Information Architecture: Putting the "I" back in IT

Information Architecture: Putting the I back in IT April 26, 2007 Louis Rosenfeld www.louisrosenfeld.com

My perspective
Independent information architecture consultant
Work with Fortune 500s and government agencies
Background in library and information science
Co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O’Reilly & Associates; 3rd edition, 2006)

What I’m going to cover
IT managers are excluded from corporate strategy
Information architects can help get IT managers a seat at the table (and how)
Information architecture briefly introduced
Examples of concrete benefits from information architecture
Can we be friends?

Everyone wants a seat at the strategy table http://www.tsawwasseninn.com/images/boardroom%201_640.jpg

Why there’s no seat for IT managers
“Keep those lights on!”
Growing pressures to commoditize IT services
Difficult to break out of reaction mode
Getting beyond commodities
Business side doesn't understand technology and its possibilities
Lack of common language quashes dialogue
Result: IT cut out of strategic decision-making

IT organizations out of balance http://www.magnumad.com/adm/photo/425_web-ERE-seesaw-PAR116898.jpg

What’s out of whack?
Structured data versus semi-structured content
Centralization versus autonomy
Traditional, formal approaches versus emergent, informal approaches
Build it versus buy it
Customers versus business

How exactly does one commoditize IT when facing these issues?
Imbalances (as previously noted)
Tidal wave of unstructured information
Deriving actual value from enterprise applications
Globalization, localization, and internationalization
Content resident in user-hostile enterprise silos

So we’re all drowning. As usual. http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/images/drowning.jpg

Do you agree?
“If you understand how the web site should be organized to serve your customers, then you know how the company should be organized.”
--Anonymous information architect, IBM
Key phrases: serve customers, company organized

Should IT managers be involved in organizing the company?
If “information is strategic,” then of course!
Information should be organized around needs of customers/users
IT provides the infrastructure for creating and managing information
Business side not always able to understand implications of information systems
How can IT not be involved?
How is this not strategic work?

“Information people” are the tail that wags the dog
Not just IT managers, but…
… Information architects
… Knowledge managers
… Content specialists
… User experience designers
… Marketers
… Product managers
… Etc…
http://whatisee.org/mt/archives/images/dogtail.jpg

Why IT managers need information architects
Information architects are the people who organize, structure, and label information
Our goal: help users find what they want
We worry a lot about these things
Taxonomies, metadata, labeling
Search systems performance
Navigation and orientation
Content lifecycle
Users, users, users

Other flavors of IA: John Zachman
Zachman Framework
Enterprise architecture
Broader take on IA
“ Polar bear IA” fortifies “human interface architecture” and “presentation architecture” cells

Other flavors of IA: Richard Saul Wurman
Wurman (Information Anxiety)
Physical architecture background
Make information understandable
Pre-web context, but principles are extended to multi-dimensional information systems

Information architects help by rebalancing information systems
Structured versus semi-structured: IAs are strong in the latter (where IT is often weak)
Centralization versus autonomy: IAs develop balanced workflows and processes
Traditional, formal versus emergent, informal: IAs integrate these as part of broader ecology
Build it versus buy it: IAs are technology agnostics who help develop functional specs that go beyond technical requirements
Customers versus business: IAs shore up knowledge of the former, and are neutral balancers between competing needs

Why are information architects good balancers?
We see the world through three perspectives

Information architects aren’t just high-paid librarians
User-oriented source disciplines
Human Computer Interaction
Anthropology
Marketing
Sociology
Content-oriented source disciplines
Librarianship
Technical communication
Graphic design
Journalism
Computer science
Context-oriented source disciplines
Management
Systems engineering
Organizational psychology

Information architects are serious about methodology
User-oriented research methods
Usability testing
Contextual inquiry
Card sorting
Persona and scenario development
Content-oriented research methods
Content inventory and analysis
Content modeling
Metadata development
Server and search analytics
Context-oriented research methods
Stakeholder interviews
Project planning
Specifications development

How do we use our methods? To prioritize
Can you confidently answer these two questions?
What are your site’s major audiences?
What are each audience’s Big Questions (and how well are you addressing them)?

Major audiences: Who are they?
Secondary goal? (You may already know who they are)
Political challenges of audience definition
Problem: defining audience by silo leads to stakeholder infighting
Goal: err toward apolitical segmenting that cuts across silos; examples:
Job functions (admin, clerical, research, mgmt)
Demographics

Big questions: What are they?
Major tasks users want to accomplish or topics they want to know about
Examples:
“ Where do I reconfigure my health benefits?”
“ Where can I find our past sales proposals?”
“ How do I file an expense report?”

Big questions: How do you determine them? 1/2
Active methods: ask people who would know
Webmasters and the hate mail they get
Switchboard operators and their FAQs
SMEs and the people who bother them
Who else?
Avoid: focus groups

Big questions: How do you determine them? 2/2
Passive methods: look at data derived from users’ behavior (you already have it!)
Switchboard logs
Server logs (Web Analytics)
Search logs (Search Analytics)
Information center logs
Where else?
Grouping log data can help you (re)define audience segments

A closer look at methods: Search analytics Sorting queries by frequency results in a Zipf Distribution Can we improve performance for the most popular queries?

