Organising Information in your Website Steps and Schemes

Slide 2 Organising Information Organizing Information The Information Architect –Determine site’s content and functionality –Specify site’s organization, navigation, labeling and searching systems –Detail how the site will accommodate change and growth over time –The aim is to allow users to find their way through the site quickly and easily

Slide 3 Organising Information Elements of Information Architecture Organization systems Navigation systems Labeling/Indexing systems Searching systems

Slide 4 Organising Information Five Steps 1.Divide the content into logical units 2.Establish a hierarchy of importance among units 3.Work out relationships among units 4.Build site to closely follow your information structure 5.Analyze how it looks and works

Slide 5 Organising Information How we Search for Information Searching for information is an iterative, interactive process What you find at the start of your search may influence what you search for or find later Associative learning can occur

Slide 6 Organising Information Types of Organization Schemes Exact Organization Schemes –Divides information into well-defined, mutually exclusive sections (the phone book) –This is called ‘known-item’ searching. You know what you are looking for –Exact organization schemes are easy to design and maintain, as it is easy to categories objects

Slide 7 Organising Information Alphabetical Organization Phone books, dictionaries It is often an umbrella for other schemes Many different ways in which information can be organized –by last name, product name, service name, department Supports different types of searching – rapid scanning, browsing Exact Organization

Slide 8 Organising Information Chronological Organization Suitable for certain types of information –archives of press releases, newspapers and magazines –history books –diaries –TV guides It is easy to categorize items once there is agreement on when an event occurred Exact Organization

Slide 9 Organising Information Geographical Organization If place is important then a geographical organization scheme works well A travel site Exact Organization

Slide 10 Organising Information Ambiguous Categories don’t follow an exact definition Sometimes they are more important and useful than exact organization schemes. Books can be searched for by author, title or subject

Slide 11 Organising Information Libraries use Dewey Decimal systems. These are useful because we do not always know what we are looking for Difficult to organize and maintain Can be difficult to use Ambiguous Ambiguous Organization

Slide 12 Organising Information Ambiguous organization groups items into intellectually meaningful ways Topics that are related can be placed side by side In an alphabetical listing, items beside each other may have nothing in common other than they share their first initial letter. Ambiguous Organization Ambiguous

Slide 13 Organising Information With ambiguous organization the designer has made an intellectual decision to group items together Grouping of related items supports associative learning Ambiguous systems involve more work in design and maintenance but they can often prove more valuable to users Ambiguous Organization Ambiguous

Slide 14 Organising Information Success depends on The initial classification system worked out The ongoing indexing of content items Ambiguous Organization

Slide 15 Organising Information Some Ambiguous Organization Schemes Topical Organization –Organization is by subject or topic –Yellow pages –Book Chapters of non-fiction (text books) –Academic courses and departments –Most websites should provide some kind of topical access to content regardless of organization scheme used

Slide 16 Organising Information Breadth of Content Refers to the boundaries and limitations regarding the topics dealt with Topics must have relevance to the organizations products/services and must have space to grow for future products etc Selecting the number of topics is a big task

Slide 17 Organising Information Task-Oriented Organization This organizes content into a collection of processes and functions. Software application menus are an example of this type of organization. Think of the menus - File, Format, Help etc. The user selects and navigates depending on what process he/she wants carried out

Slide 18 Organising Information Task-Oriented This type of site organization will increase with the increased use of intranets for business-to-business transactions and the increased use of the Internet for e-commerce

Slide 19 Organising Information Audience-Specific Organization Where there are two or more clearly defined audiences The audience is segmented with different content provided for each segment (the college website – has some content aimed at staff with different pages aimed at students)

Slide 20 Organising Information Audience Specific It works well if there is value to the company from customizing content for each audience. It allows clutter-free pages, which present only the options of interest to the particular audience.

Slide 21 Organising Information Hybrid Schemes These include elements of other schemes like topical and audience- specific into one website Can lead to confusion for viewer Need careful arrangement of pages

Slide 22 Organising Information What Scheme to Use? The success of any website will depend on how well it serves the needs of the target audience and how well it serves the goals of the organization Information organization plays a very big part in this success The scheme chosen depends on the site’s content and purpose