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What Is Information Architecture

March 2011

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Outline

— What is Information Architecture

— Categories and Classification

— Five ways to organize information: LATCH

— Exploiting existing and potential metadata

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I. What is Information Architecture

Information Architecture is

— discovering the kinds of information the site contains

— matching this information to the needs of the users

— determining the appropriate metadata structure

Information is

— a difference that makes a difference

— a pattern that provides a structure for understanding

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Jesse James Garrett: 5 Layer Process Model

— The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett (2000)

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Information Architecture > Facets of User Experience

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— Peter Morville (2004)

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The IA must understand

the data

— text coding systems: SGML/XML

— database storage

— information retrieval

the interaction models

— principals of user interface design

— user-based design methodology

— the limits of current web browser technology

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The IA must mediate

— the requirements of a client, who wants to present information

— the needs of the user, who needs to find and consume that information

— balance between the desirable and the possible

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Category and Classification

Categorization is

— the mental process of grouping things by perceptible similarity within a given context.

— Creating groups through direct experience (bottom-up)

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— Categorization of music

— Categories of music are an expression of listener’s perception and as communities emerge (bottom-up)

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Further category examples

Categories can be high-level:

Three Categories of Drugs

• Depressants

• Stimulants

• Hallucinogens

Categories can be continuous

Categories of Hurricanes:

Category 1: 74-95 mph winds

Category 2: 96-110 mph winds

Category 3: 111-130 mph winds

Category 4: 131-155 mph winds

Category 5: 155+ mph winds

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Category and Classification

— Categorization is the mental process of grouping things by perceptible similarity within a given context.

— Classification is a set of classes assigned according to a predetermined set of principles used to impose order on a set of entities.

— Taxonomic classification establishes stability by applying a set of rules to one domain (top-down)

— Classification system offer inter-operability benefits across applications

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— Classification of biology

— Each living organism is classified in the Tree of Life taxonomy

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— MESH Classification of human diseases

— Each disease is located in one or more places in the Medical Subject Headings (MESH) maintained by the National Library of Medicine in Washington DC

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Category vs. Classification

— 3 Categories of hair color

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— Classification of hair color

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LATCH (+):

Five ways to organize information for ease of use (+One)

Location

Alphabet

Time

Category

Hierarchy

see Richard Saul Wurman, INFORMATION ANXIETY 2

plus Common Focus

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Location

“Location is chosen when the information who you are comparing comes from several different sources or locales. Doctors use different locations of the body to group and study medicine. Concerning an industry you might want to know where on the world goods are distributed.” WSW

— Location is the X/Y position in the context of a representation

— In the most abstract sense, the X and Y positioning of any object on a plane is a purely visual distinction

— Location can be used to organize information a geographical region (states, countries)

— Location can be used in relation to an object (such as the body)

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Alphabet

— “Alphabet is best used when you have enormous amount of data. For example words in a dictionary or names in a telephone. As usually everybody is familiar with the Alphabet, categorizing by Alphabet is recommendable when not all the audience is familiar with different kind of groupings or categories you could use instead.” WSW

— Reference to the order sequence of the letters in an alphabet

— Common 26 letter European alphabet

— Alphabetic order varies according to language

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New York Times Blog Directory, November 2009

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Metropolitan Museum Timeline of Art History

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Time

“Time is the best form of categorization for events that happen over fixed durations. Meeting schedules or our calendar are examples. The work of important persons might be displayed as timeline as well. Time is an easily framework in which changes can be observed and comparisons made.” WSW

— Absolute reference to actual event in time

— Sequence of events in linear time, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries

— Potential for cycle as well as sequence

Herbert Bayer, WORLD GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS. A Composite of Man’s Environment. Chicago: Container Corporation of America, 1953.

