Information architecture

User Interface Implementations of Faceted Browsing

"Just as it is important to choose the proper knife when slicing-n-dicing vegetables, it is critical to prescribe a suitable user interface to support faceted filtering. Faceted filtering allows you to narrow down a large list of objects to a manageable size by applying flexible combinations of attribute filters in any order. Rather than forcing you down fixed paths within a website’s information architecture, faceted filtering allows you to multi-dimensionally slice-n-dice the information in a manner that best accommodates your specific needs. A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web." (Mike Padilla - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted on May 02, 2008 | Permalink

Linkosophy

"Giving this talk at the IA Summit was a blast; I'm so grateful for the positive response, and the patience with these still-forming ideas. I'm looking forward to seeing where the conversation goes from here! NOTE: You need to view this in 'Full Screen' mode, which you can only do from the SlideShare page itself. Otherwise, the narrative text isn't readable." (Andrew Hinton - inkblurt)

Posted on April 17, 2008 | Permalink

IA Summit 2008 Tagged Pix at Flickr

A growing number of pictures from the Information Architecture Summit 2008 (April 10-14, 2008 - Miami Florida)

Posted on April 17, 2008 | Permalink

IA Summit 2008 Tagged Slides at SlideShare

A growing number of presentations from the Information Architecture Summit 2008 (April 10-14, 2008 - Miami Florida)

Posted on April 17, 2008 | Permalink

Video Interviews with IA Pioneers

"At the 2007 IA Summit in Las Vegas, IAKM worked to gather video interviews from the top and pioneering professionals in the Information Architecture-related fields. Through the course of the Summit, many interviews were collected to be used in IAKM courses as well as in an effort to create a video history of the discipline. Following are some clips from the interviews. A video repository is currently under development." (Information Architecture and Knowledge Management Kent State University) - courtesy of bloug

Posted on April 14, 2008 | Permalink

IA Summit 2008 Slides

"There have been some absolutely phenomenal presentations at the IA Summit in Miami so far. If you didn't happen to make it out to the conference or you'd like to revisit the material, I've amassed a list of IA Summit podcasts and PowerPoint slides. Not all presentations have been made available online yet so I'll make a follow-up post in a couple of days to capture any new presentation links." (NLC Internet Marketing Blog)

Posted on April 14, 2008 | Permalink

Meet Your Peers

"Meeting new people and catching up with old friends is one of my favorite things about attending the IA Summits. The folks in this community are some of the smartest and most welcoming people I know! Alas, while concepts and practices can be clearly conveyed in publications such as Boxes and Arrows, it is very difficult to describe the people behind these ideas in a way that does them justice. Perhaps if they introduced themselves to you." (Jorge Arango - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on April 09, 2008 | Permalink

Document Engineering and Information Architecture

Complete syllabus with lecture notes and audio recordings - "This course introduces the discipline of Document Engineering: specifying, designing, and deploying electronic documents and information repositories that enable document-centric or information-intensive applications. These applications include web services, information supply chains, single-source publishing, composite applications/virtual enterprises/portals, and so on. Course topics include developing requirements, analyzing existing documents and information sources, conceptual modeling, identifying reusable semantic components, modeling business processes and user interactions, applying patterns to make models more robust, representing models using XML schemas, and using XML models to implement and drive applications. The syllabus contains over 20 short case study examples from different industries, with special emphasis on business-to-business, healthcare and medical informatics, and e-government." (Robert J. Glushko)

Posted on April 03, 2008 | Permalink

Webstock Recordings

"Here are all the recordings from Webstock 08 and Webstock 06. These recordings will be permanently archived at the following links. Where there is no recording for a particular session, that was the decision of the speaker and we fully respect that. (...) We'd love to hear from you if you find these recordings useful. Please drop us a line and let us know, especially if you weren't at Webstock and/or are from locations other than New Zealand. Enjoy!" (Webstock)

Posted on March 21, 2008 | Permalink

The Architects of the Information Age 

Editorial Insert in the January 21 edition of Fortune Magazine - "Understanding the way information is used is particularly crucial in relation to the Internet: Sites that help users find what they need quickly and easily tend to win customers. Sites that frustrate users lose them—fast. So, to get their data game-plan right, savvy companies are turning to the increasingly important field of information architecture." (The Information Architecture Institute)

Posted on January 31, 2008 | Permalink

IA Summit 2008: Experiencing Information

"This year your peers and industry experts will speak about how topics such as social networking, gaming, patterns, tagging, taxonomies, and a wide range of IA tools and techniques can help as users 'experience information'. - April 10-14, 2008 (Miami, Florida USA)" - (About the Summit)

Posted on January 31, 2008 | Permalink

Videos from the Second Italian IA Summit

"The first batch of full videos from the Second Italian IA Summit (Trento, November 16-17 2007) is available from the web site (as published by Brightcove). Some of the presentations are in English, so you might find interesting stuff even if you do not know Italian. The second and final batch will be published in the coming days and the full papers are scheduled for the end of the month." (Andrea Resmini)

Posted on January 11, 2008 | Permalink

Italian IA Summit 2007

The proceedings of the 2nd Italian Information Architecture Summit held on 16=17 november 2007 in Trento are availble. At the moment only slides, but soon papers and videos too. Furthermore, Paolo Massa and Andrea Resmini publish their trip reports. courtesy of lucarosati

Posted on December 02, 2007 | Permalink

IA Konferenz 2007 - Keynote

Audio files from the IA Conference in Germany - "Keynote Speech, Victor Lombardi, Smart Experience, New York (USA). Content: Tools - Background - Patterns of other fields (e.g. publishing) - Why tools? - What does this mean for designers? - Tools we can create now." (Deutsche IA Konferenz 2007 - iavoice) - courtesy of wolfnoeding

