SHIRT HIERARCHY: TYPE THEN COLOR

SHIRT HIERARCHY: COLOR THEN TYPE

How Organization Affects How You Find a Shirt

You’ve now mastered this important idea that the order of property tests determines a hierarchy. But before you turn to the next chapter, think about how these different organizing hierarchies affect how you find a particular shirt. Suppose you want to wear a black T-shirt. If you sorted your shirts by color first and then by type, you would find the T-shirt in the “black” section of your closet. But if you sorted by type and then by color, you would find the shirt in the T-shirt section. The two experiences feel very different.

But this was a very simple example. Think about a department store, where there are more properties of shirts that could be used to organize them. Shirts will be from different companies, be made of different fabrics, be designed for different activities, or for men, women, or kids, and come in different sizes. The order in which these properties are used to organize the store is an extremely important decision. Most stores would have separate sections for shirts for men, women, and kids. They would then sort by shirt type or by short company, and finally by color and size.