Great advice to follow and then proceed.
“(…) information architecture is something that could improve anyone’s ability to communicate.”
(Abby Covert a.k.a. @Abby_the_IA) ★
All posts about
Information architecture
Information architecture’s role in UX design
Fortunately, no more discussions on information design versus information architecture. We’ve come from far away.
Jorge Arango discusses the state of IA and the importance of designers’ understanding of context and perspective – “Information architecture has always been an important part of user experience design, though not always acknowledged as such. With the emergence of social, IoT, and mobile, we have watched IA taking on a more dominant role in product development.”
(Mary Treseler a.k.a. @marytreseler ~ O’Reilly Radar) ★
Design’s role is to bridge context gaps: Andrew Hinton on making context understandable, smart devices, and programming literacy
Each time, IA is falling off the table when technology or design have the loudest mouth. But in the end, IA provides new meaning, truth, and value.
“Information architecture has always been a critical part of creating great products and services, and many would argue that, until now, it hasn’t been given the attention or respect it deserves. The need for thoughtful IA is increasing as we enter the multimodal world of IoT. Whether you call yourself an Information Architect or Designer, you need to care about context.”
(Mary Treseler a.k.a. @marytreseler ~ O’Reilly Radar) ★
Interaction design meets architectural thinking
Beside design thinking, we now have architectural thinking as well.
“Architecture is the classic, established approach to the design of our built environment. For hundreds of years, architects have focused on the design of our physical surroundings to define the frames for our lives. In doing so, architecture has established itself as the tradition of working with the material and artificial aspects of our physical surroundings to support the social and cultural aspects of our lives. With this as its primary focus, architecture as a discipline and a practice shares several characteristics with interaction design. Architecture is people-centered yet design-oriented; it deals with the intersection of human factors and artificial matters—that is, the material, designed aspects of our everyday lives.”
(Mikael Wiberg ~ ACM Interaction Magazine March/April 2015) ★
Architecting happiness
Bravo! Such a nice initiative to bring the design challenge to our community. Great starting point for #WIAD15 and #ArchHappy.
“The world is complex. Information is subjective. Customer Experience is key. Globally there is a big community of courageous professionals for whom their daily work is about making sense of any mess. They are information architects, user experience designers, developers, social media experts, visual designers, innovators… sometimes working as specialists but in other roles too: as creative directors, entrepreneurs, managers or consultants. They are to be found in agencies, startups, big corporations or work as freelancers. They all have something in common: they are responsible for Designing, Developing, Building, Communicating webs, mobile apps or digital services and products that act as information spaces in ubiquitous ecologies (on any device, in any location, and in any format). The aim of this project is to stimulate discussion about how we Architect for Happiness.”
(Silvia Calvet a.k.a. @silviacalvet and Nicole Neuefeind a.k.a. @nicneuvision ~ About Architecting Happiness)
Top 3 IA questions about navigation menus
Defining IA as the structure of navigation (menus) is IA of the 00’s.
“The number and order of navigation categories, and use of hover menus for touchscreens are frequently asked questions that arise when organizing information on a website or application.”
What you know about information architecture, might not be true
But as you also know, common knowledge is not as common as you think it is.
“You don’t hear the term information architecture much anymore. There is a lot of talk about understanding the users needs and delivering appropriate content. But, little about how the user finds that content. This is because it is a subject that is thoroughly covered. There are some great books on the subject and so bloggers don’t feel they have much to add. The problem is that when a subject has been so well covered, it moves into the realm of common knowledge. We all think we understand information architecture. Yet, it is a specialist area and the things we think we know may not be correct.”
Improving your information architecture with card-sorting: A beginner’s guide
“(…) one of those buzzwords.” OMG!
“Information architecture (IA) is one of those buzzwords you’ve probably heard before. It refers to the organization of the information on your website and how it all fits together. When planning your IA, involve users of your website in the process as soon as you can. In this article, we’ll discuss card sorting, a tried and true technique for doing just that. We’ll go through some practical tips for running a card-sorting session, and also cover some examples.”
Improving library user experience with A/B testing: Principles and process
Another item to the acro soup: LUX. Great initiative this peer-reviewed journal.
“This paper demonstrates how user interactions can be measured and evaluated with A/B testing, a user experience research methodology. A/B testing entails a process of controlled experimentation whereby different variations of a product or service are served randomly to users in order to determine the highest performing variation. This paper describes the principles of A/B testing and details a practical web-based application in an academic library. Data collected and analyzed through this A/B testing process allowed the library to initiate user-centered website changes that resulted in increased website engagement and improved user experience. A/B testing is presented as an integral component of a library user experience research program for its ability to provide quantitative user insights into known UX problems.”