Posted on November 30, 2007 | Permalink

Intranet Information Architecture

"In analyzing 56 intranets, we found many common top-level categories, labels, and navigation designs, but ultimately, the diversity was too great to recommend a single IA." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted on November 26, 2007 | Permalink

Make Tools

"In my keynote talk at the 2007 IA Konferenz in Stuttgart, Germany this month, I argued we need to create fewer artifacts and more tools. We're already doing this, but it's easy to get stuck in a make-more-web/mobile-sites rut and that could lead to irrelevance." (Victor Lombardi)

Posted on November 26, 2007 | Permalink

euro IA Summit 2007 Posters

The posters of the third European summit on Information Architecture (21-22 September, Barcelona) are available for download. (euroIA.org)

Posted on October 19, 2007 | Permalink

What is browsing - really? A model drawing from behavioural science research

"It is argued that the actual elements of typical browsing episodes have not been well captured by common approaches to the concept to date. Empirical research results reported by previous researchers are presented and closely analysed. Based on the issues raised by the above research review, the components of browsing are closely analysed and developed. Browsing is seen to consist of a series of four steps, iterated indefinitely until the end of a browsing episode: (1) glimpsing a field of vision, (2) selecting or sampling a physical or informational object within the field of vision, (3) examining the object, and (4) acquiring the object (conceptually and/or physically) or abandoning it. Not all of these elements need be present in every browsing episode, though multiple glimpses are seen to be the minimum to constitute the act. This concept of browsing is then shown to have persuasive support in the psychological and anthropological literature, where research on visual search, curiosity and exploratory behaviour all find harmony with this perspective. It is argued that this conception of browsing is closer to real human behaviour than other approaches. Implications for better information system design are developed." (Marcia Bates - Information Research Vol. 12 No. 4, October 2006)

Posted on October 16, 2007 | Permalink

Take-away facts and quotes from the Euro IA Summit

"(...) I was in Barcelona for the Euro IA Summit, and I made a solemn vow to my wife and myself that I was actually going to concentrate on doing stuff rather than spending my time and energy blogging about doing stuff. However, it did seem rather churlish not to at the very least post my favourite take-away facts and quotes from the conference itself." (Martin Belam)

Posted on October 15, 2007 | Permalink

The information architect as change agent

&ot"In this article I argue, with a bit of logic and a bit of experience, that IAs can do their jobs better if they understand organizational change management, even if they don’t need to be change management specialists. I'll also suggest a variety of concepts and practices that can (hopefully) help IAs in their change agent role, and I promise to throw in something entertaining as well." (Matthew C. Clarke - Posted on October 11, 2007 | Permalink

euro IA Summit 2007 Proceedings 

The proceedings of the third European summit on Information Architecture (21-22 September, Barcelona) are available for download. With its theme 'Translating Information Architecture' and under the great orchestration of Eric 'FatDUX' Reiss, 150 participants from 18 countries had two great days full of presentation, poster and panel sessions. See how they network at the Flickr picture impression 'euroIA2007'. Next year's euroIASummit (26-27 september 2008) will be in Amsterdam! - (euroIA.org)

Posted on October 01, 2007 | Permalink

Building Block Definitions (Containers)

"Joe Lamantia dives deep into the components of the building block system. Each has a place in his design framework for dashboards and portals. Get full coverage on how you too can use these same elements in your work." (Joe Lamantia - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on September 26, 2007 | Permalink

Processes + Patterns

"After explaining the concepts of patterns and collections, I spoke about how I thought process patterns and design patterns could be combined and about what the benefits would be to designers and team managers (and of course users and clients) once they were combined." (Peter Boersma)

Posted on September 26, 2007 | Permalink

Playful IAs

"I had some great reactions to this talk and I want to thank all the people who engaged with me in discussions afterwards. It’s given me a good picture of what areas I should develop further in future subsequent talks. I’m also pleasantly surprised to see that contrary to what some people think, the IA community (the European one at least) is very much open to new ideas. That’s really nice to experience firsthand." (Kars Alfrink - Leapfrog)

Posted on September 26, 2007 | Permalink

Universal Information Architecture Modeling Language

"UiaML is a symbolic modeling language like UML that is meant to be a supporting tool for information architects. At it's current state UiaML supports low fidelity modeling. With future development of UiaML we hope to support high fidelity models, too." (Alex Jongman)

Posted on September 24, 2007 | Permalink

Organizing global websites

"At the European IA Summit in Barcelona, I'll give a talk about information architecture for global websites. The slides without the talk aren't that great, but here they are anyway, maybe it'll help you decide wether to attend this talk or one of the other great ones." (Peter Van Dijck)

Posted on September 19, 2007 | Permalink

Review of Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

"Information architects - and anyone curious about the roots of information management - will find much of interest in Glut's thought-provoking tale. Given the stimulating and contrarian nature of Glut's ideas, one only wishes Wright would occasionally return from the corridors of the time tunnel and bring his well-informed perspective back to our present age." (Bob Goodman - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on September 12, 2007 | Permalink

Card Sorting: Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned

"Card sorting is a simple and effective method with which most of us are familiar. There are already some excellent resources on how to run a card sort and why you should do card sorting. This article, on the other hand, is a frank discussion of the lessons I've learned from running numerous card sorts over the years. By sharing these lessons learned along the way, I hope to enable others to dodge similar potholes when they venture down the card sorting path." (Sam Ng - UXmatters)

Posted on September 11, 2007 | Permalink

A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory

"After giving it some thought, I find that the thing I like most about the map is that it is pure, stripped down navigation. Harry Beck decided that including streets, districts and other geographical information on his underground maps was distracting and added little value. All you need to know is how to get from A to B. I suspect that the same may be true in information spaces." (Patrick C. Walsh - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on September 06, 2007 | Permalink

