INFM 700

Course Review

Paul JacobsThe iSchoolUniversity of Maryland

Monday, Nov. 30, 2009

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United StatesSee http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ for details

iSchool

Today’s Topics Course outline

Review of highlights and tricky issues

Ground rules for exam

Q & A

iSchool

Course Outline Introduction

Principles, organization and navigation (M&R chs. 1-7) (2 sessions)

Techniques and technology (M&R chs. 10-12 plus case studies) (2 sessions)

Taxonomies and metadata (M&R ch. 9)

Search (M&R ch. 8, Manning chs.) (2 sessions)

Software and business issues (Lenoir talk)

iSchool

Information Architecture What is it? (for starters)

Architecture – structural design [of web sites] to support function and form

Information – organized [electronic] content

So our goal is to master the design of web sites for organizations that effectively deliver information to their users

Consider: the information ecology (users, context, content) Goals; signs of good and bad architecture Basic skills and techniques for achieving goals

iSchool

The IA Circles (“Ecology”)

from M&R, p. 25

Context

Content Users

iSchool

The Process Understand user and system requirements

Design (and build) organization, navigation, and metadata systems

Evaluate the user experience

Figure out what’s needed

Design itBuild it

Figure out if it works

(compare with physical architects)

iSchool

Users and Methods Users are tough, fickle, inarticulate, lying,

complaining, ignorant, obtuse, inconsistent, …

…but user experience is still our main measure of success

So what do we do? Use varying strategies/components Apply “90-10” or “80-20” rules (you can’t please

everyone) Accommodate variability in our measurements/design

iSchool

Information Architecture Components Organization systems

“How we categorize information”

Labeling systems “How we represent information”

Navigation systems “How we browse or move through information”

Searching systems “How we search information”

from M&R, pp. 49-52

Loosely, “structured”

Loosely, “unstructured”

iSchool

Architecture Components (examples) Major organization systems (e.g., by topic, task,

community, chronology, …)

Major navigation systems (e.g., navigation bars, breadcrumbs, top-level links)

Local navigation systems

“Contextual” navigation systems

Indices and guides (e.g., sitemap, table of contents, site guide)

Search

Invisible components

from M&R, pp. 49-52

iSchool

Organization Systems Hierarchical organization

What is a hierarchy? Why organize hierarchically Shallow and broad vs. deep and narrow (why the

tradeoff, where is the optimum)

Relation to navigation, layout, blueprints

iSchool

Navigation Systems Global

Shown everywhere Tells the user “what’s important”

Local Shown in specific parts of the site Tells the user “what’s nearby”

Contextual Shown only in specific situations Tells the user “what’s related”

iSchool

Research & Strategy Research: identify goals & issues

User needs Organizational/context Content and other issues

Strategy: build and sell the plan

Context

Content Users

Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, human resources

Data types, content objects, metadata, volume, existing structure

Audience, tasks, user behavior, experience, vocabulary

MR, p. 233

iSchool

Process Overview (More Detail)

“The Elements of

User Experience”

Jesse James Garrett

http://jjg.net

iSchool

Research and Strategy Methods User and requirements analysis (inc., e.g.,

interviews, competitive analysis)

Content analysis

Role of user studies (e.g., surveys, user testing, card sorting)

From research to strategy

Relationship to documentation

iSchool

Design and Documentation Deliverables

Conceptual Diagrams

Blueprints (structural)

Wireframes (physical)

Text (e.g., reports)

Presentations and meetings

iSchool

Top-down and bottom-up

iSchool

Metadata Literally “data about data”

“a set of data that describes and gives information about other data” ― Oxford English Dictionary

Why do we need this?

Types of metadata Descriptive/subjective/content (e.g. author, subject, keywords,

…) Administrative (e.g. owner, rights, cost, creation date, version, …) Technical (e.g. format, size, dependencies, programs) . . . .

In practical terms: Metadata helps users locate, navigate, interpret content Metadata helps organizations manage content Metadata helps systems manipulate content

iSchool

Related Concepts & Uses Taxonomies

Anything organized in some sort of hierarchical structure

Tagging Adding almost any kind of metadata to content, but now

often descriptive and user-provided

Thesauri Focus on relations between terms Focus on “concepts”

Ontologies Usually model a specific domain or part of the world Generally machine-readable

Increasing complexity and richness

iSchool

Goals for Search Sessions Understand the basic issues in information

retrieval (searching primarily unstructured text)(e.g. words vs. concepts, word problems, recall and precision)

Know the techniques generally used by modern search engines (vector space model, term weighting)

Learn how search engines can be used most effectively in information architecture (e.g. configuring search, integrating search and browsing, tricks like “best bets”)

iSchool

What we control (the IA part)? Requirements and search engine selection

Developing search requirements Build vs. buy Vendor evaluation/selection Consultants?

Content selection What to search/zones/etc. Tags

Search engine configuration Zones, what gets indexed, sometimes how Number of results, sometimes recall vs. precision Others (very often interface-related)

Interfaces

iSchool

Ground rules for exam

What can be on it Anything that’s “really” covered, not passing mention Focus on concepts, but can include definitions,

examples

Style of exam As objective as possible Mostly multiple choice, some matches, short answers Designed to fit in < 1.5 hours

Degree of difficulty and grading

Prepare, but try to make the most of it and enjoy!

iSchool

Examples (from last semester)

8. A good “rule of thumb” in considering the interaction between search and navigation is:

a. make the search box large to attract attention to this important featureb. spend more time and resources on search because some users will always go right to the search boxc. think of navigation as an effective way to avoid search problemsd. try to avoid spending time on search functionality because the user search experience is usually bad anyway

iSchool

Examples (from last semester)

11. Hierarchical organization schemes are frequently used in IA because:a. they are consistent with user mental models and help maintain content as well as supporting effective navigationb. it is easy to implement them using binary trees or B-treesc. they conform to ANSI standards for thesaurus designd. the scientific community has long practiced hierarchical classification

iSchool

Examples (from last semester) Match the concepts on the left with descriptions

on the right:Top-down analysis Organizing information according to

concepts in a “tree” from the general to the specific

Tagging Organizing information by starting with an expectation of what’s important or needed

Taxonomy A network of terminology and/or concepts that captures associations and

relationships among words, phrases, or ideas

Thesaurus Assigning “meta-data” labels to information content to make it easier to organize, understand, or find

iSchool

Examples (from last semester)

For each of the following examples covered in class, give a word or phrase from the left column of the above table (or the number of the phrase) that best fits what was illustrated by the example (in some examples there may be more than one correct answer). Give a very short (one sentence or less) explanation. 36. HP’s web site uses “best bets” to direct searchers to certain pages, such as how to select a printer for purchase.  37. The National Library of Medicine’s Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) retrieves information about “neoplasms” in response to a search for “cancer”  38. The Best Buy site allows you to select a set of laptop computers by choosing links showing manufacturer or price range  39. In redesigning their web site, E-Bay identified five important task groups and then used a closed end card sort to validate their task groupings   40. The iSchool web site gives links to various student projects and publications under the “Research” tab