as a reference source.

I have also been doing some wire framing , using both Microsoft Visio and a free application I’ve downloaded named Pencil. I have found Pencil the simpler and quicker of the two to use, and like the fact it features a library of some mocked-up web elements such as breadcrumbs, check boxes and scroll bars. I have also read an interesting article at by Neil Turner (2010) at www.uxforthemasses.com/rapid-prototyping  which argues that wireframes have been superseded by rapid prototyping tools such as Axure and Balsamiq. He argues this is the case as wireframes can be too time-consuming, not always easy to interpret by a client, and not completely suited to conveying how a website will work, due to being static. Despite the fact they can be very rudimentary-as simple as a pencil sketch for example-they can be very quick to produce and useful as a tool for promoting discussion, as the group found in previous weeks. I think the fact they are simple and static, unlike some prototyping tools, may actually have been of benefit to us as designers, as they help keep a focus on the positioning of particular elements and how they will affect usability. However, I can see that in a commercial project, the use of prototypes could perhaps be more beneficial to a client than a set of static diagrams, which might not convey fully how the website will work. These prototypes would also aid more rigorous, realistic user testing. There is definitely an argument, depending on budget and time, that both methods of presenting a website’s design can be used in a process. I think the wireframe is a good way of presenting an initial design to a client to receive some feedback, before progressing to a more realistic prototype.

Week 5

This week we worked together as a group to finish our user primary personas, user journeys and then began the process of designing a site map and structure to hold the information we have decided to include. To help us do this, individual members of the grouped described the user journeys for each of their personas and the pages they would need to navigate to reach their intended goal. One member of the group drew up each of these journeys on to a white board. The diagram subsequently produced proved to be a useful way of displaying the most common journeys and the pages which would be needed. We also began the process of ‘six up drawings’, a task in which each member of the group had three minutes to sketch the layout of a proposed page from our website in six different ways, after which we compared the results. I found this exercise really helpful as it brought together the different views of the group and quickly prompted a great deal of discussion and debate about the merits of each version. I feel this week the group worked together better than it has up to this point, partly due to the nature of the six up task, but also through the site mapping exercise we carried out; it definitely felt more like we were collaborating and arriving at decisions in a better way, through good quality debate. With the personas, user journeys and site mapping complete, I am starting to get a much clearer sense of how the website will look and what it will contain. Up to this point the various aspects of the user centred design process had seemed theoretical, but I can now see more clearly how personas inform user journeys, and how user journeys affect the appearance and functionality of a site.

The discussions the group had regarding issues such as site hierarchy, labels and links also emphasised to me the wide range of decisions which are continuously being made in the process of creating a usable website. I have been reading about these aspects of design in the ‘organisation systems’(2007 pp 53-80) and ‘labelling systems’(2007 pp 82-98)  chapters of Morville and Rosenfeld’s ‘Information Architecture for the World Wide Web’ (2007). I have found their illustrations and critique of ‘narrow and deep’ and ‘broad and shallow’ website taxonomies useful (2007 pp 69-73). The authors advocate the use of a hierarchy somewhere between the two, citing an ‘excellent’ Microsoft Research report into the subject (Morville and Rosenfeld 2007, p.71). The website we have designed will be toward the shallower of end of the spectrum, with the user only required to go through a maximum of three clicks from the home page to reach any content on the site. It is obviously very important to strike a balance between bombarding and confusing the user of a website by putting almost all of the links to the site’s content just on the home page, but also to guard against losing the user’s attention by hiding content away too deep in a hierarchy. I found the authors’ example of poorly thought out labels on a haulage website very instructive, too (Morville and Rosenfeld 2007, pp. 83-86). In their example the designer has made errors such as using local dialect, thereby possibly confusing a considerable portion of the site; using the vague word ‘corporate’ to describe what is, in fact, just information about the company, with an ‘about us’ perhaps being more appropriate; and using a label strangely titled ‘SuperGraphics,’ which refers to just one link, a ‘Pictorial Tribute to North America.’ Spool et al(1999 pp 31-35)discovered in their comparisons of aspects of nine different websites and their effect on usability, that longer, more descriptive links aided ease of use and retrieval. It is also possible, for example, that a website being designed ‘in house’ may reflect the argot used in that particular environment and subsequently have a confusing effect on an ‘outsider.’ It is perhaps easy to see how these elements can be overlooked in favour of more obvious or immediate issues, such as the aesthetics of a website, but these constituent parts are crucial in making a website usable.