Ambient Findability and The Future of Search

"At the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the Internet, the user experience is out of control, and findability is the real story. Access changes the game. We can select our sources and choose our news. We can find who and what we need, when and where we want. Search is the new interface of culture and commerce. As society shifts from push to pull, findability shapes who we trust, how we learn, where we go, and what we buy. In this cyberspace safari, Peter Morville explores the future present in mobile devices, search algorithms, ontologies, folksonomies, findable objects, digital librarianship, and the long tail of the sociosemantic web. Reflect with Peter he challenges us to think differently about the power of search - and findability - to redefine our sources of authority and inspiration in an increasingly digitized and networked information environment." (Peter Morville - Google Video) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted on August 31, 2007 | Permalink

Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

"What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have to do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how information systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the information age." (Alex Wright)

Posted on July 24, 2007 | Permalink

Using Design Games

"No matter how you talk about them, design games can add vitality, energy, and fun to your work and change the game of requirements gathering with your team." (Jess McMullin - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on July 19, 2007 | Permalink

Things You See: Four Views into the Transformation Room

GK VanPatter in conversation with Bob Goodman (UX Consultant), Peter Jones Ph.D. (Redesign Research), and Eric Reiss (FatDUX and President, Information Architecture Institute) - "Considering the complexity involved our purpose here is not to try to redefine Information Architecture or other disciplines but rather talk about whether or not what we are doing has changed, is changing and what we might do to help others understand what that might mean, how we think about all the change that is occurring ourselves, how do we make sense of it? In no particular order I invite you to share your own thoughts and then lets jump off from there." (NextD) - courtesy of puttingpeoplefirst

Posted on July 09, 2007 | Permalink

ASIS&T Bulletin Jun/Jul 2007: Special Section Information Archtecture

"(...) a bi-monthly news magazine packed with developments and issues affecting the field, pragmatic management reports, opinion, and news of people and events in the information science community." (ASIS&T)

Posted on June 12, 2007 | Permalink

Peter Morville's Visual Library

"What is the meaning of the Picasso polar bear? What is the Spanish strategy? Is it the art of branding? And, which country will be next? Feel free to upload your version to Flickr, tag it with remixpolarbear and explain your country's unique contribution to information architecture strategy and practice. Just don't tell the folks at O'Reilly." (Peter Morville - findability.org)

Posted on May 30, 2007 | Permalink

IA One Sheeters

"One-Sheeters are quick and easy marketing tools for information architects. They're like mini brochures to advertise IA deliverables and promote the IA practice in your company. One-Sheeters help people envision what deliverables you produce and where they fit into a project. They're quick to produce and easy for anyone to understand." - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on May 21, 2007 | Permalink

Zen and the Art of IA

Book review on 'Designing the Obvious' (Hoekman 2006) - "Zen is the art of practicing meditation in everything you do and existing solely in a mental space. Envisioning surroundings as full of peace creates an image of actions as poetry. If information architecture is poetry, it gives just meaning, placement, and timing to an overall message or theme. The flow of numbers, letters, images and sounds together form a medium for the mind, a zen space of constant understanding." (Clifton Evans - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on May 09, 2007 | Permalink

Conference Review: IA Summit 2007 (I/II)

"On the whole, IA Summit 2007 was an excellent conference. Though, because of the deficiencies of the venue, it was less successful than last year’s Summit. Next year’s IA Summit looks promising. It will take place at the Hyatt in Miami, Florida, on April 10–14, 2008. Its theme: Experiencing Information." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted on April 26, 2007 | Permalink

Information architects on communicating to IT managers

"Our final source suggested asking the provocative question 'what would happen if someone simply pulled the plug on their website. Would their organization become stronger or weaker?' He also cautioned against talking about information architecture specifically; people are interested in the ends, not the means." (Louis Rosenfeld)

Posted on April 19, 2007 | Permalink

Enterprise IA Methodologies: Starting Two Steps Earlier

"Information architects working within enterprises are confronted by unique challenges relating to organisational culture, business processes, and internal politics. Compared to public website or interface design projects, key aspects differ in the application of IA discipline relating to uncertainties around the exact nature of the business problems being solved." (James Robertson - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on April 18, 2007 | Permalink

Information Architecture & Ethical Design

"My presentation at the 2007 IA Summit, in Las Vegas, covering professional ethics, ethics of user experience and cultural ethics. Subjects include privacy and trust, evolutionary psychology, virtual status and ubiquitous altruism, applied to social networking and the mobile internet." (Olly Wright)

Posted on April 12, 2007 | Permalink

Reaction to NextD

"I would recommend one thing for the IA Community to consider: invite someone from the NextDesign Leadership Institute to speak at the 2008 IA Summit (Miami, Florida, USA, April 10-14). We have a history of giving our biggest critics a voice at our main event - Mark Hurst and Mark Bernstein are just two examples. Time to find our long-lost twins." (Keith Instone)

Posted on April 10, 2007 | Permalink

Shared Presentations from the IA Summit 2007

"Slideshows for tag: iasummit2007." (SlideShare) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on March 30, 2007 | Permalink

Deep Context

"(...) by exposing ourselves to different cultures, we develop a deeper understanding of our own, and this will make us better designers. When we create an information architecture for a website—irrespective of its intended target audience - we will inevitably be called on to express the contextual assumptions that allow the website’s messages to be properly understood. Knowing that these assumptions exist (and understanding how the various audiences may interpret them differently) is the first step in creating sites that communicate more effectively across cultural lines - even if they are within our own society." (Jorge Arango - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 12, 2007 | Permalink

