Information Architecture

1. IT6701 – Information
Management
IV Year / VII Semester

2. UNIT IV INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Principles of Information architecture and
framework, Organizing information,
Navigation systems and Labeling systems,
Conceptual design, Granularity of Content.

3. Introduction
 The web has become a global platform for providing
information searched by users.
 Information architecture is needed by business to avoid
productivity loss.
 make information on the web easily understandable
and findable.
 Function: to place or organize the information.

4. Principles of Information Architecture
Framework
 describing the need to transform data into meaningful
information for people ho use them.
 Actors:
 Designers: color, placement and style of content and
information on the webpage
 Information Architect: collecting information through
various sources and organizing them on the website with a
structural flow.

5. Principles of Information Architecture
Framework
 Responsibilities of information architect:
 collect information through various sources such as emails
 Organize huge amounts of information on large websites
 Understand user’s goals and needs
 Understand business and organization’s needs
 Consider technical, content and project constraints in designing.
 Develop style and formatting templates for elements of
information.

6. Principles of Information Architecture
Framework
 Responsibilities of information architect:
 Develop a sitemap and illustrate key elements of
information.
 Create metaphors for branding content and promoting
navigation.
 Conduct user analysis
 Build taxonomies and indices.
 Test user experiences.

7. Definitions of Information Architecture
 The combination of organization, labeling and navigation schemes
within an information system.
 The structural design of an information space to facilitate task
completion and intuitive access to content.
 The art and science of structuring and classifying websites and
intranets to help people find and manage information.
 An emerging discipline and community of practice focusing on
bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital
landscape.

8. Definitions of Information Architecture
“A foundation discipline describing the theory,
principles, guidelines, standards, conventions
and factors for managing information as a
resource. ”

9. Dimensions of Information
Architecture
Contents : Objectives, Volumes, documents, data
types.
Context: Business goals, funding, policies,
technology, resources
Users: Audience, task, needs, experience and
information seeking behavior

10. Components of Information
Architecture
Information Architecture
Labeling
Systems
Navigation
Systems
Searching
Systems
Organization
Systems

11. Organization System
 responsible for classifying the collected
information in a correct manner for users.
 organizes the information such that people can
search them easily, and they can find the right
answer to their questions.

12. Organization System
 Challenges:
 users to publish and find unlimited content over the web, it adds
extra burden on the architect to organize the content and provide
them to customers.
 an object or collection of objects composed of unrelated or
unlike parts. Many websites are composed of heterogeneous
contents such as docs, articles, blogs, journals, databases, textual
information with video and audio etc. that are difficult to
manage.

13. Organization System
 Challenges:
 the different perspectives in a website is also a challenge, as it
provides different ways of access and interfaces to different
users, which is difficult to fit in one site.
 The internal policies within an organization may degrade the
performance and oppose the ease of use in information
architecture. Therefore, an information architect needs to remind
his or her colleagues to focus on creating architecture that works
for users.

14. Organization System
Organization
System
Organization
Schemes
Organization
structures

15. Organization System
Organization Schemes:
 to organizing in a correct manner by categorizing
the contents and making relationship between each
piece.

16. Organization System
Organization
Schemes
Exact or Objective
Alphabetical
Chronological
Geographical
Ambiguous or Subjective
Topic
Task
Audience
Metaphor
Hybrid

17. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 divide information into well defined and mutually
exclusive sections.
 The alphabetical organization of the phone book's white
pages is a perfect example.
 Navigating the scheme.
 " known-item" searching
 easy to design and maintain because there is little
intellectual work involved in assigning items to categories.

18. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Alphabetical scheme:
 the primary organization scheme for
encyclopedias and dictionaries.
 26-letter alphabet for organizing their contents.
 serves as an umbrella for other organization
schemes.

19. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Alphabetical scheme:

20. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Chronological scheme:
 Certain types of information lend themselves to
chronological organization.
 History books, magazine archives, diaries, and
television guides are organized chronologically

21. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Chronological scheme:

22. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Geographical scheme:
 Place is often an important characteristic of information.
 care about the news and weather that affects us in our location.
 Political, social, and economic issues are frequently location-
dependent.
 With the exception of border disputes, geographical
organization schemes are fairly straightforward to design and
use.

23. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Exact or Objective:
 Geographical scheme:
 Place is often an important characteristic of information.
 care about the news and weather that affects us in our location.
 Political, social, and economic issues are frequently location-
dependent.
 With the exception of border disputes, geographical
organization schemes are fairly straightforward to design and
use.

24. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or Subjective:
divide information into categories.
 more important and useful than exact organization
schemes
 Ambiguous organization supports this serendipitous mode
of information seeking by grouping items in intellectually
meaningful ways.
 This grouping of related items supports an associative
learning process that may enable the user to make new
connections and reach better conclusions.

25. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or Subjective:
 The success of ambiguous organization schemes depends
on the initial design of a classification system and the
ongoing indexing of content items.
 The classification system serves as a structured container
for content items.
It is composed of a hierarchy of categories and
subcategories with scope notes that define the types of
content to be included under each category.

26. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or
Subjective:
 Topic:
 Organizing information by subject or topic.
 Phone book yellow pages are organized topically.
 to define the breadth of coverage.
 defining the universe of content (both present and
future) that users will expect to find within that area of
the web site.

27. Organization System
 Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or Subjective:
 Task - oriented:
 organize content and applications into a collection of
processes, functions, or tasks.
 high-priority tasks that users will want to perform
 Desktop software applications such as word processors
and spreadsheets provide familiar examples.
 Collections of individual actions are organized under task-
oriented menus such as Edit, Insert, and Format.
 Ex: Ecommerce website.

28. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or
Subjective:
 Audience-specific:
 the site is frequented by repeat visitors who can
bookmark their particular section of the site.
 Audience-oriented schemes break a site into smaller,
audience specific mini-sites, thereby allowing for
clutter-free pages that present only the options of
interest to that particular audience.

29. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or
Subjective:
 Audience-specific:
 Audience-specific schemes can be open or closed.
 An open scheme will allow members of one audience
to access the content intended for other audiences.
 A closed scheme will prevent members from moving
between audience-specific sections.

30. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Ambiguous or
Subjective:
 Metaphor:
 to help users understand the new by relating it to
the familiar.
 While metaphor exploration can be very useful
while brainstorming.

31. Organization System
Organization Schemes – Hybrid:
 includes elements of audience-specific, topical,
metaphor based, and task-oriented organization
schemes
 all mixed together, we can't form a mental model.

32. Organization System
Organization Structures
 important role in the design of web sites.
 The structure of information defines the primary
ways in which users can navigate.

33. Organization System
Organization Structures
Organization
Structures
Hypertext
Database or
bottom up
Hierarchical
or top down

34. Organization System
 Organization Structures - The hierarchy: A top-down approach:
 The mutually exclusive subdivisions and parent-child relationships of
hierarchies are simple and familiar.
 Organized information into hierarchies since the beginning of time.
 divide books into chapters into sections into paragraphs into sentences
into words into letters.
 users can easily and quickly understand web sites that use hierarchical
organization models.
 The top-down approach allows you to quickly get a handle on the
scope of the web site without going through an extensive content
inventory process.

35. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy: A top-
down approach:
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36. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy: A top-
down approach:
 Designing hierarchies:
 First, you should be aware of, but not bound by, the
idea that hierarchical categories should be mutually
exclusive.
 Ambiguous organization schemes in particular make it
challenging to divide content into mutually exclusive
categories.

37. Organization System
 Organization Structures - The hierarchy: A top-down
approach:
 Designing hierarchies:
 Second, it is important to consider the balance between
breadth and depth in your information hierarchy.
 Breadth refers to the number of options at each level of the
hierarchy.
 Depth refers to the number of levels in the hierarchy
 ambiguous organization schemes, try to follow the seven
plus-or-minus two rule.

38. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy: A top-
down approach:
 Designing hierarchies:

39. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy:
Hypertext
 nonlinear way of structuring information.
 the items or chunks of information which are to be
linked
 the links between those chunks
 components can form hypermedia systems that
connect text, data, image, video, and audio chunks

40. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy:
Hypertext

41. Organization System
 Organization Structures - The hierarchy: The relational
database model: A bottom-up approach
 A database is a collection of records
 Each record has a number of associated fields.
 field-specific searching is a major advantage of the
database model.
 facilitate distributed content management, employing
security measures and version control systems that allow
many people to modify content without stepping on each
others' toes.

42. Organization System
Organization Structures - The hierarchy: The
relational database model: A bottom-up
approach
 Designing databases
 need to begin a bottom-up approach aimed at
identifying the content and structure of individual
record types.

43. Organization System
 Organization Structures - The hierarchy: The relational
database model: A bottom-up approach
 Designing databases
 Metadata can be used for making powerful vocabulary for
automatic generation of alphabetical indexes, advanced
filtering and sorting of search results and dynamic
presentation of data.
Author_Id Author_Name Publication Telephone City
Title_ID Title Type Price Pub_ID
Title_ID Author_ID

44. Navigation Systems
 to support associative learning by featuring
resources that are related to the content
currently being displayed.
 composed of graphical navigation bars, popup
menus, tables of contents and site maps.

45. Navigation Systems
 Browser Navigation Features
 Open URL allows direct access to any page on a web site.
Back and Forward provide a bidirectional backtracking
capability.
 The History menu allows random access to pages visited
during the current session.
 Bookmark enables users to save the location of specific
pages for future reference.
 color-coding hypertext links: unvisited hypertext links are
one color and visited hypertext links are another.

