In designing transactional and content-rich web sites, rules provide an underlying structure that governs the experience: what is displayed, when it’s displayed, and how it responds to user actions. Web design today is at an important crossroads: more complex technologies offer a greater range of features and functions, which permit more elaborate experiences. The depth of these systems means that information architects no longer design structures with specific pieces of content in mind, but instead have to design structures around classifications, categories, and abstractions. In conjunction with these so-called “objects,” information architects must consider the rules that govern their appearance, display, and response to users. This session introduces a framework for thinking about rules, providing a vocabulary and taxonomy of rules where none has previously existed.