Content Analysis Heuristics

"Many Web professionals consider content inventories critical parts of most projects. Are there certain specific things to look for during a content inventory? Fred Leise definitely thinks so. He proposes a set of content analysis heuristics and discusses how to utilize each one." (Fred Leise - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 12, 2007 | Permalink

More Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture

"How 'information architecture' is defined much too broadly, frames design in the wrong way, and suffers from infoprefixation." (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted on March 02, 2007 | Permalink

European LIS Curriculum Project

"The European LIS Curriculum Project (...) was an innovative exploration of views and practice regarding library and information science (LIS) curriculum in Europe. The Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark, was the contracting agency for the project, which involved more than 100 European educators." (ASIS&T Bulletin Dec/Jan 2006)

Posted on February 15, 2007 | Permalink

Building IA Means Building Local Groups

"The IA profession is growing, but a large proportion of IAs still work in relative isolation. Few organizations can boast an internal IA practice, so many rely on individual contractors – IAs who have to work on their own. Even companies with IAs on staff often lack managers who understand and care about information architecture. (...) But local groups are more than just a nice thing to have – they're the key to the future. Building IA as a profession requires building IAs as professionals. This process happens one person at a time." (Stacy Merrill Surla - ASIS&T Bulletin Dec 2006 - Jan 2007)

Posted on February 15, 2007 | Permalink

The Holy Grail of Information Architecture

"It all comes down to creativity: Our documents need to support our creativity. They need to be able to radically change at any time to permit new and unique project demands. The simpler the document format or template, the more likely it is to be able to be adaptable to new and innovative ways of thinking about our products." (Christopher Fahey - graphpaper.com) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on February 06, 2007 | Permalink

ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit 2007 Conference Progam

"The Information Architecture Summit is a premier gathering place for information architects and for discussion about information architecture. Everyone who touches on IA is welcome to share and learn. Last year's IA Summit attracted over 500 attendees, including beginners, experienced IAs, and people in a range of related fields." (IA Summit 2007)

Posted on January 15, 2007 | Permalink

Notes from the IA Retreat in Chile

"(...) I'd rather leave more detailed commentary to the other participants. Here are some excerpts from comments that have been published online (...)" (Javier Velasco - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on January 02, 2007 | Permalink

2001 to 2006: Five Years of Information Architecture

"But I know an IA spirit when I see one. They have a passion for the complex combined with a desire to help out. They are the sort who, on discovering the library books pulled from their shelves, would relish sorting the mess out rather than bemoaning the terrible transgression." (Karen Loasby - Freeprint) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on December 21, 2006 | Permalink

Information Architecture 3.0

"(...) the future's quite bright, especially for information architects who find ways to connect the timeless principles of design and organization with new transmedia models of interaction, co-creation, tagging, and user participation." (Peter Morville - Semantic Studios)

Posted on November 30, 2006 | Permalink

Enterprise Information Architecture: A Semantic and Organizational Foundation

"Two key elements distinguish an enterprise IA from a basic IA. The first is the role an EIA plays in the design, development, and maintenance of an enterprise’s semantic infrastructure. The second is the scope and type of projects an EIA can be involved in as they develop applications that use and build on this semantic infrastructure." (Tom Reamy - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on November 29, 2006 | Permalink

Information Architecture Is Not Dead ... But It Might Be Stuck

"(...) information architecture is stuck. While this implies a problem with the practice, I’m going to suggest that it really has more to do with the practitioners. The practitioners are stuck and the conversation is not evolving. Not enough of us are getting uncomfortable and knocking down fences to reach out to other people from other fields and engaging in meaningful conversation about design and business problems. The conversation is stuck and we need to evolve." (Scott Weisbrod - Experience Planner)

Posted on November 28, 2006 | Permalink

A Polar Bear for Christmas

"We have done our best to balance old and new. We have addressed emerging technologies while maintaining a focus on fundamentals. And, we have tried to emphasize goals and approaches over specific tactics or technologies. In this way, we hope to provide not only knowledge about information architecture, but a framework that will enable you to learn and unlearn over an extended period of time." (Peter Morville - findability) - chapeau lou and peter

Posted on November 28, 2006 | Permalink

IA Retreat in Chile

"If you couldn't be there, you can read a nice overview by Jorge Arango, view the photos and presentations, and even watch the movie. Podcasts from the subsequent Encounter will be posted soon." (Peter Morville - findability)

Posted on November 26, 2006 | Permalink

Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture

"But the fact is that IA is a theory about the inherent structure of information - the architecture of information - and if we are moving away from that we should call it something else. Relationship Architecture, perhaps?" (Joshua Porter - bokardo)

Posted on November 21, 2006 | Permalink

IA: More Than Just Rearranging Marketing Sites

"We still need IA to make a good user experience. All the Ajax in the world couldn't make a great site if there wasn't a solid structure and organization holding it together. I hope we don't lose sight of that." (Chiara Fox - Adaptive Path)

Posted on November 14, 2006 | Permalink

Why am I so angry?