46. Navigation Systems
 Types:
 Hierarchical Navigation Systems
 Global Navigation Systems
 Local Navigation Systems
 Ad Hoc Navigation
 Integrated Navigation Elements
 Navigation Bars, Frames, Pull-Down Menus
 Remote Navigation Elements
 The Table of Contents, The Index, The Site Map

47. Navigation Systems
 Types - Hierarchical Navigation Systems:
options on each page are taken directly from the
hierarchy.
 Types - Global Navigation Systems:
 complements the information hierarchy by enabling
greater vertical and lateral movement throughout the
entire site.
 duplicate the primary options already listed on that
page

48. Navigation Systems
 Types - Local Navigation Systems:
 Sub-site: to identify the recurrent situation in
which a collection of web pages within a larger site
invite a common style and shared navigation
mechanism unique to those pages.

49. Navigation Systems
Types – Contextual Navigation System:
 specific to a particular page or document.
 supports associates, which user learn by exploring
the relationship between the items.
 represents words, phrases and sentences with
hyperlinks.

50. Navigation Systems
Types – Supplemental Navigation System:
 includes sitemap, indexes, guide and search.
 Sitemap:
uses graphical or textual links for providing direct
access of pages to users.
 useful for search engine optimization that points
important and most searched pages throughout the
website.

51. Navigation Systems
Types – Supplemental Navigation System:
 includes sitemap, indexes, guide and search.
 Indexes:
 presenting keywords or phrases in an alphabetical order.
 Guide:
 several forms with tutorials and guided for specific
audiences who are new to the system.
 Search:
 finding the information on a site.

52. Labeling Systems
 to represent larger chunks of information in our
web sites.
 For example, Contact Us is a label that represents
a chunk of information, including a contact name,
an address, telephone, fax, email information.
 the goal of a label is to communicate information
efficiently

53. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 labels come in two formats, textual and iconic.
 Labels Within Navigation Systems:
 Navigation systems occur again and again within a
web site.
 Example:
 Main, Main Page, Home, Home Page
 Contact , Contact Us, Contact Webmaster, Feedback
 About, About Us, About <company name>, Who We Are

54. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 Labels as Indexing Terms
 for classifying the contents of large sites
 enhancing a document's chance of getting retrieved by a
searching system, and supporting browsing within a site.
 To support searching, keywords are assigned to a
document, whether within the <META> tag or in an
accompanying database record that describes the
document's contents.

55. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 Labels as Indexing Terms
<META name="keywords" content="IFR Furniture
Rentals, International Furniture Rentals, IFR Rentals,
relocation, furniture rental, furniture leasing, interim
housing, furnished apartments, executive suites,
residential furniture, office furniture">
 enhancing searching, index labels can also improve
browsing.

56. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 Link Labels (or) contextual links
 used as textual links within the body or text of a
chunk of information.
 naturally used in the descriptive context of their
surrounding text.
 easy to create and are used to make a connection
between link and associated documents.

57. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 Labels as Headings
 Links are often used as headings that describe the
chunk of information that follows the heading.
 there is no guarantee that the user will read the
associated chunk of text. So there is extreme pressure
on heading labels to draw the user's attention to the
accompanying chunk of information.

58. Labeling Systems
 Types of Labeling Systems:
 Iconic Labeling Systems
 Icons can represent information in much the same
way as text.
 icons occasionally serve as heading labels and
have even been known to show up as link labels

59. Labeling Systems
Sources of Labeling System;
 The labels currently in place
 Other web sites
 Controlled vocabularies
 Labels from content

60. Search Systems
site should of course support the finding of its
information.
 Known-item searching: Users' information needs
are clearly defined and have a single, correct
answer
 Existence searching : to understand your idea
and its context as whether the information exists.

61. Search Systems
Exploratory searching: hoping to find, and are
really just exploring and trying to learn more.
 Comprehensive searching (research): most
common types of needs that your site's users
will have and ensure that these needs are met.

62. Search Systems
 Multiple Iterations Are Commonplace:
 users will make a first attempt at finding
information, learn something, refine their query,
try finding some more, learn some more, refine
again.
 also known as associative learning.

63. Search Systems
 Designing the Search Interface:
 The level of searching expertise users have
 The kind of information the user wants
 The type of information being searched
 How much information is being searched: Will
users be overwhelmed by the number of
documents retrieved?

64. Search Systems
 Designing the Search Interface:
Support Different Modes of Searching:
 Searching and Browsing Systems Should Be Closely
Integrated
 Searching Should Conform to the Site's Look and Feel
 Search Options Should Be Clear
 Choose a Search Engine That Fits Users' Needs
 Display Search Results Sensibly
 Always Provide the User with Feedback

65. Phases of Information Architecture
Development
Analysis
Planning
Design
Implementation
Administration

66. Phases of Information Architecture
Development
 Analysis: gathering the requirements.
Planning: establishing a direction and scope.
 Types: Top-down and Bottom-Up
 Design: high level blue print
 Implementation: detailed sitemaps and metadata
schema
 Administration: monitoring and improvement

67. Granularity of Contents
 Organization contents at different levels.
 includes journals, articles, paragraphs and
sentences.