intro to ia

INF 311 - INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Introduction toInformation Architecture

Question:

How do you define Information Architecture?

What information architecture is about

AIfIA definition1. The structural design of shared information

environments. 2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web

sites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability.

3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design andarchitecture to the digital landscape.

What information architecture is about

The art and science of structuring and organizing information systems to help people achieve their goals.

Information architects organize content and design navigation systems to help people find and manage information.

What is IA?

This is an emerging discipline in an evolving medium.

DO YOU AGREE?? WHY??

Experts & Gurus disagree on the “right” answer.

What is IA?

A trick question or a tricky question?

Information Architecture (IA) Interaction Design (ID) Information Design (ID too) User-centered Design (UCD) User-interface Design (UI) Usability/Usability Engineering (UE)

A Visual Definition

questions

answers

Users• audience types• information needs

Content• scope and volume• structure• metadata

Info. Architecture• org, label, nav, & searching systems

Business Context• strategy• resources• culture / politics• workflow

IA

Information is arranged in many ways

DateAlphabeticalGeographyTopicHierarchyFacetedOrganicCombination

Good IA allows access to information in many ways

Information Architecture

What do you think IA entails?

How does it effect the development of a product, web, system?

Why Information Architecture?

House analogy

Multidimensional nature of information spaces

Like buildings, web sites have architectures that cause us to react to them

Both good and bad Why bad architectures – architects don’t live in/use

buildings/sites they design; don’t understand customers; don’t stay around to deal with long term consequences

Why is IA Hard?

Stability must be balanced with flexibilityHigh level of ambiguity, competing goals,

requirements, scope creepNo label clearly defines a page/title to

everyoneNo body of text is understood the same way

by everyoneUsers experience web sites differently and

look for different things on a web site

Why is IA Difficult?

Users

Documents and Applications

Communication Chasm

ExamplePersonal Digital Assistant

SynonymsHandheld Computer

"Alternate" SpellingsPersenal Digitel Asistent

Abbreviations / AcronymsPDA

Broader TermsWireless, Computers

Narrower TermsPalmPilot, PocketPC

Related TermsWindowsCE, Cell Phones

Concepts of Information Architecture

Key concepts of IA: Information

Structure , Organization, Labeling

Finding and Managing (User needs + goals of the business)

Art and Science (Usability engineering, ethnography + experience, intuition and creativity)

Information

Many types of Information

Data – facts & figuresRelational DB – highly structured, specific

answers & questionsKnowledge – what’s people knowInformation Systems – No single answer to a

question Web sites, software, images, video, etc… Metadata – terms used to describe something

Structure, Organizing, Labeling

Structure – determining appropriate levels of granularity

Organizing – grouping components into meaningful categories

Labeling – what to call above categories and the navigation links that relate to them

Ex: bookstores, libraries

Finding & Managing

Findability is critical to overall usability

WHY???

IA balances the needs of users with business goals

Must have Efficient content management Clear policies and procedures – Ex: School of Mgmt

Art & Science

Art – Willing to take risks Trust intuition Rely on experience & creativity

Science – We have gotten better at running studies on user

needs and experiences

BUT…..there is too much ambiguity and complexity in IA to solely rely on scientific data – Do you agree??


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

Andrew Dillon


If you look at this definition and activities of User-Centered Design you can see that there is a close relation to the definition. As Dillon explains it, IA is just a better name for User-Centered design.

IA is still an evolving discipline. Many researchers view IA as a field that deals only with the design of web sites. However, it seems difficult to maintain a clear division between information design issues in those that are web-based and those that are not.

Job Description - Information Architecture

Elevator pitch for explaining IA: Information Architect = Internet Librarian Information Architect = online merchandiser Information Architect = professional who tackles

information overload.

What is not IA? Graphic design is NOT IA Software development is NOT IA Usability engineering is NOT IA

Do you agree???


Gray areas:

Graphic designers do great deal of IA

Interaction designers are concerned with the behaviors tasks and process that users encounter

Usability Engineers concerned with aspects of the user experience including information architecture and graphic design

Gray areas are valuable Force interdisciplinary collaboration which results in the

best end product

Why is IA Important?