"Despite no longer calling myself an information architect (I've been happy with entrepreneur for some time) and despite a deep affection for the community I've been part of for so long, the lists have been making me crazy. I'd been off them for a while, and had gotten back on for a number of reasons, from promoting the new Boxes and Arrows features to seeing if new trends were emerging in my (former?) profession. And I was shocked at the blatant stupidity I thought I was seeing. Only it wasn't stupidity; I had radically changed my point of view. It was as if I had been enjoying the company of swans for some time, went to sleep and woke up a duck-- and thought the swans looked silly, all long necked and white and show." (C. Wodtke - Elegant Hack)

Posted on November 12, 2006 | Permalink

Idea 2006: Provocation and revelation

"In a room full of designers, software developers, architects, museum design professionals, and even a solitary (but charming and Canadian) archaeologist, here was a profound statement of principles about the relationship between designer, information, and audience. So much of the activity around the profession of information architecture and user-centred design in my experience is based on tasks, goals, functions, and flows. It's about attempting to control the user's experience to such a degree that some claim to be able to actually design an experience. And here was a set of principles, first articulated 50 years ago that seemed as relevant and as fresh as anything we'd seen or talked about at the conference." (Gordon Ross - Disseminate) - courtesy of heyblog

Posted on November 12, 2006 | Permalink

Idea 2006: Audio and some slides

"We have audio from every talk, and slides from many of them, free for download. Enjoy!" (idea 2006 blog)

Posted on October 30, 2006 | Permalink

Lakoff's Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things

OZ-IA 2006 talk - "What every IA should know (...). I think this was the best presentation I have ever given. This is a quite hard topic and somehow it ended up quite hilarious (...)" (Donna Maurer)

Posted on October 26, 2006 | Permalink

EuroIA 2006 Berlin revisited

"EuroIA 2006 was a great success. I've dwelled a bit on the not-so-good presentations, but I'll get back with details on the great stuff too." (Stig Andersen)

Posted on October 20, 2006 | Permalink

No more information seeking models please

"Most models of information seeking behavior look at more than behavior, they consider cognition which is quite natural for information activities, except that behavior and cognition are not the same." (Andrew Dillon - InfoMatters)

Posted on October 17, 2006 | Permalink

EuroIA 2006 in Review

"(...) there was little or no concession made for the multilingual nature of the event. The conference was conducted in English - which was just as well for me (there's nothing like being in Europe to make you feel like a neanderthal for speaking only one language) - and understandable as English was the common tongue. Yet I couldn’t help but think that it seemed kind of strange that the proceedings were, well... so English." (Leisa Reichelt - disambuity)

Posted on October 08, 2006 | Permalink

IA or not IA

"I no longer identify myself professionally as an IA, that is to say, and I'm no longer so terribly interested in attending or presenting at IA-centric events." (Adam Greenfield - V2)

Posted on October 08, 2006 | Permalink

IA for Web Developers

"My recent presentation at Web Directions South on Informaiton Architecture for Web Developers is now here live online." (Thomas Vander Wal)

Posted on October 08, 2006 | Permalink

Are We There Yet?

"Collaborative iteration is the secret to getting to the right design solution. It's embarrassing that we tripped up this way, knowing how many articles this site hosts on good process. We should have realized a contest was the very opposite of good collaboration." (Christina Wodtke - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on October 02, 2006 | Permalink

6 Ways to Fix a Confused Information Architecture

"When your website's users consistently go to the wrong sections, you have many options for getting users back on track, from better labels to clearer structure." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted on September 25, 2006 | Permalink

Polar Bear Book (3rd ed.): Survey results

"Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld are working on a third edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the 'polar bear book'. In order to make sure they include the best ideas and examples, they are conducting a series of community surveys. Five surveys have been completed. Many thanks to those of you who took the time to share your thoughts and insights." (Information Architecture Institute)

Posted on September 21, 2006 | Permalink

Oz-IA 2006 Conference Programme

"On the last weekend of September 2006 there will be a conference/retreat on information architecture in Sydney." (Oz-IA 2006)

Posted on August 08, 2006 | Permalink

ASIS&T Euro IA 2006 Conference Programme

"The 2006 Euro IA Summit will take place in Berlin during the last weekend of September (30 September - 1 October). This year’s theme is ’Building Our Practice’." (ASIS&T Euro IA 2006)

Posted on August 08, 2006 | Permalink

The Organization of Information about Information Organization

"Every field of social science has been integrating culture and meaning into their theories and methods - some more than others - and we as designers should be doing the same. To do that, we need a framework that takes these things into account as well." (Bob Glushko - Doc or Die)

Posted on July 16, 2006 | Permalink

A conversation with Lou Rosenfeld about search analytics, information architecture, and designing for usability

"(...) topics including information architecture, search analytics, print and online publishing, designing for usability, tagging, and microformats. We had a great conversation!" (Jon's Radio - InfoWorld)

Posted on July 02, 2006 | Permalink

On the architecture and design of information environments

"Though it's common practice, thinking of information retrieval exclusively as 'search' is an arbitrarily narrow way of framing an area of capability with strong impact on overall perceptions of user experience quality and effectiveness. In the long term, it limits opportunities to offer customers more effective solutions to broader and more fully understood needs that involve information retrieval, but are motivated by other goals. This narrow view is especially limiting for the user experience architect, as it implies an immediate focus on the search aspects of information environments." (Joe Lamantia) - courtesy of donnamaurer

Posted on June 22, 2006 | Permalink

The Confluence of Research and Practice in Information Architecture

"Of course there is a great deal of relevant research, as can be said of any area. However, this relevant research is scattered across many disciplines and over numerous journals, using various names and taking multiple forms. Seldom does it establish an explicit connection to IA, let alone describe itself as IA research." (Karl Fast - ASIS&T Bulletin June 2006)

Posted on June 21, 2006 | Permalink

Guiding Principles for Providing 'Remember Me' Personalization

"(...) choosing to be 'remembered' means different things on different sites. At one end of the spectrum, it's like an automatic sign in, enabling full access to account/personal information. The other end involves little more than a username pre-fill, allowing for quicker sign in." (Meg Peters - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on June 12, 2006 | Permalink

Succeeding at IA in the Enterprise

"As information architects, the core of our profession rests on the analysis of information, the identification of structure, the creation of taxonomies and site maps, and the development of wireframes and user interfaces. These skills are well-honed, and we play a significant role in the design and creation of many systems, from websites to web 2.0." (James Robertson - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on June 12, 2006 | Permalink

IA Summit 2006 Recordings

"After much procrastination, here are all my recordings from this year's Information Architecture Summit sessions. (...) I was sad to have to trash some of the recordings, but this year I sat with the trouble-making kids in the back, so the audio quality was not the best in many sessions." (Livia Labate) - Much appreciated.

