Information architecture for the World Wide Web

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rosenfeld, Louis, Author.

Contributor:

Morville, Peter, Contributor.

Safari Tech Books Online.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Web sites--Design.

Web sites.

Information storage and retrieval systems--Architecture.

Information storage and retrieval systems.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 202 p. ) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] O'Reilly 1998

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Some web sites "work" and some don't. Good web site consultants know that you can't just jump in and start writing HTML, the same way you can't build a house by just pouring a foundation and putting up some walls. You need to know who will be using the site, and what they'll be using it for. You need some idea of what you'd like to draw their attention to during their visit. Overall, you need a strong, cohesive vision for the site that makes it both distinctive and usable. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is about applying the principles of architecture and library science to web site design. Each web site is like a public building, available for tourists and regulars alike to breeze through at their leisure. The job of the architect is to set up the framework for the site to make it comfortable and inviting for people to visit, relax in, and perhaps even return to someday. Most books on web development concentrate either on the aesthetics or the mechanics of the site. This book is about the framework that holds the two together. With this book, you learn how to design web sites and intranets that support growth, management, and ease of use. Special attention is given to: The process behind architecting a large, complex site Web site hierarchy design and organization Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is for webmasters, designers, and anyone else involved in building a web site. It's for novice web designers who, from the start, want to avoid the traps that result in poorly designed sites. It's for experienced web designers who have already created sites but realize that something "is missing" from their sites and want to improve them. It's for programmers and administrators who are comfortable with HTML, CGI, and Java but want to understand how to organize their web pages into a cohesive site. The authors are two of the principals of Argus Associates, a web consulting firm. At Argus, they have created information architectures for web sites and intranets of some of the largest companies in the United States, including Chrysler Corporation, Barron's, and Dow Chemical.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

What's New in the Third Edition

Organization of This Book

Audience for This Book

Conventions for This Book

Contacting the Authors

Contacting O'Reilly

Safari® Enabled

Acknowledgments

Part I

Defining Information Architecture

A Definition

Tablets, Scrolls, Books, and Libraries

Explaining IA to Others

What Isn't Information Architecture?

Why Information Architecture Matters

Bringing Our Work to Life

Practicing Information Architecture

Do We Need Information Architects?

Who's Qualified to Practice Information Architecture?

Disciplinary Backgrounds

Innies and Outies

Gap Fillers and Trench Warriors

Putting It All Together

Information Architecture Specialists

Practicing Information Architecture in the Real World

Context

Content

Users

What Lies Ahead

User Needs and Behaviors

The "Too-Simple" Information Model

Information Needs

Information-Seeking Behaviors

Learning About Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behaviors

Part II

The Anatomy of an Information Architecture

Visualizing Information Architecture

Information Architecture Components

Browsing Aids

Search Aids

Content and Tasks

"Invisible" Components

Organization Systems

Challenges of Organizing Information

Ambiguity

Heterogeneity

Differences in Perspectives

Internal Politics

Organizing Web Sites and Intranets

Organization Schemes

Exact Organization Schemes

Alphabetical

Chronological

Geographical

Ambiguous Organization Schemes

Topic

Task

Audience

Metaphor

Hybrids

Organization Structures

The Hierarchy: A Top-Down Approach

Designing taxonomies

The Database Model: A Bottom-Up Approach

Hypertext

Social Classification.

Creating Cohesive Organization Systems

Labeling Systems

Why You Should Care About Labeling

Varieties of Labels

Labels As Contextual Links

Labels As Headings

Labels Within Navigation Systems

Labels As Index Terms

Iconic Labels

Designing Labels

General Guidelines

Narrow scope whenever possible

Develop consistent labeling systems, not labels

Sources of Labeling Systems

Your site

Comparable and competitive sites

Controlled vocabularies and thesauri

Creating New Labeling Systems

Content analysis

Content authors

User advocates and subject matter experts

Directly from users

Indirectly from users

Tuning and Tweaking

Navigation Systems

Types of Navigation Systems

Gray Matters

Browser Navigation Features

Building Context

Improving Flexibility

Embedded Navigation Systems

Global (Site-Wide) Navigation Systems

Local Navigation Systems

Contextual Navigation

Implementing Embedded Navigation

Supplemental Navigation Systems

Sitemaps

Site Indexes

Guides

Wizards and Configurators

Search

Advanced Navigation Approaches

Personalization and Customization

Visualization

Social Navigation

Search Systems

Does Your Site Need Search?

Search System Anatomy

Search Is Not an IT Thing

Choosing What to Search

Determining Search Zones

Navigation versus destination

Indexing for specific audiences

Indexing by topic

Indexing recent content

Selecting Content Components to Index

Search Algorithms

Pattern-Matching Algorithms

Recall and precision

Other Approaches

Query Builders

Presenting Results

Which Content Components to Display

How Many Documents to Display

Listing Results

Sorting by alphabet

Sorting by chronology

Ranking by relevance

Ranking by popularity.