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Joseph Preistley: biographical timeline

http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/02/

French Regional & American Museum Exchange: Galleries

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Category

— “Category is an organization type often used for goods and industries. Shops and services in the yellow pages are easy to find by category. Retail stores are divided into e.g. men- and woman-clothing. This mode works well to organizing items of similar importance.” WCW

— Categories are determined by similar content

— Each category is at the same level (“similar importance”)

New York Times Blog Directory, November 2010

Library of Congress American Memory: category as topic

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Hierarchy

“Hierarchy organizes by magnitude. From small to large, least expensive to most expensive, by order of importance, etc. Hierarchy is to be used if you want to assign weight or value to the ordered information.” WSW

— Organized by sequence of importance

— Recursive sequence of whole to part, largest to smallest

— Hierarchy implies sequence of quantity

Tree of Life

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A Sixth Method: Common Focus

— Organizing information by what users are touching

— Currently viewed

— Most discussed

— Most popular

— People who bought this item also bought…

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Le Monde: Most commented / Most emailed

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Amazon.com: exposing common purchase behavior

How do we design navigational links between items?

— Indentify patterns that can be used to built links between units of data

— Patterns can come from the nature of the data AND/OR nature of use

— Shared Metadata: Structured information about a unit of data

• Such as date/time, owner, ID, subject, etc.

— Find facets / attributes / properties that can be associated used to identify similarities between units of data in a collection

• Author name

• Publication date

• Subject

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Implicit metadata:

— Document type

— File name

— Time/Date stamp

Implicit metadata:

— Documents

— Images

— Books

— Blogs

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The role of Metadata

— Associating the same metadata with items in different collections can be used to

• Extract “related” item lists

• Create topic collections

— Unique Identifier (UID) codes for elements that appear in several contexts can be particularly valuable

• Stock trading codes

• Book ISBN

• Part number

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Further Examples of Applied Metadata

— Scientific Publishing:

• Digital Object Identifier (DOI) used by publishers to identify a publication unit, such as a scientific article, independent from the print location (journal, vol. issue. page) or current URL location.

— Biomedical/Pharmaceudical:

• UID code for pharmaceutical product

— Finance:

• Symbol for publicly traded companies, stocks and bonds used to link data and news

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Further Examples of Common Metadata

— Art:

• Artist

• Title

• Collection

• Exhibition

• Location

— Writing:

• Author

• Title

• Publisher

• Subject/Tag

— Cinema:

• Movie title

• Genre

• Director

• Actor(s)

— Photographs:

• Date/time

• Location

• Tag

• Title

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Différents types de visualisation / Visual forms of

sensemaking

— Spatial / Spatiale

— Argumentational / Argumentaire

— Faceted / En facettes

— Hierarchical / Hiérarchique

— Sequential / Séquentielle

— Networked / Groupée

from A classification of sensemaking representations, Faisal, Attfield & Blandford , 2009

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Spatiale: distribution d’éléments exprimant leur relation d’un point de vue spatial, selon leur

emplacement dans une espace compréhensible comme une ville, un pays, une rivière, une

frontière,etc.

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The Geography of Buzz:

Art, Culture and the Social

Milieu in Los Angeles and

New York, Currid &

Williams, 2009

Art collections by museum, by collection, museesFRAME.org

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Spatial: visual distribution of items expressing their spatial relationship. Items appear in relation to

their location within an understood space: city, country, coast/river outline.

— Argumentaire: organisation multiple de propositions ou d’idées sous une forme argumentaire ( si/

alors/ pour/ contre) afin de rendre les relations entre les idées explicites.

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— En facettes : appliquer un lot commun de propriétés à plusieurs objets et les afficher, afin de

comparer les objets entre eux.

— Example: theyrule.net

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— Hiérarchique : organiser le contenu dans des catégories afin de grouper et de représenter les

quantités et les thèmes. Treemap of Google feeds by Marcos Weskamp

see Newsmap.jp

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— Sequentielle : organiser les éléments selon une séquence temporelle.

Corporate intranet management process for Schlumberger

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— Sequential: organize items along a time series. see American Time Use Survey

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— En réseau: relier les éléments en groupe / cluster diagrams

Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere, Kelly & Etling

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— Blogosphère des élections présidentielles de 2007 blogopole.fr by RTGI/linkfluence

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See Data Visualisation and Journalism by Geoff McGhee for further examples

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