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More About
What It Is
SI 658
Information Architecture
Marti Gukeisen
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1/23/2013
Related Readings
Pervasive Information Architecture
Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati
ISBN 978-0-12-382094-5
Ch 2 Toward a Pervasive Information Architecture
rd
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web 3
Edition (The Polar Bear Book)
Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld
ISBN 978-0-596-52734-1
Ch 1 Defining Information Architecture
Ch 4 The Anatomy of an Information Architecture
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3. The History of IA
Where did it come from?
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(Another) Timeline of IA
early 1970s
Xerox PARC
develops first
personal
computer with
a graphical
user interface
Computers will
fit on a desk
1975
The term
“Architecture
of Information”
is coined by
Richard Saul
Wurman (a
real architect,
as in buildings)
1980s
heads down.
deliverables
develop:
blueprints,
requirements,
guidelines
1988
The Design of
Everyday
Things by Don
Norman is
publish.
Design thinking
about ease of
use.
1997
Information
Architects by
Richard Saul
Wurman is
Published
1998
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Polar Bear
Book is
published. IA
has a guide for
practice
1999
Don’t Make
Me Think by
Steve Krug is
published
2000
60-70s Information Design 80s Information Systems
First IA Summit
conference
Practical
Information
Architecture by
Eric Reiss is
published
early 2000s
First phones
supporting web
browsing
appear
2002
Information
Architecture
Institute is
founded to
advance the
field and
support
practitioners
2005
Ambient
Findability by
Peter Morville is
published
Digital Ground
by Malcolm
MCCullough is
published
2006
First ideƏ
conference
1990-2000s Classic IA
2007
Everything is
miscellaneous
David
Weinberger is
published
Designing Web
Navigation by
James Kalbach
iPhone
introduced
2010
Accidental
Taxonomist by
Heather Hedden
is published
2000-2010s Pervasive & Ubiquitous IA
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What the textbooks say
IA from the perspective of Resmini, Rosati, and a polar bear.
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Polar Bear 101
in•for•ma•tion ar•chi•tec•ture n.
1. The structural design of shared information
environments.
2. The combination of organization, labeling, search,
and navigation systems within web sites and intranets.
3. The art and science of shaping information products
and experiences to support usability and findability.
4. An emerging discipline and community of practice
focused on bringing principles of design and
architecture to the digital landscape.
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What it isn’t
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Graphic design is NOT information architecture.
Software development is NOT information
architecture.
Usability engineering is NOT information
architecture.
reality check: defining what ‘information
architecture’ is, not the bounds of your professional
role. One person could do IA, usability engineering,
graphic design, and software development. They
probably get “ninja” in their job title.
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What is an Information Architect?
Richard Saul Wurman says they…
organize patterns inherent in data
make the complex clear
create structure or map
address needs of clarity, human understanding
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Vocabulary Quiz
Ubiquitous Computing
Bridge Experience
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Vocabulary Quiz
Organization systems
Navigation systems
Search systems
Labeling systems
Content Structure
Sequencing
Tagging
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Information Architecture helps…
tell us where we are
find related things / pages / content
understand ways to move around
where we can do important things
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Bottoms Up
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Information Architecture helps…
tell us where we are
tell us what we can do
find related things / pages / content
understand ways to move around
convey what’s credible and what’s for sale
facilitate discovery
mitigate information overload
guess needs we didn’t know we have; meet them
in context
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A side note about metadata
What metadata used to be:
the data ABOUT the data
eg. if your ‘data’ is a book
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the metadata includes: title, pub date, author,
ISBN, #pages, famous quotes
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A side note about metadata
What metadata is now:
the stuff you don't know about the thing you do know
meaning…you can start with any piece to find the
other pieces.
e.g. data could be: author’s name, a line from the
book, or “that book about the elephant that splashes
everyone”
and you could find, reviews, pub date, (and soon
which of your friends has read it)
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Which makes metadata & content
structuring mad important to
understand and get right
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Deliverables
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the elephant in every IA discussion
moral to the story: everyone can say something
different, and everyone can be right
dilemma: what you say or show can be interpreted
multiple ways (and they aren’t wrong)
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Roots of IA
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architecture
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Roots of IA – some notes about their
influence
visual design
never discount the “feel” side of how people
interpret what they see
overlap when it comes to visual hierarchy
visual designers can be valuable innovators, coming
up with new ways to structure & deliver information*
info design
focused on a visual approach to conveying data,
with same objectives:
making the complex clear
expose patterns, meaning
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* can also break everything
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Roots of IA – some notes about their
influence
architecture
deliverables: blueprints / wireframes
metaphor for understanding our role in creation
process
library science
first, longest at organizing groups of content with
metadata and relationships to each other
cognitive psychology
how people interpret information
how we evolved to process information how we do
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Back to Boersma’s T-Model
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this is who is
thinking, but
WHAT are
they
thinking
about?
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Domain. Medium. Messy.
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Size
phone tablet desktop TV billboard
Visual Complexity
text only text & images animated images video 3D
Privacy
private shared public
Personalization
unique to 1 unique to group unique to type generic
Location
Home / Work Inside / Outside geographic-GPS Car / Traveling
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Group Time
Getting started on your group assignments
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Step 1: Form groups
5-7 people per group
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you don’t have to know each other, but it’s
probably better if you don’t hate each other
there will be minimal time required outside of class
(so schedule coordination should not be a
problem)
similar topic interests might be a good way to start
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Step 2: Select a product/service/thing
It should have lots of STUFF.
Been there done that (no repeats, but these were
good ideas):
1. Hulu
2. IMDB
3. AADL
4. etsy.com
5. discogs.com
6. StumbleUpon
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Step 3: tell me about it
Have 1 person in your group email me:
the names of all your group members
what product/service/thing will be your focus
throughout this semester
your group mascot
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Recap
Step 1: Form groups
Step 2: Select a product/service/thing
Step 3: tell me about it, and your mascot
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Step 4: first look at first group
assignment
Start thinking about your product/service in terms of:
anatomy of as-is IA
elevator pitch
business model canvas
♪
back it up to “volume zero”
We’ll discuss more next week.
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Anatomy of as-is IA
identifying architectural components
Organization systems
Labeling systems
Navigation systems
Searching systems
Browsing aids
Search aids
Content and tasks
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31. Wrap Up
More stuff for you to do.
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For next week
Due TUES Jan 22th at 11 pm.
50-300 words responding to the following:
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Polar Bear
Ch 3 User Needs and Behavior
Ch 10 Research
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Rockstar & Software Eval presentations
start next week
Sign up now if you have not already – signup has
gone digital. See ctools.
I will notice if you just don’t sign up / present.
Evaluation sheets are available on ctools.
If you signed up to present Jan 23, get ready
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