Information Architecture

Editor's Notes

• #2: In the context of web site design, information architecture describes the overall conceptual models and general designs used to plan, structure, and assemble a site. 
• #3: In large web projects the role of information architect will probably be filled by an individual with long experience in organizing and presenting information, particularly in the context of the web. However, in many projects the information architecture of the site will become a joint project among the design, editorial, and technical teams.
• #8: Web content inventories of existing sites commonly take the form of a spreadsheet file with multiple worksheets, containing long listings of every page in the site, along with such essential characteristics as the page title, url, people responsible for the content…
• #9: Hierarchical organization is a virtual necessity on the web. Most sites depend on hierarchies, moving from the broadest overview of the site (the home page), down through increasingly specific submenus and content pages. In information architecture you create categories for your information and rank the importance of each piece of information by how general or specific that piece is relative to the whole. Once you have determined a logical set of priorities and relations in your content outlines, you can build a hierarchy from the most important or general concepts down to the most specific or detailed topics.
• #10: One of the most important jobs of the information architect thus is producing a consistent set of names and terms to describe the chief site content categories, the key navigation site links, and major terms to describe the interactive features of the site. This controlled vocabulary becomes a foundational element of the content organization, the user interface, the standard navigation links seen on every page of the site, and the file and directory structure of the site itself.
• #11: In Information Anxiety (1989), Richard Saul Wurman posits that there are five fundamental ways to organize information: the “five hat racks” on which you can hang information. Category: Organization by the similarity of characteristics or relatedness of the items. Examples include topics of books in a bookstore or library and items in a department or grocery store. Time: Organization by timeline or history, where elements are presented in a sequential step-by-step manner. This approach is commonly used in training. Other examples include television listings, a history of specific events, and measuring the response times of different systems. Location: Organization by spatial or geographic location, most often used for orientation and direction. This most graphic of the categories obviously lends itself to maps but is also used extensively in training, repair, and user manual illustrations and other instances where information is tied to a place. Alphabetic: Organization based on the initial letter of the names of items. Obvious examples are telephone and other name-oriented directories, dictionaries, and thesauri, where users know the word or name they are seeking. Alphabetic systems are simple to grasp and familiar in everyday life. This method of organization is less effective for short lists of unrelated things but is powerful for long lists. Continuum: Organization by the quantity of a measured variable over a range, such as price, score, size, or weight. Continuum organization is most effective when organizing many things that are all measured or scored the same way. Examples include rankings and reviews of all kinds, such as the U.S. News and World Report ranking of colleges and universities, the best movies in a given year, darkest or lightest items, and other instances where a clear weight or value can be assigned to each item.
• #12: The concept of a chunk of information must be flexible and consistent with common sense, logical organization, and convenience. Let the nature of the content suggest how it should be subdivided and organized. Although short web documents are usually preferable, it makes little sense to divide a long document arbitrarily, particularly if you want users to be able to print easily or save the document in one step.
• #13: A logical, consistently named site organization allows users to make successful predictions about where to find things. Consistent methods of organizing and displaying information permit users to extend their knowledge from familiar pages to unfamiliar ones.
• #15: If your web site is actively growing, the proper balance of menus and content pages is a moving target. Feedback from users (and analyzing your own use of the site) can help you decide if your menu scheme has outlived its usefulness or has weak areas. Complex document structures require deeper menu hierarchies, but users should never be forced into page after page of menus if direct access is possible. With a well-balanced, functional hierarchy you can offer users menus that provide quick access to information and reflect the organization of your site.
• #18: The simplest and most familiar way to organize information is to place it in a sequence. This is the structure of books, magazines, and all other print matter. Sequential ordering may be chronological, a logical series of topics progressing from the general to the specific, or alphabetical, as in indexes, encyclopedias, and glossaries. Straight sequences are the most appropriate organization for training or education sites, for example, in which the user is expected to progress through a fixed set of material and the only links are those that support the linear navigation path. More complex web sites may still be organized as a logical sequence, but each page in the sequence may have links to one or more pages of digressions, parenthetical information, or information on other web sites.
• #19: Information hierarchies are the best way to organize most complex bodies of information. Because web sites are usually organized around a single home page, which then links to subtopic menu pages, hierarchical architectures are particularly suited to web site organization. Hierarchical diagrams are very familiar in corporate and institutional life, so most users find this structure easy to understand. A hierarchical organization also imposes a useful discipline on your own analytical approach to your content, because hierarchies are practical only with well-organized material. The simplest form of hierarchical site structure is a star, or hub-and-spoke, set of pages arrayed off a central home page. The site is essentially a single-tier hierarchy. Navigation tends to be a simple list of subpages, plus a link for the home page. Most web sites adopt some form of multi-tiered hierarchical or tree architecture. This arrangement of major categories and subcategories has a powerful advantage for complex site organization in that most people are familiar with hierarchical organizations, and can readily form mental models of the site structure.
• #20: Weblike organizational structures pose few restrictions on the pattern of information use. In this structure the goal is often to mimic associative thought and the free flow of ideas, allowing users to follow their interests in a unique, heuristic, idiosyncratic pattern. This organizational pattern develops with dense links both to information elsewhere in the site and to information at other sites. Although the goal of this organization is to exploit the web’s power of linkage and association to the fullest, weblike structures can just as easily propagate confusion. Ironically, associative organizational schemes are often the most impractical structure for web sites because they are so hard for the user to understand and predict. Webs work best for small sites dominated by lists of links and for sites aimed at highly educated or experienced users looking for further education or enrichment and not for a basic understanding of a topic.
• #22: Site planning with a team is often easier if you base your major structural planning and decisions on a shared master site diagram that all members of the group can work with. The site diagram should evolve as the plan evolves and act as the core planning document as changes are proposed and made in the diagram. Site diagrams are excellent for planning both the broad scope of the site and the details of where each piece of content, navigation, or interactive functionality will appear.
• #25: A simple site diagram for use in presentations and general overviews and the same site shown in greater detail for use by the site development team.
• #26: Ideally the information architecture will be consistently reflected in the actual organization of files and directories in the site structure.
• #27: If site diagrams provide the global overview of the developing web site, then wireframes are the “rough map” that will eventually be used by graphic and interface designers to create preliminary and final page designs for the site. Wireframes are rough two-dimensional guides to where the major navigation and content elements of your site might appear on the page. They bring a consistent modular structure to the various page forms of your site and provide the fundamental layout and navigation structure for the finished templates to come.