The Information School at the University of Washington Information Architecture What is it Bob Boiko UW iSchool ischool.washington.edu Metatorial Services Inc.

The Information School at the University of Washington What we will cover What is IA? –Define it –Divide it –Delimit it

The Information School at the University of Washington Define It Information: The common forms of knowledge artifacts we find around us Architecture: The art and science of designing structures. Information Architecture: The art and science of designing information structures. A la English

The Information School at the University of Washington Define It Organization, labeling, and navigation schemes in an information system. The structural design of an information space. Making web sites manageable and accessible. A new discipline bringing architecture and design to the “digital landscape.” A la Rosenfeld & Morville

The Information School at the University of Washington Divide It Organization systems: Creating indexes, taxonomies, associations, sequences, thesauri. Labeling systems: Choosing and organizing the way concepts will be named and pointed to. Search systems: Creating effective automated info retrieval systems. Metadata: Developing the schemas and other representations that encode the above. Navigation systems: The use of all the above to assist a person to get to what they need. By Deliverables

The Information School at the University of Washington Divide It User study: Finding out what users know, want, expect, and need. Info ecologies: Discovering the way information works and interacts in the social system of the organization. Research and writing: Digging into and explaining the above to the organization. Structure creation: Creating and revising deliverables. Negotiation and compromise: Getting the organization to agree on the appropriate structures and their constituents. Testing and revision: Trying structures and revising them and trying again. By Tasks

The Information School at the University of Washington Delimit it Vs information design: ID is the sensory representation, IA is the logical representation Vs usability and Human Computer Interaction (HCI): HCI and usability are about the behaviors that are useful and wasteful in using computers. Vs user experience: UE is about the emotional reactions that an application inspires. Or maybe UE is the overarching concept that envelops IA and related studies. Software development: Implements the structures that an IA creates

The Information School at the University of Washington Delimit it Vs content management: A CMS consumes the products of IA and manages their continued update Vs KM: KM depends on the structures of IA. Good IA is KM. Vs Web sites: The Web is what made IA so hot, but it is only the first stop. Vs Libraries and information science: IA came from library science but has moved on to embrace a world of other stuff.

The Information School at the University of Washington Discussion: Classical and Modern IA Contrast the classical and modern approaches described by R&M on page 356 When would you use one over the other? What is the essential difference between the descriptive and the prescriptive? Can the descriptive ever become the prescriptive? Classical Information Architecture Post-Modern Innovation Architecture Top-DownBottom-Up CentralizedDistributed ClosedOpen StableAdaptive PlannedEmergent