inf 2176h: information management in...

INF 2176H: Information Management in Organizations: Models and Platforms

Lecture # 8:Information Architecturefor Intranet Design

Colin Furness MISt PhD MPHFaculty of InformationUniversity of Toronto Copyright ©2016 by Colin Furness. All rights reserved.

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Outline

INF 2176H Information Management in Organizations

What is Information Architecture?

Understanding the Audience

Information Design and IA

Intranets in Particular

Getting Started

Lecture 8Information Architecture for Intranet Design




1976: Richard Saul Wurman commenting on the need for museums to guide visitors on a learning journey through a physical space

~1996: Term reappears in New York’s “Silicon Alley” Part of project management for building web sites: how

many pages are needed? Part of graphic design: what looks good?

1998: First IA textbook by librarians Morville and Rosenfeld now in its fourth edition (2015)

Definition of IA: “Information architecture is a design discipline that is focused on making information findable and understandable.”

The cocktail party definition:

An information architect is the person whose job it is to make sure that when you visit a web site, you don’t get lost, confused, frustrated and annoyed.

This satisfies the question in broad strokes, but says very little about what and how this might get done.




HAVE you ever gone to a Web site to find a specific piece of information and found yourself falling through a series of pages while clicking around helplessly, trying to find what you want? Do you feel as though you have opened the door to the basement of your new house only to find that the architect forgot to design the staircase that leads to the lower level?

A good architect won't forget your staircase, and a good information architect -- a job that is becoming increasingly more important as the world moves to the Web -- will make sure that visitors to a site will be able to find their way around easily as well. Although some in the new-media industry have lumped the job with that of a Web site's graphic designer, the role of an information architect in the creation of a site is actually much different.

''With apologies to 'Shoeless Joe,' the maxim 'If you build it, they will come' simply does not apply to the Web,'' said Colin Furness, a senior information architect at Iguana Studios, a Web design company in Manhattan …




2000: Announcing a new approach to website design

2002: Andrew Dillon defines IA:

“IA is the term used to describe the process of designing, implementing and evaluating information spaces that are humanly and socially acceptable to their intended stakeholders.”

“Big IA” vs. “Little IA”

~2007: “User Experience Design” supplants Dillon’s concept of “Big IA”

Information architecture begins to enact “Little IA”




2011: First IA graduate course in Canada here at the iSchool Colin’s definition of IA:

“The application of a design process to enable efficient access to information and functionality in a way that is meaningful for given users, tasks, and contexts of use.

Information architecture typically pertains to users navigating shared information spaces, but it can also apply to physical information spaces.”

2016: iSchool inaugurates its UXD concentration

2017 winter: draft of new iSchool KMIM special topics course to include IA for intranets and collaborative knowledge work




So we have some sense that there is a difference between UXD and IA

But what about information design?

A proposed definition of information design

“Shaping the organization, presentation and retrieval of information to a task, person and context of use.”




The difference between UXD and IA:

UXD is broader than information use, to include processes such as transactions, and interface design

More significantly UXD can recognize the integration of online and offline components, like a car rental

The difference between IA and ID:

ID refers to individual instances of information (documents, displays …), whereas IA is concerned with knitting together sets of documents/displays in a meaningful, understandable way.




Actual Use Experience

“UX”

IA

ID vs IA vs UXD vs Actual Use Experience

ID




What is good information architecture? What is good art?

Two similar questions:

Answer:

“it depends”: it is in the eye (and context) of the beholder

But we can evaluate quality on five dimensions of usability:

ease of learning efficient/ergonomic use minimal errors retention over time subjective satisfaction




The Target User: a homogeneous group of users in a given context

If the group is not homogeneous, then there are >1 distinct groups

The more that is known about the target user, the more effective IA can be

Some of the information we would want to know in order to discriminate target user groups:

a. What are their information needs, preferences and behaviours? b. Are users likely to be searching, browsing, or both?c. Are users likely to be skimming (foraging) or reading (learning)?d. What is the users’ vocabulary? e. What skills and expertise do users possess?f. What limitations do users have?




We can easily illustrate the effect of specific expertise/experience on memory:

Memorize the following digits




_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Short term memory capacity: 7 +/-2 items

A unit item depends on the knowledge and experience of the user:

All the days of the week = 1 item Provinces in Canada = 1 item A random list of names = 1 item for each name A word written in an unfamiliar alphabet = 1 item for each letter/element

The more expert a person is, the higher the short term memory capacity

There are significant implications for the size of lists (especially navigation options!)




(Gollin, 1960)

Experience does more than increase short-term memory, it has impacts on learning and recognition

Can you tell what this is?