week 4

The course of the project has changed dramatically this week. Our attempts to contact current users of the Sussex Mills website have hit an impasse, with the owner of the website requesting a donation for his time in putting up our questionnaire and asking about its purpose. On reflection, the way we went about looking for users to question -by emailing the site administrator and posting on a message board- was not appropriate for the task and ill-conceived. Although it was not made explicit to the site owner that we had a planned a redesign of his site, we were concerned the situation could escalate and cause problems further down the line. As a result we arrived at the decision to continue to redesign the same website but with a more specific focus. We will now redesign the site focussing particularly on improving the information for people interested in visiting mills such as school groups, enthusiasts and tourists. At present, the site does not do enough to inform users about which mills are open and their facilities, nor does it promote visits with enough enthusiasm. This information is hidden away and presented in a chaotic way under a link entitled ‘Mills Open’, which I feel could be renamed to something clearer and more welcoming such as ‘Visit a Mill’ or ‘ Take a Tour’. The information about each mill available to visit is also insufficient.

Due to this change of direction and time constraints, we have had to interview different people-who are not now real users of the Sussex Mills Group website- for user research. As we are now redesigning the site with a specific aim and type of person in mind: history enthusiasts, school groups, tourists, we have interviewed people we know who we feel fall in to these categories and who may have had cause to visit similar sites and asked them their views on the Sussex Mills Group site. This is a different way of going about things than shaping the site in response to the needs of its real users, and will subsequently have a knock- on effect on how our personas and user journeys will look. I am disappointed to have had to deviate from our previous course, as the creation of our website will not now be the product of real, high-quality user research, as we have decided on what we feel the function of the website is, rather than eliciting this information from real users. I think this change of emphasis could prove to be a blessing in terms of the direction of the project, however, as it gives us a narrower, more focussed remit. I think this whole situation has proved instructive about working as a group and planning carefully. I hope that with a renewed focus we can avoid making any mistakes such as this in the forthcoming weeks.

 

 

Week 3

During our group session this week, we sketched out at a site map for Sussex Mills Group on to a whiteboard and photographed this for future reference. Doing this has given a good idea of just how much content there is on the site. The site is structured in an unsophisticated way, without a logical hierarchy, with almost all of the material leading from a variety of links scattered down the home page. In the group session we also contacted potential users of the website via email to ask for their assistance in our research. We have compiled a list of questions to help us better understand who uses the website and what for, and also to give us some indication of what possible features we can apply to a redesign. Example questions include: why do use this website?; are you technically proficient?; do you use social networking?; do you subscribe to the group newsletter? When we have collected some responses, we can then marry these up with the reasons we established for redesigning the site in week 2 to build a fuller picture of the website’s main function. I’m hoping our correspondence with users of the current site will also help give some insight in to which content can be culled. My preference would be to interview respondents face to face or by telephone, as I feel email correspondence is somewhat impersonal and less revealing. Although I can see the merit in following this user centred design process, at the current time I am still finding it hard to envisage just how much this preliminary work will translate to the actual redesign of the website and its content and features.

I have taken some time this week to consult Kelly Goto’s and Emily Cotler’s ‘Web redesign: Workflow that Works’. I have found the first section of this book, entitled ‘Phase 1: Defining the project,’ (Goto and Cotler 2001, pp 39-84) particularly helpful in consolidating the knowledge I have gained in the first few weeks of the course. Following on from the discussion of personas and user journeys in the lecture, I have read the authors’ tips on making use of personas and understanding the audience of a website. They have also included a very useful example of how to write up a persona (Goto and Cotler 2001 pp 49-53). Although it may feel strange to describe the acts of a fictional person, I think the use of personas is an effective method to prevent the designer(s) from straying away from what it is the user will be using a website for. Sue Batley’s ‘Information Architecture for Information Professionals’ (2007) also discusses the use of personas and provides a more basic example. I think she makes a valuable point when she asserts it is ‘essential to categorise users’ (Batley 2007, p.41) yet also to enable users to ‘customise their interactions to some extent.’(Batley 2007, p.41) By this she means to warn against designing a site for too narrow a band of users, with an inflexible range of navigation. From researching the Sussex Mills Group website, my feeling would be that the main users of the website are late-middle aged/ retired and it will be interesting to see if this is reflected in our user research. Having said this, I’m aware it can be misleading to speculate too much and to form preconceptions, so I’m hoping our user research will provide us with some useful material to assist in the creation of a range of personas to which we can refer.