Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
IA means Information Architecture:
But what does it mean to web developers, systems analysts, educators, and librarians?
Howard Rosenbaum <[email protected]>
School of Library and Information Science
Center for Social Informatics
Indiana University
I-ASIST Spring Program
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/iasist_01
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
IA means information architecture
I. What is information architecture?
• Information science? Social science?
II. Elements of IA
• Social
• Technical
III. Putting IA to work
• Team based web design
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
I. What is information architecture?
A professional role in web design and the design of digital media collections
IAs are responsible for the overall structure and organization of the site
It involves organizing a site's content into categories and creating an interface to support those categories
Also designing navigation and searching systems to help people find and manage information
A systematic, question-based process for creating digital products to communicate meaning and improve users’ performance
It is user-centered
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Information science:
Social science
Argus Associates. (1998). Information architecture defined http://argus-inc.com/design/architecture.html
[It] involves the design of organization, labeling, navigation, and indexing systems to support both browsing and searching. It plays a central role in determining whether users can easily find the information they need.
[It] begins with research into mission, vision, content, and audience. This ... provides a foundation for the development of a successful information architecture design that supports long-term growth and management
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
“Proper World Wide Web site design is largely a matter of balancing the structure and relationship of menu or ‘home’ pages and individual content pages or other linked graphics and documents. The goal is to build a hierarchy of menus and pages that feels natural and well-structured to the user, and doesn’t interfere with their use of the Web site or mislead them.”
Lynch, P. J. (1995). Yale University C/AIM WWW Style Guidehttp://info.med.yale.edu/caim/StyleManual_Top
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
What does an IA have to know?
Information science: information organization and access
Computer science: programming and databases
Usability engineering: understanding how people use the site
Graphic design: developing imagery that supports the site’s mission
Writing: to explain this to peers and decisionmakers
Marketing: developing the site so that is can be sold to its intended audience
Psychology: understanding the intended audience
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
What does an IA have to do?
Thinking
What are the relevant content domains?
Given the constraints what can be done?
Planning
How are these domains related to each other?
What is the structure of these relationships?
Designing
What arrangement best supports the structure and organizational requirements?
Managing
What people, tools, and resources are available?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
An IA should
Enjoy working with information: gathering, evaluating and organizing it
Like research: interviewing stakeholders and analyzing results
Be curious about tools and processes of site development
Want to improve performance
Be ready to fight battles to help users
Have a good working know edgle of organizations
Be interested in communicating complex ideas clearly
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
A broad view of IA
It involves developing and communicating a holistic view of a web site
It includes the overall social and technical structure of the site and the relationships among its elements
It requires the classification of site goals and objectives
IA places the web site into a larger social context
How will it affect the work flow, communications patterns, and distribution of power in the organization?
How will it appear to its users?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
IA means information architecture
I. What is information architecture?
• Information science? Social science?
II. Elements of IA
• Social
• Technical
III. Putting IA to work
• Team based web design
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
II. Elements of information architecture
Social: Doing the research
What are the mission, vision, and goals for the site?
What will be the central metaphors for the site?
How will the site grow and change over time?
What will be the impacts on the organization?
Technical: Design and build
How will the site be organized ?
What content and functionality will the site contain?
What types of navigation, labeling, and searching will be used?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Doing the research
Preparation
Site goals
The audience
User experience
User scenarios
The competition
The design document
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Consider this question:
“What should our team create to give people experiences that are useful, usable, and desirable, that create value for our business and our clients?”
How can we answer it?
Rettig emphasizes the importance of an ethnographic approach
“Go where people work, learn, live and play. Discover unexpressed or masked needs. Let your design be driven by genuine understanding of the people you are trying to serve.”
Rettig, M. (2000). Ethnography and information architecture. http://www.enteract.com/~marc/asis/slide0009.htm
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
In practical terms, this means:
Observation: go into the setting and watch people
Shadowing: follow them around
Examining artifacts and their uses
Interviews: interview people in their workplace
This can be structured or unstructured
Sampling: can involve time or task sampling
They fill out activity diaries on your schedule
Self-reporting: they have the greatest amount of control
Ask them to take pictures or keep journals
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Site design begins well before the first page is ever coded
This early stage requires considerable research
The first step is to understand the goals of the site owners
How well do you understand their business?
What are their main products and services?
What are their business rules?
Then work to understand the audience for the site
Who do they sell to?
Write user profiles and scenarios
Conduct needs requirements
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Determining the goals for the site
Can be done informally with conversations with key stakeholders
Can be done formally at meetings with clear agendas
Questions to consider
Who should you talk to or include in the meeting?
Who has to buy in to the concept?
Goal
To achieve a group consensus
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
The basic set of questions should include:
What is the mission or purpose of the organization?
Check the answers you get against company literature
What are the goals of the site?
As people talk about goals for the site, categorize them into short term and long term goals
Who are the intended audiences?
Check these answers against the company’s market research
Why will people come to the site?
What are the main tasks that people are expected to perform?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
What is the relationship between the organization’s business strategy and its web site architecture?
“Business strategy and information architecture are closely inter-related. For most organizations, the days of slapping a web site on top of an existing business strategy are gone. Web sites, extranets, and intranets play key roles in defining relationships between a company and its customers, investors, suppliers, and employees. The structure and organization of these sites [are] critical to success.”