Posted on May 26, 2006 | Permalink

Peter Merholz' IA Summit 2006 Closing Plenary

"Thanks to Livia Labate, you can listen to my closing plenary at the 2006 IA Summit. It will help you if you follow along with the PDF of my slides. I'm definitely proud of this talk, though I hate hearing all my uh's and 'um's. Definitely something to work on. If you want to avoid the aspects of IA history that I dwell on and hop to the thesis, start around the 12:00 mark." (peterme) - great talk peter!

Posted on May 22, 2006 | Permalink

DC IA Summit Redux 2006

"I had a great time hanging out with the DC-IA crowd this weekend talking about the sessions and experience of going to the IA Summit in Vancouver back in March. We unfortunately ran out of time and didn’t get to talk about all the topics we wanted to address, but there were very interesting and livelly conversations nonetheless. Here are a few recordings with our discussions; feel free to download and catch up." (Livia Labate)

Posted on May 22, 2006 | Permalink

The Guided Wireframe Narrative for Rich Internet Applications

"It is true that RIAs make our jobs harder. But it is also true that they introduce some very exciting opportunities that can significantly improve user experience and flow. The Guided Wireframe Narrative technique allowed us to quickly and accurately articulate different design dimensions using familiar tools and techniques. If the job fits the technique, it's a win-win." (Andres Zapata - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on May 10, 2006 | Permalink

ASIS&T Euro IA 2006: Call for Papers

Deadline: June 15, 2006 - "The Second European Information Architecture (IA) Summit's focus is building our practice in Europe. The objective of the event is to bring together a number of disciplines and practitioner communities by providing a stimulating environment for debate and an opportunity for establishing cooperation. This community is not just limited to language or region, but all encompasses our specialisations like designing for mobile devices, and multilingual solutions. We are calling for papers that reflect those communities of practice, language and location." (Euro IA 2006)

Posted on May 09, 2006 | Permalink

Information architecture for high-fashion store

"In December 2001 the Italian haute couturier Prada opened its groundbreaking new "epicenter" store in New York City, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. IDEO, working with Koolhaas and his architecture and research firm OMA/AMO, created the invisible technology that allows Prada staff members to choreograph the in-store sales experience. IDEO Human Factors specialists interviewed store staff and observed the technology currently in use. The results of this research were incorporated into the design of the store's information architecture, as well as the interactive dressing rooms and the in-store devices that allow the staff to focus completely on the customers, such as the Staff Device, the Recharging Trolley, the Staff Clip, and the Customer Card." (IDEO)

Posted on May 08, 2006 | Permalink

Video of Jess McMullin's IA Summit 2006 Talk on Using Design Games

"(...) how can we create better shared references to reframe conversations? Design games is one option, but there are a lot of others." (Jess McMullin - bplusd)

Posted on May 03, 2006 | Permalink

Does information need architects?

"(...) the dividing line among information architects is real. One group tends more toward control and using expertise to create a structure that should work the same way for every user. The other tends more toward flexibility and enabling user interaction to determine the structure of the site and the content of the answers. (...) I would think it's a good time to proudly state 'I am an information architect, dammit!'" (David Weinberger - KMWorld)

Posted on April 28, 2006 | Permalink

Card Sorting: A book in progress

"Card sorting is a technique that is used to gather user input to design the information architecture of a site. The technique is easy to prepare and run, and great fun. But sometimes the results can be hard to interpret and it is not always clear how to use them to design the IA." (Donna Maurer - Rosenfeld Media)

Posted on April 21, 2006 | Permalink

The six species of Information Architect

"(...) before you all go berko and abuse me for sterotyping your 'species' I don't think that anyone who works as an IA for any period of time can actually remain strictly within the confines of their species. I think you're always coloured by it, but I think the more you do and the better you get, the more you respect the other species and what they bring to the collective table. And the more you tend to extend your skills and refine your approach to take in some of these traits and build them into your personal repertoire." (Leisa Reichelt - disambiguity) - courtesy of webword

Posted on April 20, 2006 | Permalink

Learning, Doing, Selling: 2006 IA Summit Wrapup

Overview and Pre-conference sessions, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday - "(...) IAs adore long conversations about ideas. Perhaps that's why the Summit continues to be one of the most intellectually challenging of the practitioners' conferences." (Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on April 20, 2006 | Permalink

swipr

"(...) a toolset that allows information architects to create an integrated and interactive deliverable from standard Visio files." (About swipr) - congrats jacco!

