35. People are driven to create categories

35. People are driven to create categories

1. People naturally create categories. Just as learning a native language happens naturally, so does learning to categorize the world around us.

   • Categorizing doesn’t emerge as a skill until about age seven. Thinking about categories just doesn’t make sense to children before that. After age seven, however, kids become fascinated with categorizing information.
     • If there is a lot of information and it is not in categories, people will feel overwhelmed and try to organize the information on their own.
       • It’s always a good idea to organize information for your audience as much as possible.
         • It’s useful to get input from people on what organization schemes make the most sense to them, but the critical thing is that you organize the material. What you call things is often more important than how you have it organized.
           • If you’re designing sites for children under age seven, any organization into categories you are doing is probably more for the adults in that child’s world, not for the child.