(Scott W. H. Young a.k.a. @hei_scott ~ Weave: Journal of Library User Experience 1.1)
10th annual EuroIA Summit closing plenary
A landmark event. For more than one reason.
“The following was delivered as the closing plenary address at the European Information Architecture Summit in Brussels, Belgium on September 27, 2014.”
(Abby Covert a.k.a. @Abby_the_IA ~ EuroIA.org)
Should architects understand type?
And this not only applies to architects architecting with atoms.
“Demi-gods in black, some architects treat type as a redundant tool and graphic designers as inconsequential. But the relationship between architecture and graphic design has deep roots.”
(Erik Spiekermann a.k.a. @espiekermann ~ Design Observer)
The difference between information architecture and navigation
Simple interpretation of IA: How you move or travel from one place to the next one in this space. Navigation needs a map, compass and a goal.
“IA is the information backbone of the site; navigation refers to those elements in the UI that allow users to reach specific information on the site.”
The practitioners of Web information architecture in small and medium enterprises
In SME’s you really will find the real IA unicorns.
“This paper reports an investigation of the practice of web information architecture in small and medium enterprises . As information delivery via the web becomes a mainstream activity in all organisations, research and practical attention to Web IA remains focused on larger organisations and a new profession of information architect. The practice of web IA in SMEs has not been widely considered. This research collects the narratives of those who practice Web IA in the smaller enterprise and reveals that the dominant voice is that of a communication and marketing practitioner, rather than information professional. The outcomes of practice in this context suffer from a lack of knowledge and expertise.”
(Burford, S. & Given, L. M. (2013) ~ Journal of Information Architecture Vol. 5, No. 1-2)
Exploring the phase-space of information architecture
Finally, some deep thinking based upon reading the relevant sources again regarding the properties of information and how it effects information architecture.
“(…) I introduced the phase-space of information architecture, a mapping of the semantic neighborhoods created when we run through all the permutations of the two flavors of information: perceptual and linguistic. (…) Here we will look in detail at the facets of each flavor of information. Now that we’ve detailed the facets of our stuff of design, let’s situate ourselves in a design problem and visualize how we may engage the phase-space of information architecture to strategically turn the dials of perceptual and linguistic information.”
(Marsha Haverty a.k.a. @mjane_h ~ Praxicum) ~ courtesy of @resmini
IA is the new (old) UX
Hearts and minds create experiences. Structure relates to the cognitive part with information design and architecture as its fields of practice.
“Information architecture relates to science as its models draw on insights and theories of cognition. And its models relate to art as they aim to create a meaningful experience.”
(Elisabeth Hubert a.k.a. lishubert)
The present and future of information architecture
IA is not like a polar bear, but like a cat. Multiple lives. The next live of IA will much more complicated that the previous one.
Interview with Peter Morville. ~ “We’re in an era of service ecosystems. This means we must wrangle with the challenges of digital strategy and cross-channel user experience.”
(Timothy Jaeger ~ Medium)
Design better faceted navigation for your websites
Categories, tags, and facets are the descriptors for topics, themes and areas of interests.
“Facets are categories into which the properties of an object or topic can be divided. These categories in turn contain ‘values’: the sub-objects by which the list of items can be filtered. A classic example is the classification of wine. There are many properties by which wines can be categorised: region, colour, type, vineyard and price, among others.”
(Jim Kalbach a.k.a. @JimKalbach ~ Creative Blog)
Why UX designers need to think like architects
Design and architecture or architecting. Designer and architect. More parallels than differences: bits and atoms.
“The connections between architectural and experience design are undeniable, the thought processes nearly indistinguishable from one another. When we explore other, older design disciplines, their evolution may begin to guide ours, and we may begin to truly innovate. We are truly the architects, the chief builders, of the web (…)”
(Rima Reda a.k.a. @rimareda ~ UX Magazine)
Scaling user interfaces: An information-processing approach to multi-device design
It’s the omni-channel design again.
“Designing for all screen sizes must consider the capacity of the human–device communication channel, which depends on users’ memory, device portability, and screen size.”
(Raluca Budiu a.k.a. @rbudiu ~ Nielsen Norman Group)
The seduction of semantics and the third wave
Only the discourse will bring our field forward. Not the table tennis of opinions.
“If there’s a third wave, a new spirit, a
(Andreas Resmini a.k.a. @resmini)