Moreville, P. (2000). Information Architecture and Business Strategy http://argus-acia.com/strange_connections/strange006.html
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Gather all of the data and begin analyzing them
This involves sorting and categorizing
Goals, activities/tasks, main content areas
Prepare a preliminary listing of these and use “member checking”
Be prepared for conflict, disagreement, and compromise
There should be a deliverable (a design document)
It summarizes the key points of the site and acts as an initial blueprint
The major stakeholders should all sign off on the document
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Learning about the audience by attempting to define the user experience
This helps to establish a clear definition of the audience
It also helps in understanding how users will react to the site
This involves another round of conversations and/or meetings
Get them to rank the range of potential audiences
Ask them to describe the needs and goals of the most important audience members
Use these results to create user scenarios
These are stories about how people will use the site
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Learn about the competition
Find out who the main competitors are
Analyze their sites
Criteria #1 #2 #3 #4
Design
Navigation
Look and Feel
Search
Personalization
Scripting
Currency
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Technical: Design and build
<html><head><title>Web page</title><script language=javascript></script></head><body>Text<IMG SRC=image.gif”></body></html>
Code
Scripts
Words
Images
Presentation: visual display
Structure: Organization of content
Behavior: What people do on the site
Basics of web architecture
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Site design and basic questions
Where am I?
What can I do here?
Where can I go?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
IAs work with four kinds of systems
Organization/structural systems
These constrain the ways content can be grouped
Labeling systems
Artifacts of taxonomies that determine logical relations among content groups.
Navigation systems
Provide means of moving through the site based on the scheme for the labeling
Searching systems
Help resolve user problems with navigation, labelling and organization
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
What do IAs deliver?
Site map
This is a visualization of the taxonomy and structural relationships among content domains
It also provides an overview of the navigation scheme
Content maps
These are detailed depictions showing what is on each page and how content on some pages is linked to content on other pages
Page view
A drawing or block diagram showing what information, links, content, promotional space, and navigation will be on each page
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
What else?
Prototypes:
An outline or storyboard of a functional prototype
Could also be a working prototypes with HTML, Flash, Director, or PowerPoint
Written reports
A narrative description of the site linking it to organizational mission, messages, and marketing constraints
Change management
How will the site grow and change over time?
What will be involved in maintenance?
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Test, test, test
Track down participants through customer lists, related organizations, discussion lists, conferences
Pay them if you can afford it
What should you ask?
Get their name and use it
Find out their web skill level and familiarity
Ask other questions essential to viewing the results
What should they do?
Give them tasks, watch, and listen
Let them browse, watch, and listen
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Introduction to information architecture
I. What is information architecture?
• Information science? Social science?
II. Elements of IA
• Social
• Technical
III. Putting IA to work
• Team based web design
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
The process of information architecture
Planning and strategy: predesign analysis
Information organization: Content development
Launch
Conceptual design: prototyping
Production: Navigation systems Search tool
Labeling systems Operations
Testing: Quality assurance
and usability
Feedback and redesign
Maintenance and updating
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Goto, K. (1999). Web Design Workflowhttp://www.thunderlizard.com/tlp/tlp_pdfs/wd_goto3.pdf
Putting IA to work: Team based web design
Define the site goals (client) Set up over-all concept
Organize content information Determine site functionality
Create budget and schedule
Assign team responsibilities
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Production: main activities
Begin building the site
Develop and refine content
Get graphics production underway
Produce HTML and scripts
Deploy database and server-side programming
Organize server administration and hosting
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Set team boundaries and procedures
What are the benchmarks and deliverables?
Will they work on-site or remotely?
Will they QA their work or will someone else?
The kickoff
Get the project off the ground with an initial meeting
Review the scope in detail
Assemble detailed specifications
Create preliminary project schedules
Establish lines of communication
Build enthusiasm and a sense of team identity
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Develop “site architecture”
Map out the site
Show lay out and functions Show all pages of the site with each having its own name
Establish navigation and site flow
Review and define technical needs
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Once the team is assembles and work begins
Schedule regular meetings
Assess progress according to benchmarks
Seek client input
Maintain constant communication between meetings
Gather documentation of all phases (including problems and resolutions)
Set up a project documentation library accessible by the team
Pay close attention to “versioning”
Save all iterations and prototypes
Handle conflict immediately
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Managing the team
Set clear guidelines for each task
Disseminate widely so every team member knows what other team members are doing
Include benchmarks and description of deliverables
Be clear about the work flow process
Set up a development server
Have a review site accessible to the team
Include all relevant information about the project
Contact information
Schedules and work flow diagrams
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Interface design: Digital artist worsk with the producer and programmer to ensure that design elements work to web standards
Technical engineering aspects of the site, including forms, databases, frames, etc. are developed and tested
Publishing and marketing begin
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Launch: main activities
Aggressively test site for cross-platform, cross-browser compatibility
Review code for consistency and functionality
Check all links
Review site for spelling and grammar concerns
Upload site to the live server where it will reside
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Begin an ongoing assessment, collecting and analyzing a reasonable set of metrics
Try to demonstrate:
Lowered costs: distribution of sales materials, press releases, phone calls
Improved business development: new leads in existing and new markets
Improved customer service: use of forms, email, other feedback, sales
Improved public perception: user feedback, mention in the press, links from other sites
Better site performance: hits, page views, new and repeat users, downloads
Improved usability
Rosenbaum 5.9.01 SLIS@IU
Post launch activities
Test, evaluate and make appropriate changes
Perform routine maintenance
Or set up a clear plan for maintenance and train appropriate people
Add regular updates and additional content to the site as needed
Or set up a clear process by which new content can be added and old content removed
This can involve a plan for archiving and dogital document management
Promote site to the public (or within the organization in the case of intranet development)
Discuss future expansions and redesigns