Information architecture - A 'how to'

Information architecture: A “how-to” Donna Maurer – Maadmob Interaction Design

About me
Freelance information architect/interaction designer
I design structures & interfaces for complex informational & interactive systems
6+ years pro experience, as an innie, outie & freelancer
Designed business applications, websites, intranets
Practice, teach and write about IA and IxD
Chair for next year's IA Summit
Board member for the Information Architecture Institute
Writing a book about card sorting - due Jan 2007

About this talk
How to work through an IA project
Where the core is about organising content
So people can discover what they need
How to think like an IA
References
http://del.icio.us/donnam/IAworkshopNZ
Speaker notes on the slides
Some images have been removed, so the recording may sound strange in a couple of spots

A project overview

User research

User research – tips
Go to people, don’t have them come to you
Watch them
Talk to them
Audio-record sessions
Take good notes
Transcribe sessions
Use more than one method

User research methods
Methods for collecting rich information
Interviews
Card sorting
Contextual enquiry, observation, shadowing
Task analysis
Probes
Methods for collecting a lot of information
Surveys
Diary studies
...and then there’s focus groups

Analyse user research

Affinity diagramming example

Dimensional analysis example

Think about information behaviours
Information modes
Known-item
Exploratory
Don’t know what you need to know
Refinding
Information behaviours
Reviewing summaries of items
Examining details
Comparing multiples
Understanding contexts and situations
Learning about people in the environment
Perceiving trends
Predicting implications
Monitoring status or activity
Identifying by criteria
Establishing similarity

Card sorting
A simple technique to learn about how people perceive content groups
Content items are written on index cards
People group the cards in ways that make sense for them
Results are used as an input into a new IA

Card sorting - planning
Planning
Participants - end users, in small groups or individually
Method - manual or tool-based
Place - for groups, room with a large table
Content - select items for the cards
Cards - create cards, assemble post-its and pens
Content selection (the important but tricky part)
Too granular and you may end up with too many cards
Too broad and you may lead the exercise too much
You do not have to do the whole site at once

Card sorting - analysis

Analysis spreadsheet

Dendrogram

Content analysis

Content analysis
Content analysis is the process of
Understanding content by analysing it
Identifying patterns and content relationships
Focusing not on 'pages' but content elements
Start with a content inventory or wishlist

Content analysis
Think about
format
document type (publications, reports, how to, 'stuff’)
topic
audience
source
structure
accuracy
page elements

Designing information structure

Choose classification schemes
Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity
informal, developed for the purpose
Date is a natural organisation scheme for anything that happened, or will happen at a point in time. It works best when people are looking at the site frequently. If this is not the case, alternate organisation schemes will be necessary so people can easily find relevant historical content.

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
An alphabetical scheme suits content arranged by name (such as author or artist), where the name is clear and it is likely people will look for the content by the name.
Few sites use alphabetical as the primary organisation scheme. A-Z indexes, as supplemental navigation, provide a terrific alternate method for finding content as long as the index uses labels that are sensible for site readers.

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
A geographical organisation scheme is perfect for anything relating to physical geography, particularly travel sites. Some sites still make you choose your country before letting you in, but this practice is less common than it once was.

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
Task-based schemes are an interesting challenge. In order for them to work, the tasks must be clear and unambiguous. I often use them on internal business systems for data processing tasks.

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
informal, developed for the purpose.
Audience-based schemes are also an interesting challenge. In order for them to work, people must be able to clearly associate with one of the audiences. People are often tempted to implement role-based systems for intranets - these often fail as it is difficult to determine what your role actually is.

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic

Date
Alphabetical
Geography
Task
Audience
Tag-based
Topic
The majority of sites have a topic-based organisation scheme, usually determined by the design team.
Most websites use topic-based schemes
Content analysis will tell you what types could be used
User research will give you ideas about how people may like to approach the content

Choose type of structure
Hierarchy
Database
Faceted
Organic
Strict hierarchies are an ideal - they rarely match the real world or content we are trying to organise. It is very common for an item to truly belong in more than one place or for users to look in more than one place for the item.
Unfortunately, file systems and many content management systems enforce a strict hierarchy. When this is the case, we have to use navigation aids like related links to manage the fact that content can't be in more than one place at a time.
A site can use more than one complete hierarchy. For example, a site could have a complete topic-based hierarchy, and a document type hierarchy. This allows all content to be accessed by more than one method.

Hierarchy
Database
Faceted
Organic
One of the key advantages of using a database structure is so the information can be made available in a number of ways. Each Digital Web article is stored only once in the database, but you can get to it by topic, date, author, title and type. The index pages are generated automatically, so they don't need to be updated whenever an article is added

Hierarchy
Database
Faceted
Organic

Hierarchy
Database
Faceted
Organic
Faceted classification uses a database structure
Facets are metadata elements
Using facets in browse:
Start at whatever facet you like
No keyword necessary
Never get a null result
Suits - where users may wish to explore from any starting point
Using facets in search:
Start with a keyword search
Refine based on characteristics present in the results
Suits - where search returns many results and users want to refine

Hierarchy
Database
Faceted
Organic

At this point we know a lot about our users, have figured out what classification schemes are appropriate, have chosen the correct structure and know what the business is trying to achieve.
Now we have to take a creative leap and turn that all into a solution

Design conceptual structure

Design categories, groups or facets
Input - user research, business goals, content analysis
Create draft groupings
See if it suits the content
Slot content into categories
Apply metadata
Modify until content fits
Create sub-groups
Keep it user-focused

Design labels
Labeling ideas:
User research
Card sorting
Search terms
Referrer terms
Tags
Good labels
Match concepts & word usage of readers
Are used consistently
Accurately describe the destination or content
Link labels can be long - better trigger words

Characteristics of a good IA
Balances business & user goals
Balances breadth & depth
Allows people to easily find what they need
Provides more than one way to content
Represents the content
Has a coherent underlying concept
Exposes information as needed

Design browsing structures & page layouts

Don't design in front of the computer!!!

Many browse methods

Design browsing structures
Start at a content page, not the home page
The content page is the hardest working page on the site
Figure out what navigation a representative content page needs (and its readers need)
Design browse structures for index pages
Design the home page last

Good browsing structures
Provides more than one method to get to content
Main, supplemental, contextual, search
Exposes relevant other content as needed
Each step a person takes is clear and result is as anticipated
Supports the site structure well

Link-rich pages

Document it

Site maps

Wireframes

Questions & thanks
http://maadmob.net/
0409-778-693
[email_address]

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Information architecture - A 'how to'

by Donna Spencer on Oct 06, 2006

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Information architecture - A ’how to’ — Presentation Transcript