Consider the following cost and value propositions: Cost of finding information Cost of not finding information Value of education Cost of construction of web sites Cost of maintenance of websites Cost of training Value of brand Customer satisfaction

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Statistics

Employees spend 35% of productive time searching for information online. Working Council for Chief Information Officers Basic Principles of Information Architecture

The Fortune 1000 stands to waste at least $2.5 billion per year due to an inability to locate and retrieve information. IDC, The High Cost of Not Finding Information

Forfeited revenue: poorly architected retailing sites are underselling by as much as 50%. Forrester Research, Why Most Web Sites Fail


Information Architecture lives beneath the surface, not something people see instantly

How do we justify this invisible activities to our colleagues and make the case for information making?

Information Architecture Concepts

IA - Component Systems

Practicing Information Architecture

Practicing IA

IA is every where!

You can’t design Information Architecture in a vacuum.

Web sites and intranets have a dynamic and organic nature which is defined by the environment where they exist.

Every web site is unique & has IA

IA in your every day life

Can you think of some examples of IA in everyday life?

http://flickr.com/groups/everyday-information-architecture/pool

IA in Businesses

Large Companies – staff of IAs devoted to long term strategies of their web sites

Small Companies – usually hire consultants when they are redesigning their web site. They are there a short time and focus on the task at hand not long term goals

Good to have IAs from within (innies) and from outside the company (outies) -Different view points

IA in Businesses

Ideally – IAs would be solely responsible for IA and nothing else

Reality – This hardly ever happens. Most IAs wear many hats. Most are the graphic designer or the web designer Even the programmer!

Information Ecologies

Composed of users, content, and context and their dependencies

Technologies are carefully integrated into existing habits and practices, according to the values of the information ecology

An ecology responds to local environmental changes and local interventions. An ecology is a place that is scaled to individuals


Information ecologies is the basic of the model of Information Architecture:

Context

Content Users

Business goals, funding,politicsculture,technology, resourcesand constrains

Audience, tasks, needs,information seekingbehavior, experience

Document/data types,content objects, volume,existing structure


Context: Organizational goals, strategy, staff, processes and

procedures, physical and technological infrastructure.

IA must be uniquely matched to the context.

Collective mix of capabilities, aspirations and resources for each organization

Understand business context – what makes it unique

Align the IA with business goals, strategy, culture of the business


Content: Documents, applications, services, and metadata that

people need to use or find on your web site.

Distinguishing factors of each information ecology: Ownership, format, structure, metadata, volume,

dynamism

Question:

How do you organize (or not) your: Computer desktop/files Physical desktop Paper files Books


Users: Who uses your web site?

How often are they using it?

Differences in customer preferences and behaviors within the physical world translate into different information needs and information seeking behaviors

Planned vs. Unplanned IA

PlannedInformation Architecture Framework

Employees InterestedPublic

All Content Objects

The sum of all published content: Web, Lotus Notes, Databases,

Microsoft Office, Etc.

SuppliersCustomersPartners

All Content Objects

The sum of all published content: Web, Lotus Notes, Databases,

Microsoft Office, Etc.

Users

UnplannedInformation Environment

Users access theright informationat the right time.

Users cannot findthe information

they need.

Where Does IA Fit in the Design Process?

The Elements of User Experience

Jesse James Garretthttp://jjg.net

User Centered Information Architecture Design Methodology

Iterative process

Discovery Definition/Conceptual Design IA Design Handoff-Implementation

Integrated with content development, interaction design, graphic design, usability

Communicating Ideas (deliverables)

Diagrams (conceptual)

Blueprints (structural)

Wireframes (relational)

Text (reports, taxonomies)

Interpersonal (meetings, conversation, blogs)

Project management & Information Architecture

PM & IA can be a powerful combination

Sources of tension Big IA/Little IA vs. Big PM/Little PM

User Needs and Behaviors –

Effect on IA

Users

Why did a user come to your site?

Information needs for each user differ therefore they have different information seeking behaviors

Why did you go to google last time?

User Needs and Behaviors

Simplistic model of information retrieval

User asks question

Black magic

User receives answers

What is wrong with this model?

