This document summarizes a keynote presentation about information architecture (IA). It provides a brief history of IA and discusses how it fits into user experience design processes. The presentation argues that IA is an important field that connects content, users, and other aspects of a digital experience. It also suggests areas, such as information seeking behaviors and cognitive science, that IAs should further develop expertise in to strengthen their work and role on projects. The overall message is that IA is a valuable practice that deserves equal standing as a field within user experience design.
39. 1. List organisational structures and be able to consciously choose 2. Create models of the structures - navigation model, application model, data model 3. Understand deep IA – content objects, CVs and semantic web 4. Understand how people seek information 5. Know how search works
57. Extract clues from the context (understand the situation to understand what information is relevant and explanations are acceptable)
58. Plausibility over accuracy (through the lens of politics, conflicting opinions and interpretation)Brenda Dervin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensemaking
59. Marcia Bates – Modes of Information Seeking Http://gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/articles/info_SeekSearch-i-030329.html
IA and loving itLast 6 months brought back my love of the work I doBut concerned…Domain driven modeling - no usersUX London and Lou – same as 10 years ago and the UX professionals did not knowClient – content heavy web site – no-one in product or UX strong IAs and the interaction design was done before the IA
Thanks to Bob Royce for doing the history of IA yesterday in his talkMeeting Peter Morville – Pre- Polar bear bookPolar bear bookEric, ChristinaJesse2nd edition of Polar bear book
Peter Morville - Big IA and little IAPeter Boersma - T-model Jesse – All UX professionals, not IAs
One comment at the panel yesterdayThis is a UX conference, not IAYou find IA where you look for it – we are all about structureContextLuke Wrobleski – platform, place and timeTerry Ma – place and cultureJen Williams – check-in, letting people know of where you are in place and timeAnna Dahlstrom – mapping actions to content and putting them into priority for the business; knowing that context of device is NOT as important as context of where they are in the information seeking lifecycle.Learning from other disciplinesBob Royce – object orientated programming and UMLMike Atherton – connecting things to things with domain driven modellingStephanoBussolon - Cognitive science and decision makingRefining IACar and mortgage calculators – presenting the information and options in a clear way, so people can make decisions and the bank make moneySerendipity – thinking about how technology uses data to bring unexpected delight. And can we add chaos.IA thinkingJason Mesut – keeps call me an IA, because I think in a structured mannerBoon – Structure, repeatability, re-use, building on top of known deliverables
Thing of IA as four things
Big aspects over the last few years is ContextWe are consciously making decisions about connections and experience, based on information we know about the user (their location, the time, the device)Funnily it brings me back to the polar bear book, where the focus of context was a lot more about the context of the web site (business goals, culture) and making sure that the business bought into the solution, rather than context being designing for the device, time and location.
Pervasive IA; cross-channel; transmedia; plain old interaction design
Hand out cards
Sexiness of IA; the skills and language of IA; the respect for the people who do this work
Not dissing Content strategists – but IAs have been doing this for a lot longer
We are planners – the BIG IA aspect of looking holistically and seeing the experience cross platformDon’t go straight into prototyping without thinking about how the information will be accessed and interacted with
User research and testing as part of our field; as much as the data does suggest – we also need to focus on user warrant, user patterns and mental models
Content modeling at the BBC storyIn 2002…Working with a new IA at LDA; he got caught in the deep content modelling mixMethods are good – but teaching a process without knowing why, practicing it and learning how it has previously work, means that it is not really a useful toolIn the panel session – the gentleman talking about communities in the 80sI’ve been designing applications since 1995, where it was 640 x 480; getting rid of the crap was very important there, not just now with 320 x 240
Richard Apps – can be dangerous if the card sorting is done badly and I suspect most are done badly
Two storiesYou can do participatory design for IA (information hierarchy)Place 20 questions to understanding what facets of info are the most important to a user
This goes against the T and filling the Ia gap – but without being multi-disciplinary we loose our ability design better experiences. Jason Mesut’s presentation yesterday
Time Out stories – working with the developers, wrangling with editors across the world, managing translations of FrenchAs we understand how the information and interactions will work, we can draw them all togetherBoon Sheridan – using deliverables as the way to share strategic approach, tactical focus, brainstorming, ideal for collaborationDesigning for disagreement
Look outside of IA and to the broader information science,cognitive psychology, linguisticsConsider the models of info seeking and the ways they research how people look for and share informationUnderstand neuroscience and decision making, so you can make decisions on number of items to select for e-commerce shopping Data modellingVisualisation and interaction models with data
Brenda Dervin – Sense makingMarcia Bates – berrypicking; modes of information seeking
StephanoBussolonChoice How many is the right amount?Increasing depth of choice?What type of people?Maximizers and SatisficersDecision making – emotional; rationalWhen to know
Know about linked dataURIsResourcesStructureThey’ve been doing it for longer than usSchema.org – search engine and vocabulary mixed togetherW3C task forces
More than Info graphics; data visualisation for most of us is how to visualise data and perform an action; combining with info seekingOld skool – Ben Schneiderman