Ranking by users' or experts' ratings

Ranking by pay-for-placement

Grouping Results

Exporting Results

Printing, emailing, or saving results

Select a subset of results

Save a search

Designing the Search Interface

The Box

Advanced Search: Just Say No

Supporting Revision

Repeat search in results page

Explain where results come from

Explain what the user did

Integrate searching with browsing

When Users Get Stuck

Where to Learn More

Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata

Metadata

Controlled Vocabularies

Synonym Rings

Authority Files

Classification Schemes

Thesauri

Technical Lingo

A Thesaurus in Action

Types of Thesauri

Classic Thesaurus

Indexing Thesaurus

Searching Thesaurus

Thesaurus Standards

Semantic Relationships

Equivalence

Hierarchical

Associative

Preferred Terms

Term Form

Term Selection

Term Definition

Term Specificity

Polyhierarchy

Faceted Classification

Part III

Research

Process Overview

A Research Framework

Getting Buy-In

Background Research

Introductory Presentations

Research Meetings

Strategy team meeting

Content management meeting

Information technology meeting

Stakeholder Interviews

Technology Assessment

Heuristic Evaluation

Content Analysis

Gathering content

Analyzing content

Content Mapping

Benchmarking

Competitive benchmarking

Before-and-after benchmarking

Usage Statistics

Search-Log Analysis

Customer-Support Data

Participant Definition and Recruiting

Surveys

Contextual Inquiry

Focus Groups

User Research Sessions

Interviews

Card Sorting

User Testing

In Defense of Research

Overcoming Research Resistance

Strategy

What Is an Information Architecture Strategy?.

Strategies Under Attack

From Research to Strategy

Developing the Strategy

Think

Articulate

Communicate

Test

Work Products and Deliverables

Metaphor Exploration

Scenarios

Sample scenario

Case Studies and Stories

Conceptual Diagrams

Blueprints and Wireframes

The Strategy Report

A Sample Strategy Report

Executive summary

Audiences, mission, and vision for the site

Lessons learned

Architectural strategies and approaches

Content management

The Project Plan

Presentations

Design and Documentation

Guidelines for Diagramming an Information Architecture

Communicating Visually

Blueprints

High-Level Architecture Blueprints

Digging Deeper into Blueprints

Keeping Blueprints Simple

Detailed Blueprints

Organizing Your Blueprints

Wireframes

Types of Wireframes

Wireframe Guidelines

Content Mapping and Inventory

Content Models

Why Do They Matter?

Supporting contextual navigation

Coping with large amounts of content

An Example

A Valuable Process

Design Collaboration

Design Sketches

Web-Based Prototypes

Point-of-Production Information Architecture

Putting It All Together: Information Architecture Style Guides

The "Why" Stuff

The "How" Stuff

Part IV

Education

Transition in Education

A World of Choice

But Do I Need a Degree?

The State of the Field

Ethics

Ethical Considerations

Intellectual Access

Labeling

Categories and Classification

Granularity

Physical Access

Persistence

Shaping the Future

Building an Information Architecture Team

Destructive Acts of Creation

Fast and Slow Layers

Project Versus Program

Buy or Rent

Do We Really Need to Hire Professionals?

The Dream Team

Tools and Software

A Time of Change

Categories in Chaos.

Automated Categorization

Search Engines

Thesaurus Management Tools

Portal or Enterprise Knowledge Platform

Content Management Systems

Analytics

Diagramming Software

Prototyping Tools

User Research

Questions to Ask

Part V

Making the Case for Information Architecture

You Must Sell

The Two Kinds of People in the World

Running the Numbers

Debunking the ROI Case

Talking to the Reactionaries

Other Case-Making Techniques

The Information Architecture Value Checklist

A Final Note

Business Strategy

The Origins of Strategy

Defining Business Strategy

Alignment

Strategic Fit

Exposing Gaps in Business Strategy

One Best Way

Many Good Ways

Understanding Our Elephant

Competitive Advantage

The End of the Beginning

Information Architecture for the Enterprise

Information Architecture, Meet the Enterprise

Finding Your Way Through an Enterprise Information Architecture

What's the Goal of EIA?

Getting Everyone on the Same Page

Centralization Above All?

So What Is the Goal?

Designing an Enterprise Information Architecture

Top-Down Navigation and EIA

Bypass the main page

Repurpose your sitemap

Slim down your site index

Develop guides

Bottom-Up Navigation and EIA

Build single-silo content models

Limit dependence on metadata

"Telescoped" metadata development

Search Systems and EIA

Simple consistent interface

Analyze those logs

Prioritize your queries

Reverse-engineering content and metadata

"Guerrilla" EIA

Klogs for internal experts

Wikis for groups

Accessing internal expertise through the staff directory

Aggregating staff expertise . . . and everything else

Social bookmarking in the enterprise

EIA Strategy and Operations

A Common Evolutionary Path

The EIA Group's Ideal Qualities and Makeup.

The strategists.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-196) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

OCLC:

770008347