Perceptual learning occurs with repeated exposure …




(Gollin, 1960)

Perceptual learning: repeated exposure to the fifth image unconsciously teaches recognition of the first image

Implication: repeated exposure dramatically increases familiarity and recognition – frequent users will perform strongly, and do not need as many cues to recognize what they are looking at




Cognitive Burden:

The sum total of all mental effort required to operate a set of controls on a device or system, locate and select information, and assimilate it.

A similar term, from cognitive psychology, is “cognitive load”. Cognitive load focuses on what makes learning processes harder/slower

The purposeful use of the term ‘burden’ emphasizes interference with the intended task (reading, learning, reasoning, and decision-making)

In any context, a major goal of IA is minimize cognitive burden, since it is by definition a distraction




Key sources of cognitive burden Novelty Ambiguity Information Density




Navigation (wayfinding) itself as another source of cognitive burden

Notice that if you are in conversation while walking an unfamiliar route it can be very hard to retrace your steps!

The hippocampus mediates both LTM formation AND spatial reasoning, and can be overloaded




Which is better: scrolling or clicking?

The answer is always the same: “It depends”.

Favouring Scrolling

Any set of information that is meant to be read as a unit (e.g. a book chapter, a set of requirements, …)

This is an argument for lowered cognitive burden, via less navigation

Favouring Clicking

Sets of disparate information, where the user is likely to only read a small subset of the material available

This is an argument for lowered cognitive burden by ergonomics: facilitating quick selection at a glance rather than lots of reading




Note the contrast in audience behaviour between intranets and public web sites:

Intranets: Public Web Sites:clearly defined motivations range of possible motivations”experts” who use the system daily orient toward newcomers

Cognitive Burden Characteristics for frequent (e.g., workplace) users

Most important source of CB for frequent users: novelty (and sometimes ambiguity)

Most important sources of CB for occasional users: ambiguity & information density




Recall the five dimensions of usability:


How might these dimensions differ for intranets vs public web sites?

Note: the usual rote statement “intuitive and easy to use” is notsmart prioritization for an intranet




Navigating Books vs Web Sites

Multiple pages vs Multiple pagesHeadings and sections vs Headings and sectionsTable of contents vs Global navigation barIndex vs Keyword searching

Not so different!!

This suggests that navigation, headings, and searching ought to be very important for supporting effective use!






Information Shape:

Classification:

Two golden rules:

(a) Mutually exclusive categories(b) Collectively exhaustive categories


o Programso Projectso Products/Initiativeso Strategy

Labels and semantics: a cornerstone of information architecture

Labels are crucial: they can support or undermine an information organization scheme they can properly define a functional feature or can disguise it

Effective labeling leverages the audience’s knowledge But this isn’t enough on its own – consider one company’s intranet:




Semantic confusables:

Consider these elevator control buttons:

Things that are cognitively very similar require considerableadditional mental processing to discriminate

Semantic example: Flooz (internet “currency” from the 1990s)

SEND FLOOZ SPEND FLOOZ

(use Flooz) (buy Flooz)




Prostitutes Appeal to Pope

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Stolen Painting Found by Tree

Dealers will Hear Car Talk at Noon

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

Milk Drinkers are Turning to Powder

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin CaseFrom: http://www.fun-with-words.com/ambiguous_headlines.html




As these headlines make evident, multiple meanings can be derived from even simple words and concepts – beware of ambiguity!

http://www.fun-with-words.com/ambiguous_headlines.html

Remember that wayfinding (navigation) is a significant source of cognitive burden

Do you remember Gopher (the precursor to the Web)? hierarchical, text-based lists navigation is up and down only

But the Web is non-linear: the greatest curse in the history of humanity?




We can mitigate the burden of wayfinding using clearly visible hierarchies:

Global navigation:

o Links that are persistent across every page in the site

o Usually across the top and/or the left pane and/or across the bottom

Local navigation:

o Links that appear “globally” within a section of a site

o Local navigation can be secondary, tertiary, even quarternary




Navigation Sign-Posts: Knowing where you are

o “Breadcrumbing”A linear representation of depth and place in a hierarchy

(e.g., Home -> Departments -> HR -> Beheadings -> Schedule )

o “On-state”The link representing the section currently viewed is highlighted(e.g. no longer a link, or shown in a different colour)

o “Footprints”A visited link permanently changes colour for the duration of site visit

We can mitigate the burden of navigation by aiding wayfinding:




Sitemaps

A sitemap is like a table of contents A sitemap is like the index at the back of a book A sitemap is helpful for showing the ‘bird’s eye view’ of the site A sitemap is a crutch to compensate for poor IA

