IA Information Architecture Natalia Shatokhina CS 575

Today What is IA IA for WWW Pervasive IA Example

Create architecture==Describe the essense Architecture of a cup Create architecture==Describe the essense Open top, for consumption of liquid Weight and size conductive to being held in hand Relationship between walls and bottom that allows containment

Definition of IA (from “Polar Bear book”) 1. The structural design of shared information environments 2.The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. 3.The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability 4. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape

Information organization What is considered information in definition of IA? Web sites, documents, software applications, images, metadata…and more Librarians add value to printed materials by putting them within framework of information architecture that facilitates access to those materials Information architects perform a similar role but within the context of websites and digital content.

“Information ecology” concept Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, resources Context Document/data types, content objects, volume, existing structure IA Audience, tasks, needs,info-seeking behavior, experience Content Users

IA and other disciplines Graphic design is not IA Software development is not IA Usability engineering is not IA usability is the study of the ease with which people can employ a particular tool User Experience Design is: An umbrella term that encompasses information architecture, usability engineering, graphic design and interaction design as components of holistic user experience

IA starts with User Study user needs and behavior to select user behavior model Types of information needs known item seeking exploratory search exhaustive search User information-seeking behavior Searching Browsing Asking Behavior happens in patterns -> models can be build

IA Components Organization systems -how we categorize information Navigation systems - how we browse or move through information Searching systems - how we search information, e.g executing a search query against an index Labeling systems -how we represent the information, e.g.Terminology Metadata, controlled vocabulary, classification schemas

Visualizing IA search Navigation systems Organization systems

Organization system The grouping of like content together Provides a way to browse the structure of the site Schemes: chronological geographical alphabetical

Navigation and Search systems Global Local Contextual Supplemental Global Navigation Where I am? What is related to what’s here? Contextual What’s nearby? Local

Labeling system The interface to the organization scheme - the names of the different categories Appears in the words in the navigation systems One of the most important aspects and one of the most difficult to do. Needs to reflect the content and the user - must be written in user’s language

Designing labeling system labels The proprietor of this website ditched conventional wisdom, utilizing terminology they knew their users would better understand. In fact, the whole store is premised on this innovative nomenclature scheme, and it's been frightfully successful…

Classification schemas Two classification models: Faceted (Item is tagged with set of attributes and values and organization of these objects emerges from this classification and from how user decides to access them). Hierarchical (only one place for an item according to classification scheme) Category Subcategory 1 Subcategory 2 Item

Faceted classification example Item = particular wine Facet Value Type of wine Red, White Wine Regions California, France …… …….. facets

Process of IA Research -> Strategy -> Design -> Implementation -> Administration Research phase - review background, understand goals,business context, existing IA, content and intended audience Strategy phase - define the highest two or three levels of the site’s organization and navigation structure. Suggest candidate document types and metadata schema. Design phase- creating detailed blueprints, wireframes and metadata schema that will be used by graphic designers, programmers, content authors.

Research Context Content Users Background search Technology assesment Presentations and meetings Stakeholders interviews Heuristic evaluation Content mapping Benchmarking Content Metadata and content analysis Server log & clickstream analysis Contextual inquiry User interviews and testing Users Use cases and personas

IA iceberg Interface Wireframes, Blueprints Users Needs, behaviors Metadata, Classification scheme, Thesauri Information architecture strategies, Project plans Users Needs, behaviors Content Structure, meaning Context Culture, technology

Some trends… Organizing search (collaborative tagging - tag clouds, “I’m feeling lucky” button) RIA Information Visualization (newsmap) Person-based organization : google personalized search Social navigation (amazon collaborative filtering)

Definition of IA (revisited) The structural design of shared information environments 2.The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. 3.The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability 4. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape

From wikipedia “Pervasive computing”: Future directions: developing pervasive IA From wikipedia “Pervasive computing”: ……At their core, all models of ubiquitous computing (also called pervasive computing) share a vision of small, inexpensive, robust networked processing devices, distributed at all scales throughout everyday life and generally turned to distinctly common-place ends. Pervasive IA? 1.Understand of how information is used, how it flows, and how it fits within the user’s world (its context) 2.Create a systematic description of the information content of a given product, service, or environment. (categories…etc.)

Pervasive design example (by Maya Design company) Carnegie library in Pittsburgh Paper “Designing for a pervasive information environment”: the importance of information architecture” Goal: to design public library environment “Pervasiveness” of the situation: After observing customers and talking with librarians we had much more complete picture of the kinds of information available and how people accessed that information. We discovered for example that information a customer is seeking might reside in multiple media (books, bulletin boards, magazines, microfiche, newspapers, videotapes, posters, electronic articles and other people) in different locations (building , floors, shelves, computers) with different access and organization methods..The variety and complexity of these choices demonstrate the pervasiveness of information in a library

References Information Architecture for world Wide Web, Peter Morville and Louis RosenFeld, O’Reilly, 2007 H.L.McQuaid, A.Goel, M.McManus. Designing for a pervasive information environment: the importance of information architecture, 2003 www.maya.com Wikipedia http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000063.html Faceted Search (Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services), Daniel Tunkelang. http://www.slideshare.net/cfox74/making-ia-real-planning-an-information-architecture-strategy-presentation

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