3. Definition
The structural design of an information
space to facilitate task completion and
intuitive access to content.
Information Architecture for the World-Wide Web Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville
12. What can help
Navigation
Related Search
Search (with autocomplete, related terms)
http://boxesandarrows.com/four-modes-of-seeking-information-and-how-to-design-for-them/
14. DON’T KNOW
WHAT YOU
NEED TO
KNOW
http://boxesandarrows.com/four-modes-of-seeking-information-and-how-to-design-for-them/
15. What can help
Related information
Recommendations
Push technologies
http://boxesandarrows.com/four-modes-of-seeking-information-and-how-to-design-for-them/
16. You saw a great waterproof
camera on amazon, and now
realize it’s the one you want
to buy. Where did it go?
19. Redesign
DESIGN FOR TASKS
Find a baseball
Find a gift for a upcoming party for a seven year old
Make users aware some balls are on sale
Find again a good choice for that party
21. IA has Solutions
Information Architecture
manages information to
make it findable
– Tagging with metadata
– Organizing with CV’s
– Creating navigation systems
– Optimizing search
28. Context is King
Classification reflects social and cultural organization
‣ Information Architect must understand this context
‣
29. Get to know your
audience…
Football Fan
1.
Who are they?
30. Get to know your
audience…
Football Fan?
1.
Who are they?
31. Know your audience…
1.
2.
Who are they?
What do they care about?
Are the Patriots going
to make the playoffs?
What happened in
the last game?
Show me
photos!
32. Know your audience…
1.
2.
3.
Who are they?
What do they care about?
How do they think of the information and content?
Conference,
division…
Schedules,
standings…
41. Metadata: what
is it?
41
“Metadata tags are used to describe documents, pages,
images, software, video and audio files, and other content
objects for the purposes of improved navigation and
retrieval”
‘Information Architecture for the World Wide Web’, 2nd ed., (2002) Rosenfeld, L. &
Morville, P.
45. Not all Metadata
is equal
45
What are users interested in?
What do you want users to be able to find?
What metadata makes management easy?
Tag content for findability
Tag content for management
46. Exercise
BALL
Write as many descriptive words (or short phrases) on your
post-it
One word (or phrase) per post-it
Don’t share– yet! Hold on!
46
50. The French
Academy
Founded in 1635
Multiple dialects
Goal: purify the French language
Goal: unify the nation (ensure that the State and all
citizens speak the same language)
52. So what?
• So what are your goals?
• How will you ensure that your users and your
system speak the same language?
How will you ensure they continue to do so?
58. The IA can’t
always be there…
58
Thus Controlled vocabularies (CV)
Amy Warner defines a controlled vocabulary (CV)
as “organized lists of words and phrases, or
notation systems, that are used to initially tag
content, and then to find it through navigation or
search.”
63. Synonym rings include
• Acronyms: BBC, British Broadcasting
Company; MPG, miles per gallon
• Variant spellings: cancelled, canceled; honor,
honour
• Scientific terms versus popular use terms:
acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin; lilioceris, lily
beetle
– From Synonym Rings and Authority Files
by Karl Fast, Fred Leise and Mike Steckel
65. Why Bother?
• Sometimes on
intranets, CV’s are
skipped
• You think you can force
people to use proper
terms
• But people are lazy
65
I’m tired of typing “Controlled
Vocabulary--- CV is shorter.
66. Why Bother?
• On the internet you want to
be found
• Plus users use short
queries
•
– Average queries are 2.5
words– 30% of searches are
one word queries
On large scale sites, there is
enough data to do this
programmatically, but on small
sites, not.
66
I want a cannon camera.
67. Thesauri
• Cadillac of Controlled Vocabularies
• Includes associative relationships
Preferred term
Variants
Siblings
Parent
Associated
Christmas
X-mas, Nöel
Hanukah,
Kwanzaa
Winter holidays
Santa Claus
If you have picked a camera, how do you find it again?
How would you search for this photo? No face recognition could recognize this. (close up of procuitto)
Tagging by users on facebook is used to indicate things I should see, not really fotos of me.
Pinterest boards add metadata, but how does it match what the company needs?
Olivia’s is where I ate it.
Pandora is the world’s greatest work for IA (IMO) is their music genome. It’s a recommendation engine made of professionally crafted metadata. Features of this track is metadata determined by musicians
When netflix when to improve their algorithm, they went the same way as pandora, using meteadata. (the last screen shot is an april 1st one)
http://untitledname.com/2005/05/jesus-saves
Tagging by users on facebook is used to indicate things I should see, not really potos of me.
What is this site? Is this a better representation of amazon than the navigation? (Hit next) Which navigation tells the story of amazon?Can users do a better job than IA’s?