Sitemaps CAN Provide filtering on many different attributes Provide an alternate organization for information on the site Be personalized Act as a navigation learning tool Be a useful shortcut to deeper areas of the site For unusual examples, see www.powermapper.com

(e.g. http://try.powermapper.com/examples/maps/skyscraper/map.htm)




http://www.powermapper.com/

http://try.powermapper.com/examples/maps/skyscraper/map.htm

Showing topics spatially could be useful for discovery but simpler (e.g., alphabetical) forms may be more useful




Intranets vs Web Sites: Leveraging the Audience

The intranet audience is “expert”

Tradeoffs between designing for novices and experts:

o Easy to learn vs powerful functionality

o Constraining errors vs speed and efficiency

o Managing a diverse vocabulary vs a controlled vocabulary




Review: returning to our usability criteria one more time:


Which seem most important for an intranet with frequent/expert users?

Which seem least important for an intranet with frequent/expert users?




Personalization Customizationvs.

a.k.a. “adaptive interface” a.k.a. “adaptable interface”

The information system automatically behaves differently for different individuals and/or different job roles

System adapts to user

The information system can be configured by the user according to his/herown preferences

User can adapt system

But is this a good idea?




Personalization and Role-Based Approaches

One valid approach is to define different “roles” that intranet users have. Each role may be presented with a different information architecture to optimize what that user type needs to get done.

Examples:

o Law firm partners may have access to billing information that junior associates do not have;

o Those who are able (or who are required) to maintain content may need different functions, such as reminders, or quick access to a variety of pages unrelated to their other job tasks.

NB – to be role-based is a decision based on assessment, not a premise




Getting Started



You will have generated raw data to work with:

Interview notes

Direct observations

Artefacts (like reports, lists, org charts)

Lists of current information categories and functional features

So, how can we get started in organizing these meaningfully?

Card sorting as a means of organization

Affinity diagrams as a means of organization

Card sorting is a cheap, simple way to either

1. Create an organization scheme

2. Evaluate/validate a proposed organization scheme

Content items are written on cards (or slips of paper) and users are asked to either

1. Sort items to create meaningful piles

2. Sort items into labeled piles provided

Getting Started



Kawakita Jiro1920 - 2009

Affinity diagrams invented by Kawakita Jiro: anthropologist

Developed affinity diagrams as a means to synthesize and interpret ethnographic data

Technique borrowed for IA –organizing disparate pieces of content

Also used in product design, focus group data, and other domains

Getting Started



Utility:

Identifying themes/patterns that emerge from data

Organizing material for presenting and decision-making

Building consensus iteratively

Collect data from many people simultaneously

Getting Started



What is involved:

Ground rules:

1. Start with a problem statement or question for development2. all initial ideas are accepted (no filtering)3. Each person contributes ideas, usually via stickies on a wall4. Stickies can be colour coded by participant or type of data (or not)

Process:

1. Data generation: adding stickies to the wall2. Duplicate identification3. Collaborative grouping – really similar items can be stacked4. Assign a tentative label to each grouping

Getting Started



Strengths

1. Collaborative2. Participatory3. Discover unseen connections (if you’re lucky!)4. Can be used to generate data from nothing

Weaknesses

1. With a large group, a good facilitator is essential for success2. Not great for remote teams3. Can be time consuming4. No guarantee that outcomes will be generalizable beyond the group

(for remote teams, possible e-tools: memosort.com; trello.com; mural.ly)

Getting Started



References and Further Reading



Dias, C. (2001). “Corporate portals: a literature review of a new concept in information management”. International Journal of Information Management, 21, 269-287.

Dillon, A. (2004). Designing Usable Electronic Text. (2nd Ed.). CRC Press.

Dillon, A. (2002). Information architecture in JASIST: Just where did we come from? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(10), 821-823.

Gollin, E. S. (1960). Developmental studies of visual recognition of incomplete objects. Perceptual and Motor Skills 11, 289-298

Haverty, M. (2002). Information architecture without internal theory: an inductive design process. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(10), 839-845.

Jacobson, R. (1999). Information Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mack, R. Ravin, Y., & Byrd, R.J. (2001). Knowledge portals and the emerging digital knowledge workplace. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 925-955.

Miller, G. A. (1956). "The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing Information". Psychological Review63(2): 343–355.

Morville, P., & Rosenfeld, L. (2015). Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond (4th Ed.). Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media.

Rouet, J-F., Levonen, J.J., Dillon, A., & Spiro, R.J. (Eds.). (1996). Hypertext and Cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Wurman, R.S. (1997). Information Architects. New York: Graphis Inc.

References and Further Reading



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