morville@semanticstudios.com 1 information architecture designing and organising digital information...

morville@semanticstudios.com

Information Architecture Information Architecture Designing and Organising Digital Information SpacesDesigning and Organising Digital Information Spaces

Part II. IA Building BlocksPart II. IA Building Blocks

Organization – Labeling – Navigation – Search

Organization Structures

Hierarchy: taxonomies, top levels, mental model

Database: structured content, metadata, facets, relationships

Hypertext: cross-references, contextual

hierarchy

database

hypertext

Organization Schemes

ExactEverything has a place.Easy to create and maintain.Great for known-item searches.e.g., white pages, geography, chronology

AmbiguousFuzzy and full of overlap.Hard to create and maintain.Great for subject searches, associative learning.e.g., yellow pages, topic, audience

“Consider for example the proceedings we call games. I mean board games, card games, ball games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?”

Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1945

Philosophical Investigations

Soccer

ChessSolitaire

Movies

InvestingHoroscopes

Personals

morville@semanticstudios.comRules

morville@semanticstudios.comFamily Resemblances

green squares

orange circles

blue triangles

olive blocks

solid boxes

glass marbles

small spheres

hollow shapes

big mountains

Most categorization is automatic and unconscious.

When we define categories, we choose which attributes or properties to surface.

“Categorization is not a matter to be taken lightly. There is nothing more basic than categorization to our thought, perception, action, and speech.”George Lakoff

Professor, Cognitive Linguistics

UC Berkeley

Prototype Theory

• Prototype-based categories defined by fuzzy cognitive models rather than objective rules.

Family Resemblances

• Members may be related without all members sharing any common property.

Centrality

• Some members may be better examples

Membership Gradience

• Some categories have degrees of membership and no clear boundaries

Basic Level Primacy

• A psychologically basic (folk-generic) level in the hierarchy. Optimal for learning, recognition, memory, knowledge organization.

Ostrich

Peripheral

External

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Chordata

Class Mammalia

Order Cetacea

Family Delphinidae

Genus Tursiops

Species Truncatus

Suborder Odontoceti

Subphylum Vertebrata

Animal

Mammal

Whales, Dolphins

Dolphins, Killer Whales

Bottlenose Dolphin

Toothed Whales

Vertebrate

Grey Dolphin

Black Dolphin

Bottlenose Porpoise

Cowfish

Bottle-Nosed Dolphin

Atlantic Bottlenose

Pacific Bottlenose

Basic Level

Kingdom Electronics

Phylum Handhelds & PDAs

Family Sony

Genus Clie

Species PEG-NZ90

Class Palm Operating Systems

Sony Clie PEG-NZ90 Handheld

Electronics > Audio & VideoElectronics > Brands > Sony Electronics > Camera & PhotoElectronics > ComputersGifts > Over $100

Basic Level

Labeling

Purposes

Sources

Descriptive Name

A name which describes a product, service, or company. Descriptive names, such as Workgroup Server and Pacific Gas and Electric, have content, but often are not protectable and typically are not favored by trademark attorneys.

Proprietary NameA protectable name which one is able to own and trademark, as opposed to a descriptive name, which is not protectable or ownable. See Brand Name.

Suggestive NameA name built on or utilizing words or word parts which suggest or refer to the goods or services, but do not literally describe them. Oracle and Safeway are suggestive. Suggestive names are often protectable (unlike descriptive names), but may be weaker as trademarks than coined/fanciful or arbitrary names.

PsycholinguisticsThe study of how language is understood and interpreted and how and why the individual responds to discrete aspects of language.

NavigationSupport task flow

Provide context and flexibility

Avoid drowning content

Where Am I?

What's RelatedTo What's Here?

Global Navigation

Content Lives Here,With ContextualNavigation Inline

Or Separate.

morville@semanticstudios.comGlobal

Contextual

Global

Contextual

Breadcrumb

Path | Location | Attribute

morville@semanticstudios.comNavigation Question Mark Up on the Paper

What is this page about? Draw a rectangle around the title of the page or write it on the paper yourself

What site is this? Circle the site name, or write it on the paper yourself

What are the major sections of this site?

Label with X

What major section is this page in?

Draw a triangle around the X

What is "up" 1 level from here? Label with U

How do I get to the home page of this site?

Label with H

How do I get to the top of this section of the site?

Label with T

What does each group of links represent?

Circle the major groups of links and label. D: More details, sub-pages of this one N: Nearby pages, within same section as this page S: Pages on same site, but not as near O: Off-site pages

How might you get to this page from the site home page?

Write the set of selections as: Choice 1 > Choice 2 > .... Connect the visual elements on the page that tell you this.

Navigation Stress Test by Keith Instone > http://keith.instone.org/navstress/

Nike.com > North America > USA > NikeRunning.com > Gear > Footwear > Women’s > Trail > Air Trail Pegasus

HomeCamp/Hike Water Treatment Water Purifiers

Supplemental NavigationSitemaps

Table of contents

Top few levels of hierarchy

Scope / organization

Exploratory browsing

IndexesA-Z index (back-of-book)

Finely grained

Relatively non-hierarchical

Known-item finding

The Right Number by Scott McCloud

Search

“…studies show that search is still the primary usability problem in web site design.”

Vividence Research: Common Usability Problems

1. Poorly organized search results

2. Poor information architecture

Source: Flexible Search and Navigation using Faceted Metadata (UC Berkeley SIMS)

“Most of the complaints we get are due to the way users search; they use the wrong keywords.”Manufacturing Manager in Must Search Stink? by Forrester Research

“I really do see the future in terms of categories and clicking. The more I watch what's happening with the evolution of web sites, the more I believe that Search is essentially an experiment that has failed.”

Jared Spool

http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/0302/0297.html

Search Systems

http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/search.html

Where To Find MePeter Morville

Semantic Studios

http://semanticstudios.com/

Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture

http://aifia.org/

Findability

http://findability.org/

morville@semanticstudios.com 1 information architecture designing and organising digital information...

ia building blocks slide

ball games

card games

olympic games

board games

family resemblances

basic folk generic level

knowledge organization

Documents

the parish magazine of the bridgnorth and morville...

morville@semanticstudios.com 1 peter morville, iop 2006...

j.11. arquitectura de la dispersión: gestionar los riesgos...

a létric y mont movrons brattevjj-s4es- moivron& arraye-e...

morville@semanticstudios.com 1 information architecture...

‘information architecture for the world wide web’ (3 rd...

information architecture by peter morville

os sistemas de recomendação, arquitetura da informação e...

cap1_ko-classificazione_14032011_6 -...

intertwingled information changes everything - morville,...

intranets & the cluetrain manifesto darlene fichter & peter...

clue map intranets & the cluetrain manifesto darlene fichter...

information architecture - orarian | scott robinson, … ·...

morville@semanticstudios.com 1 information architecture &...

spade 24 spring 2011 for pdf - cardiganshire horticultural...

information information information informazioni

the parish magazine of the bridgnorth and morville …... 2...

1 , r. zheng (ed.). hershey, pa: igi - typepad...assumption...

iasummit morville 100414135809 phpapp02

perspectivas de investigación - e-prints complutensepara a...