Posted on April 20, 2006 | Permalink

IA Summit 2006: Gathering of the Tribe

"During March 23-28, 2006, over 500 people gathered in Vancouver, Canada, for the seventh Information Architecture Summit sponsored by ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science and Technology). The delightfully diverse attendees included not just people with the job title information architect, but also librarians, Web developers, business analysts, user experience designers, and others." (Laurie Lamar - UXmatters)

Posted on April 15, 2006 | Permalink

My IA Summit 2006 Experience: Part 1/2/3

"The seventh annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit—IA Summit 2006 for short—was held at the Hyatt® Regency in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, shown in Figure 1, from March 23 through 27, 2006. Its theme was Learning • Doing • Selling. While I attended the IA Summit Redux in San Francisco at Adaptive Path last year, this was my first IA Summit." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted on April 15, 2006 | Permalink

Document Engineering and Information Architecture

"Document Engineering helps us specify, design, and implement these documents and the processes that create and consume them. It synthesizes complementary ideas from information and systems analysis, electronic publishing, business process analysis, and business informatics to ensure that the documents and processes make sense to the people and applications that need them. A document-centric philosophy unifies these different analysis and modeling perspectives." (Robert J. Glushko - Document Engineering)

Posted on April 06, 2006 | Permalink

Information Architecture Success Story: The Development of www.plainlanguage.gov

"(...) the site has become an increasingly important resource for federal writers and managers. The concepts of clarity and structure in text that are outlined on the site have served as the foundation for federal writing guidelines – especially guidelines for crafting federal Web content." (Thomas Haller - ASIS&T Bulletin April 2006)

Posted on April 04, 2006 | Permalink

IA Summit 2006 Presentations and Papers

"(...) this will keep you going for a while." (ASIS&T 2006 Information Architecture Summit) - Thanks Donna.

Posted on March 31, 2006 | Permalink

Social information architecture, sorting, and tagging

"Here are my raw notes from Rashmi Sinha's talk at the IA Summit, 'Sorting, Tagging and Social Information Architecture' or The Missing Chapter in the Polar Bear Book." (Christian Crumlish - You're It!)

Posted on March 31, 2006 | Permalink

IA Summit 2006 Closing Plenary

"Giving a closing plenary is a nerve-wracking experience. I realized I had a hard time relaxing and enjoying myself at the summit, because in the back of my mind, I was continually tweaking my talk." (Peter Merholz) - congrats!

Posted on March 29, 2006 | Permalink

We Are Not Alone: IA's Role in Optimal Design Teams

"By studying several dozen design teams, the UIE research team has spent the last few years looking at how different compositions lead to the most effective results. How do you build a team to produce the best possible designs?" (Jared Spool - UIE Brain Sparks)

Posted on March 29, 2006 | Permalink

Stone Age Information Architecture

"(...) my talk explored the question of how pre-literate cultures manage their collective intellectual capital. In particular, I focused on the use of folk taxonomies (not to be confused with 'folksonomies'), visual symbol systems, and the cultural effects of the transition from oral to literate cultures. Finally, I tried to probe the relevance of these systems to present-day problems in information architecture." (Alex Wright)

Posted on March 28, 2006 | Permalink

Information Architecture Research Agenda

"Here is an overview of my points, with links to background information I compiled in prepration for the panel, as well as some of my notes." (Keith Instone)

Posted on March 27, 2006 | Permalink

The Information Architecture Institute: Annual Report 2004-2005

"This, our third eventful year, was marked by significantly increased visibility in the community and a more focused range of initiatives and services. Between 1 September 2004 and 31 August 2005 our membership grew 51%; as of 31 August 2005, the Institute had 845 members from over 55 countries. Our cash flow is positive, our volunteer rate is up, and our administrative activities have been streamlined. And clearly, the economic recovery experienced over the past year is having a positive effect on our industry." (IAinstitute)

Posted on March 26, 2006 | Permalink

Euro IA Summit 2005 Proceedings 

Building Our Community - Document as handed out to all participants. October 15-16, 2005 - Brussels Belgium (Eric Reiss) - The Euro IA Summit 2006 will be in Berlin.

Posted on March 20, 2006 | Permalink

Web 2.0, Reframing Web 1.0

"By framing the web with a particular metaphor, certain concepts are established as the main unit of currency, so to speak. Those concepts, in turn, force us to think about structure in a particular way." (Dan Brown Greenonions)

Posted on March 19, 2006 | Permalink

Change Architecture: Bringing IA to the Business Domain

"Using the paradigm of change architecture, IAs can become more aware of the idea that when we step onto the business stage of a project, we will first need to unfreeze aspects of the situation and the environment, and ultimately make the path from recommendation to action visible to the participants. " (Bob Goodman - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 15, 2006 | Permalink

Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them

"The most important issue is not whether you notice a mode of seeking information that fits into one of these categories, but that a range of modes exist. Observe how your users approach information, consider what it means, and design to allow them to achieve what they need." (Donna Maurer - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 15, 2006 | Permalink

A Garden of Forking Paths

"As the Web becomes both interface and infrastructure for an Internet of objects we can barely imagine, what metaphors will shape our fate? Clearly, the sea level will rise, but our children need not drown nor suffer information anxiety. These are painful analogies born in the journey from past to present. They fail to anticipate the future." (Peter Morville - ASIS&T Bulletin Feb/Mar 2006)

Posted on March 03, 2006 | Permalink

Developing a Participation Economy

"I think it'd be safe to say that the IAI has been successful. It has over 800 members in about 40 countries. It has provided the IA community with a few excellent services, like a mentoring program, a job board, and a high-quality moderated discussion list. And it's had a hand in a number of successful events around the planet." (Louis Rosenfeld - bloug)

Posted on March 03, 2006 | Permalink

7th IA Summit

Main Conference Session Details (IA Summit 2006)

Posted on February 16, 2006 | Permalink

Architecture and the Internet: Designing places in cyberspace

"By looking at physical architecture as a case study and metaphor for organizing space into meaningful places, this paper explores the possibility of organizing Cyberspace into spatial settings that not only afford social interaction, but, like physical places, also embody and express cultural values. At the same time, because Cyberspace lacks materiality, is free from physical constraints, and because it can only be 'inhabited' by proxy, these 'places' may not necessarily resemble their physical counterparts." (Yehuda E. Kalay and John Marx - First Monday Special Issue #5)

