Information Architecture

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Information Architecture

• Donna Maurer
• Usability Specialist

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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)

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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

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What information architecture is about

• AIfIA definition
• 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 andarchitecture to
  the digital landscape.

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Information is arranged in many ways

• Date
• Alphabetical
• Geography
• Topic
• Hierarchy
• Faceted
• Organic
• Combination
• Good IA allows access to information in many ways

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By date
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Alphabetical
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By geography
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By geography
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By audience
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By audience
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By task
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By topic
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By category
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By category
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Organic organisation system
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About hierarchies
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Getting around - navigation
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Navigation

• Every page of a site should let you know
• Where am I
• Whats here
• Where can I go now
• Where have I been
• People dont always work from the home page
  they get to a page from a link or from a search

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Types of navigation

• Global navigation
• Persistent across a site
• Allows access to major parts of the site
• Local navigation
• Lets you move around the current section
• Contextual navigation
• Inline links, to anywhere
• Supplemental navigation
• Helpers site map, A-Z index
• See also
• Related links

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Navigation
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Social navigation
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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

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Search

• What to search
• Query structure - how to search it
• Relevance - which results are the most important
• How to display the results

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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

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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

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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

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The elements of user experience
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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

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IA Resources

• Books
• 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
• Dont Make Me Think Steve Krug
• Online
• 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/