Transcript Information Architecture

Information Architecture
Donna Maurer
Usability Specialist
About me





Consultant for Step Two Designs
Previously government departments
Designing intranets & websites, business
applications
Usability testing, user research, information
architecture
Studying Master of Human Factors (UQ)
Lecture overview





What is information architecture
Information can be arranged and accessed in
many ways
Design process for information architectures
Information architecture for interactive
systems
Information architecture for ubiquitous
systems
What information architecture is about

AIfIA definition
1.
2.
3.
The structural design of shared information
environments.
The art and science of organizing and labeling
web sites, intranets, online communities and
software to support usability and findability.
An emerging community of practice focused on
bringing principles of design and
architecture to the digital
landscape.
Information is arranged in many ways

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Topic
Hierarchy
Faceted
Organic
Combination

Good IA allows access to information in many ways







By date
Alphabetical
By geography
By geography
By audience
By audience
By task
By topic
By category
By category
Organic organisation system
About hierarchies
UC Home
Future students
Current students
Staff
Entry into UC
Announcements
Announcements
About UC courses
OSIS
OPUS
UC College
Academic dvisions
& schhols
Directories
& maps
Campus life
Studying at UC
Academic dvisions
& schhols
Getting around - navigation
Navigation

Every page of a site should let you know:
–
–
–
–

Where am I
What’s here
Where can I go now
Where have I been
People don’t always work from the home
page – they get to a page from a link or from
a search
Types of navigation

Global navigation
–
–

Local navigation
–

Inline links, to anywhere
Supplemental navigation
–

Lets you move around the current ‘section’
Contextual navigation
–

Persistent across a site
Allows access to major parts of the site
Helpers – site map, A-Z index
See also
–
Related links
Navigation
Social navigation
Labeling

Good labels
–
–
–


Are understandable by the reader
Are consistent within the site
Clearly describe where you are going next
Labeling is not easy – it is as complex as
structure and navigation
Where to get labeling ideas:
–
–
–
–
User research
Search terms
Referrer terms
Call centre/people in contact with users
Search




What to search
Query structure - how to search it
Relevance - which results are the most
important
How to display the results
Metadata

‘Data about data’
–
–
–
–


Title
Description
Authored date
Keywords
Historically used to improve searching –
search can use the metadata fields
Also can be used to relate information
together
In an IA project

Research
–
–
–
–






Business needs
User requirements
Content
Gives me an understanding of the domain
Understand technical opportunities or limitations
Design site structure (site map)
Design navigation and page layouts (wireframes)
Design metadata, search and relationships
Usability test throughout the process
Creates a blueprint for the site – technical work after
blueprint created and tested
IA for interactive sites

Sites that are primarily about ‘doing things’
use IA differently
–
–



Fewer pages than a large informational site, so
site map may show workflow not structure
Navigation and labeling still important
More emphasis on scenarios
Wireframes show a lot more detail and show
all screens
Design process is very similar
The elements of user experience
IA for ubiquitous computing

Depends on the ubicomp device
–
–
–


For this assignment, interaction is more important
Navigation – getting around the interface
Labeling always important
Design process is similar
As information becomes embedded into our
environment, accessing that information will
become important…
IA Resources

Books
–
–
–
–

Online
–
–
–

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Louis
Rosenfeld & Peter Morville
Elements of user experience – Jesse James Garrett
Information Architecture – Blueprints for the Web – Christina
Wodtke
Don’t Make Me Think – Steve Krug
Boxes and Arrows – http://www.boxesandarrows.org/
IAslash - http://www.iaslash.org/
IAwiki – http://www.iawiki.org/
Some blatant self-promotion
–
–
My weblog – http://www.maadmob.net/donna/blog/
My organisation – http://www.steptwo.com.au/