Posted on February 07, 2006 | Permalink

Fundamental Forms of Information

"Fundamental forms of information, as well as the term 'information' itself, are defined and developed for the purposes of information science/studies. Concepts of natural and represented information (taking an unconventional sense of representation), encoded and embodied information, as well as experienced, enacted, expressed, embedded, recorded, and trace information are elaborated. The utility of these terms for the discipline is illustrated with examples from the study of information seeking behavior and of information genres. Distinctions between the information and curatorial sciences with respect to their social (and informational) objects of study are briefly outlined." (Marcia J. Bates)

Posted on February 01, 2006 | Permalink

The Lazy IA's Guide to Making Sitemaps

"Sitemaps can be useful tools and are a whole lot easier when you separate the data from the visualization. After you have done these steps a few times, you will be able to update a sitemap in under a minute." (Stephen Turbek - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on January 31, 2006 | Permalink

Visio: The interaction designer's nail gun (2nd edition)

"The reason why Microsoft Visio is a popular prototyping tool is because of its interface widgets that you can drag and drop onto pages and its ability to link pages and view them as web pages. But what distinguishes Visio from other prototyping tools is its use of layered backgrounds." (Henrik Olsen - GUUUI)

Posted on January 16, 2006 | Permalink

Information architecture as a means of assessing and creating organisational information coherence 

Paper from the Euro IA Summit 2005 - "This paper will explore how IA projects can be constructed and undertaken to achieve coherence. It will review how elements such as metadata creation, document creation flows, permissions, version control, change and update management and usage patterns can be used to create a global picture of an organisation’s information creation, distribution and use, and thereby to derive the optimum patterns." (Barry Mahon and Alan Gilchrist - TFPL)

Posted on January 07, 2006 | Permalink

The End is Nigh

"IA is real, it's here and it has a history. Everything else is just hair-splitting. While deriving a definition might be really important to the academics among us, I no longer see it as essential to success of the field." (Andrew Dillon - ASIS&T Bulletin)

Posted on December 23, 2005 | Permalink

Applying information architecture to university web sites

Conference presentation - "(...) detailed IA issues such as specific - to vs. relevant - for audiences, org-chart-itis, faceted browsing and navigation frameworks." (Keith Instone)

Posted on December 15, 2005 | Permalink

Managing 'Glue' at the BBC

"(...) huge issue in organising this information in a way that the audience can actually find it, which, after all, should be the main goal. So I want to talk about 3 things that the BBC does centrally to try and make this easier for the end user - navigation, search, and classification." (Martin Belam - currybetdotnet)

Posted on December 09, 2005 | Permalink

Enterprise IA Seminar Slides

"I'm not sure why, but enough people have now asked me to make my Enterprise IA seminar slides available. All 251. Fine, it's here." - (Louis Rosenfeld - bloug)

Posted on November 17, 2005 | Permalink

Design Leads & Wireframes

"By popular request and with permission, Functioning Form is publishing some of Jim Leftwich's writings on design." - (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)

Posted on November 11, 2005 | Permalink

Information Architecture 2.0

"The consequent explosion of content and functionality on the Web and the new ways in which we're making use of Web content has recast the role of the information architect. This article explores the information architect's evolving responsibilities in light of the changes we're experiencing on the Web." (Dan Brown - UXmatters Preview)

Posted on October 30, 2005 | Permalink

EuroIA mailinglist

One of the results of the first European IA Summit 2005 in Brussels of last weekend is available now. - "The EuroIA mailinglist is the online conversational platform for researchers and practitioners in the field of Information Architecture in an European context." (Peter J. Bogaards) - sponsored by Webtic - Paul Jongsma

Posted on October 19, 2005 | Permalink

New Challenges Retreat: Ideas, discussion, and a call to action

"This year's IA Retreat - 'New Challenges in Information Architecture' - took place at the Edith Macy Conference Center, just north of New York City, October 7-9, 2005. Of the many themes discussed at the retreat, those that stood out revolved around the challenges of enterprise information architecture (as in very large enterprises, such as government agencies, and Fortune 100's), cross-cultural IA issues, and designing user experiences for evermore complex, and increasingly less, web-centric systems." (Anders Ramsay - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on October 17, 2005 | Permalink

Information architecture in an European dimension: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Presentation from Europe's first information architecture summit - "This talk will take an analytical but subjective approach to the current state-of-affairs of (continental) European IA. The local IA communities of practice, knowledge and interest seem still premature, fragmented and not well-connected. Even if there is such a thing as an European IA community, it lacks a solid identity and definitely a strategy." (Peter J. Bogaards - BogieLand)

Posted on October 17, 2005 | Permalink

Closing of the First Phase of the Fall European Tour 2005

"(...) the Europeans have been implementing mobile and trying to work through a means to access information in the environment and context where the information makes sense. Boy, was I right." (Thomas VanderWal - InfoCloud Solutions Inc.)

Posted on October 17, 2005 | Permalink

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

"Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted on October 16, 2005 | Permalink

Ambient Findability: Findability Hacks

"(...) excerpt from Mr. Morville's new book, Ambient Findability - Findability precedes usability in the alphabet and on the web you can't use what you can't find." (A List Apart)

Posted on October 13, 2005 | Permalink

Authority

"The real upheaval lies just ahead, as a generation of school kids (and their teachers and librarians) struggle to reconcile traditional notions of education and objectivity and authority with the constructivist web of social facts and collective intelligence where folksonomies flourish and the truth is a virus of many colors. I can hardly wait." (Peter Morville)

Posted on October 12, 2005 | Permalink

Leapin' Lemurs

First Chapter of Ambient Findability by Peter Morville - "Findability is the biggest story on the Web today, and its reach will only grow as