Does it reflect all kinds of seeking behaviors?


When a user comes to our web site, What does she/he really want?

This is a question you need to know the answer to in order to design a usability web site or product


Information needs: Known item search (The perfect

catch) User’s needs will only be satisfied if you

find an specific piece of information.

Exploratory seeking (Lobster Trapping) User is looking for useful information

items

Exhaustive search (Indiscriminate drift netting) User wants to find everything about a

particular topic


What do users do to find information?


Building blocks for information seeking behavior:

Searching

Browsing

Asking


Other major aspects of information seeking include:

Integration We often integrate searching, browsing and asking in the

same session.

Iteration Information seeking is an iterative process Information needs may change along the way, causing us

to try other new approaches with each iteration.


Principles of the “Berry-picking” model for information retrieval (Marcia Bates). User’s information needs and queries continually

shift as a result of reading and learning through the search process.

User’s information needs are not satisfied by a single document but rather by a series of selections and bits of information found along the way.

Bates, Marcia

The design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface. Online Review, 13 (October), pp. 407-424


Information need

Query searchsystem

Scan results Ask person

Reformulate query Examine document

Formulate query

Navigate Browsingsystem

Examine document Examine document

Berry-picking Model

General User Behaviors

Users don’t read Keep text short and to the point Print writing is different than web writing Bullet points

Users don’t scroll No horizontal scrolling Keep important information above page fold Think of alternative mice and scrolling could be

difficult


Font size Don’t make the font too small or big. Users will leave Use font size to display importance

Number of Links Don’t go overboard Users can handle a lot of links if the page is laid out

well and labeled

Users don’t see or click on banner ads


Key to great IA is not to make the users think.

They want to be on autopilot when viewing a web site

Users do not have a sense of direction on the web

User-Centered Design and IA

Information Architecture (IA) is not restricted to taxonomies, search capabilities, and other things that help the users find information.

IA starts with users and the reason why they visit a web site.

IA is considered by some researchers as a better name for User-Centered Design of web sites.

User-Centered Design

User-centered information systems design has five basic components:

1. Needs analysis: determining the goals, purposes and objectives.

2. Tasks analysis: Determining the tasks and activities that users accomplish in meeting their needs

3. Resource analysis: Investigating the resources (both cognitive and social) that are used in completing the tasks

4. User modeling: Synthesizing needs, tasks, and resources.

5. Designing for usability: Assessing how users’ needs, tasks, and resources interact with system characteristics to create usable systems.

User-centered Design

1. Identify a user population:– Who are the users? (individuals, groups, a

combination of both)– Define a user population (characteristics, social and

cognitive background)– Marketing considerations suggests that user

populations identified for a service should be increasingly narrow and focused in nature.

User-centered Design

2. Investigate the information needs of user group:

The users identified in step 1 have a number of information needs. These can be investigated using several techniques (surveys, interviews, direct observation, etc.)

Key ideas that you should keep in mind: TALK TO THE USERS No information system can meet all the user needs Once you have collected the information needs select

those that will be designed to meet.


3. Discover the tasks that users accomplish as they meet these information needs:

• Different methods can be used in this step, (I.e. interviews, observation, log analysis)

• Key element is to talk to the users and observe them as they work on meeting their information needs.

• Identify: Tasks that the user employs Note sequential order of tasks Distinguish between tasks that are essential and those that

are optional• The result is one or more tasks models for each

information tasks


4. Investigate the Resources that users require to complete these tasks:

Each tasks requires a variety of resources:– Background knowledge– Procedural knowledge– Abilities

Research methods to investigate resources possessed by users can be found in any text of psychometric


5. Summarize the preceding information needs in user models.

For each user group there will be a set of needs

Fore each of the information needs there will be a number of tasks that are necessary

Integrate these into a user model that can be used to guide the design decisions


6. Consider each design decision in the light of resource augmentation and enabling

The goal of the system design is to allow users to complete their information tasks that will meet their information needs.

System features that will augment the resources available to the users when necessary will enable them to accomplish their tasks

IA in practice

Find IA in: http://www.digital-web.com/

intro to ia

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