After studying user preferences, workflow and security access, the IMDS team was ready to design the system. For inspiration, they looked to other Web sites. First, they looked at their competitors' sites, studying their navigation schemes. Consequently, IMDS mimics Yahoo's strategy of presenting categories before drilling down to documents. Because Mead and his team had learned that users wanted several ways to find documents, they built multiple indexes.
Users can now look for documents alphabetically and chronologically.
Mead's research revealed that users had strong opinions about how the system should look and feel. So the IMDS team strove for simplicity and used graphically sparse, low-bandwidth forms and templates. In January 1998 the project team had a prototype ready to go, and Mead sought its first critique from a user. Jill Salva, Bay's external Web manager, did the honors. Because of her constant need for new information as well as her experience providing information to a boatload of users, Salva was a natural for the test.