Anatomy of a search log (from Google Search Appliance)
Critical elements in bold: IP address , time/date stamp , query , and # of results:
XXX.XXX.X.104 - - [ 10/Jul/2006:10:25:46 -0800] "GET /search?access=p&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ud=1&site=AllSites&ie=UTF-8&client=www&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=www&q= lincense+plate &ip=XXX.XXX.X.104 HTTP/1.1" 200 971 0 0.02
XXX.XXX.X.104 - - [ 10/Jul/2006:10:25:48 -0800] "GET /search?access=p&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ie=UTF-8&client=www&q= license+plate &ud=1&site=AllSites&spell=1&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=www&ip=XXX.XXX.X.104 HTTP/1.1" 200 8283 146 0.16
XXX.XXX.XX.130 - - [ 10/Jul/2006:10:24:38 -0800] "GET /search?access=p&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ud=1&site=AllSites&ie=UTF-8&client=www&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=www&q= regional+transportation+governance+commission &ip=XXX.XXX.X.130 HTTP/1.1" 200 9718 62 0.17
Full legend and more examples here: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/searchanalytics/blog/log_sample_google_appliance/

What users want and when: Sort and cluster those queries

Diagnostics from search analytics: What can you fix or improve?
User research
Interface design: search entry interface, search results
Retrieval algorithm modification
Navigation design
Metadata development
Content development

Best bet search results: Big answers for big questions
Manually-assigned recommended links
Ensure useful results for top search queries
Useful resources for each popular query are manually determined (guided by documented logic)
Useful resources manually linked to popular queries; automatically displayed in result page

Best bets example: BBC’s “best links”
BBC’s logic
IF query is a country name • THEN is there a country profile?
THEN is there a language service?

Best bets also improve navigation
Michigan State University automatically generates a comprehensive A-Z site index from best bet keywords

Guides: Even bigger answers to big questions
Guides are single pages that contain
A selective set (5-10) of important links related to a Big Question
Narrative text that explains the topic and what’s available to help with that topic
Generally linked from the main page, but also used in more specific contexts
Subsite main pages
Search results

Guides: Vanguard example 1/2

Guides: Vanguard example 2/2

Guides: IBM example

Guides: Painless and efficient
Low impact on IT (single HTML page)
Cut across departmental silos
Gap fillers; complement comprehensive methods of navigation and search
Can be timely (e.g., news-oriented guides, seasonal guides)
Minimize political headaches by creating new real estate
Can grow into fuller subsites

Contextual navigation: Focusing on where users are
Contextual navigation supports users deep in site
Where am I?
Where can I go from here?
Mandated by Web 2.0 world
Top layers of information systems are increasingly bypassed
Search engines
Syndication (RSS, Atom)
Banner advertising
Deep content becomes starting point

Contextual navigation is powered by content models
“Data modeling for semi-structured content”
Content modeling process helps narrow down both content and metadata choices
Content models consist of
Content objects
Links between objects
Metadata
Use sparingly to support high-value contextual navigation

Content models: Hewlett-Packard example
HP’s content model for products includes overview, supplies, support, drivers…
Content model is exposed as part of search results to enhance navigation

Content models: BBC example artist descriptions album reviews album pages artist bios discography concert calendar TV listings

Content modeling use metadata to connect content objects artist description artist description artist description artist bio, discography, concert calendar, TV listing album review, artist description album page album review, discography, artist … link to other Content Objects… Artist Name , Channel, Date, Time… Artist Name , Tour, Venue, Date, Time… Artist Name , Individual Artist Name… Artist Name , Desc Author, Desc Date… Artist Name , Album Name , Release Date… Album Name , Artist Name , Review Author, Source, Pub Date… Album Name , Artist Name , Label, Release Date… … by leveraging common Metadata Attributes TV listing concert calendar artist bio artist description discography album review album page Content Objects…

Small steps start to add up
Make that search engine earn its keep
Institute best bets, spell checking, guides, etc.
Can improve user experience performance by 20%-30% (make up your own numbers)
Make that CMS earn its keep
Manage content objects and metadata to support contextual navigation
Touch a small portion of your content to improve experience for many users

Information architects can help IT managers avoid boiling the ocean
Ban the word redesign from your vocabulary
Replace it with continual improvement
And pause before replacing enterprise apps
Take small, concrete steps that have large impacts (guides, best bets, spell checking, limited content modeling)
Focus on what you can reasonably accomplish, and when you can do it

The farmer and the cowman can be friends (with apologies to Oklahoma)
We ought to be natural allies
The "new IT manager" is 50/50 technology and business
Information architects offer a different perspective that’s similarly balanced
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8720/transtrio.gif

Putting the I back in IT
For IT to be truly strategic, emphasis has to move away from technology, toward information
Information architects can help IT managers move away from providing commodity services
Information architects and IT managers can work together to help organizations
Truly understand information’s strategic value
Make technology really perform
Hopefully, a seat at the strategy table will be that much closer

What I’ve covered
IT managers are excluded from corporate strategy
Information architects can help get IT managers a seat at the table (and how)
Information architecture briefly introduced
Examples of concrete benefits from information architecture
Can we be friends?

How to reach me
Louis Rosenfeld, LLC
705 Carroll Street, #2L
Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA
+1.718.306.9396 voice
+1.734.661.1655 fax
[email_address]
www.louisrosenfeld.com

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Information Architecture: Putting the "I" back in IT

by Louis Rosenfeld on Apr 27, 2007

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