Architecture and Usability

I found IA to be very interesting. Just to know that I could officially print "Information Architect" on a business card after learning and doing more of this Web work is pretty appealing!

I was suprised to see the similarities between the information structure on the Web and the numerous organizational systems we are all already using to cope in society, e.g., books cataloged in libraries and food items arranged in grocery stores. Once again, my initial reaction to Web creation is altered. Just as we discussed that "Writing for the Web and Writing for print" are not so different after all, this week I declare that well-founded principles of good organization with tangible objects can carry over to organizing text, graphics, and images in cyberspace.

On a different but related note, I had a usability testing project this semester and my partner and I chose to test NIU's Web site. In every case, users searched for the same two tasks in different ways. Seems like some social influences can even affect Web searches!

architecture outside the box

The IA book got me to thinking about Mark Lombarbi, an artist I met years ago who came to an unhappy end. He was obsessed with conspiracies and trying to find links and order to the scandals of the 1990's. His obsessively detailed drawing are cosmologies of information that is organized in a way that visually refined and compelling. Perhaps a look through his work might inspire different ways of mapping your sites.

DMCG

While reading the first five chapters of IA, I found myself flipping back and forth between through two emotions: annoyance and enjoyment. The information presented (no pun intended) was great. I do understand a little better what the nature of information architecture purports itself to be. However, the authors failed to hook me on what they themselves commented on in the second chapter. The big, bold letters say it all: "Do We Need Information Architects?" (p. 17)Well, in my humble opinion, (and bear it in mind that I am not even close to the genius of these librarian-information-engineer-usability-design-architects), no, we don't. As they very clearly point out, the idea of information architecture is indeed crucial. However, why do we need someone as an overall warlord of metadata? As long as your team of (see above)professionals works together well, it would seem to me that a solid and reliable architecture for a company's website would still emerge successful. I know there's more to it, but if I had my own company and was hiring out for a website to be designed, I'd rather have a"jack-of-all-trades" designer working on it, rather than paying inane amounts of money for someone to theorize about my design. I don't want a website philosophizer (yes, that was intentional).Speaking of being silly and recognizing my own humor, did anyone else like the pat on their own back on page 25? "Incidentally, we think it's important for information architects to have a good sense of humor."

Honestly, I just think they try too hard in the first couple of chapters to defend the field and the need for the jobs to exist. I had no pre-conceptions going into the reading, yet immediately felt within a few pages that, as if I had attacked first, I had to deal with their whining about how needed and important their existence really is. To paraphrase an extremely overused, yet still effective Shakespearean quote: The Information Architect doth protest too much, methinks.

Comfort zone

I've gotten used to the old familiar Yahoo and Google searches. I tried the del.icio.us site and found it harder to find something. I found my "boom box with 3-cd changer and dual cassette" at Google, then my "music machine that plays 3 cd's, dual cassette, and record turntable". We can now play the records in our possession. Perhaps the most important value I see in del.icio.us is that you can now take your bookmarks with you when you travel, but I don't travel much, so what's the point?. I did find the readings entertaining as well as informative, so I didn't need much coffee. (Actually, I don't drink coffee.) It would be nice to know how to put a "search" box in a web site. Maybe when we read on . . .

Inconsistent audience for IA

While I was relieved to find the text for which I was responsible to be easily understood, I did find myself amused (if not annoyed) by the sudden and frequent shifts in audience. If a website was similarly structured so that the apparent audience shifted without warning or reason, it would score low on anyone's website rating scale. I'll keep this blog entry short, but I wondered if anyone else noticed this as well? Did you find it distracting? Perhaps I was just looking for something to use in my moderation! See you Wednesday.

Jake

scrambling

I was a little disappointed that our IA chapters didn’t seem to make more than a half-hearted stab at the difficulties of multiple audiences. It acknowledged the issue and suggested that we do as most universities do and organize around that, giving each audience a link through which they can move on to the rest of the site… but I was hoping for something to help those of us who are working on sites that aren’t large enough for that tactic. I suppose it may be more directly addressed in chapter 7 (labeling). I imagine the best thing to concentrate on is labels that all your audiences will understand…

I just wish that this bit (and ch. 7) had been assigned for last week so I’d really have had a chance to digest this material and incorporate it into my web proposal, instead of scrambling to find ways to apply this information effectively.

A Response to Information Architecture

I found "Information Architecture" very user friendly, and it's language and rhetoric is encouraging and inclusive, welcoming its audience into its field.

My only problem with it, I believe (besides its flagrant misuse of the term "deconstruction") is the vagueness of its diagrams.

It seems to me that most of these diagrams and figures are rhetorical devices used to present the illusion of clarity, as well as to achieve the traditional appeal of a "textbook," but, when actually looked at, don't make much sense.
Let's take figure 2-2 on p. 25 for example (it's the venn diagram that includes Content, Users, and Context.) What is this supposed to be? What do the overlapping sections of this diagram represent? Outside of a list of three concepts that are important to information archetecture, there isn't any information being delivered here.
The same applies to figure 2-1 on page 21. What is this? Outside of a listing of fields that either deal with web design or don't, I don't see any other purpose for this cluster of terms, nor do I see one for the specific cluster that this diagram takes.

I guess what I'm complaining about is a symptom of a larger ambiguity characteristic to the book as a whole (well, up through chapter 5, at least), where I find myself encountering a series of pleasantly presented and easily readable bits of concepts and facts, but I'm having to invent my own associations between them in order to give them a theoretical or practical unity. Maybe that's because I'm used to that kind of unity in the Web Style Guide and in the articles we've read in class. I'm not sure. Does anybody else share these concerns?

Information Architecture Readings

I have been having so much fun with these readings! First of all, they are chunked and easy to read (as Jake mentioned to me the other night in class). But how I have been having fun is by going to the web pages the authors cite right while I am reading (instead of telling myself I've got to check this out later). When I got to chapter 4 about the Gustavus home page, and the authors say, "You can't help but notice the site's colors (you'll have to take our word for it)"; that's when I decided not to take their "word" but to go to the site right away. It is quite attractive, and interesting to navigate see for yourself! I was also amazed at del.icio.us; this must be that the site that Elizabeth mentioned earlier in the semester? At any rate, I am in awe of it! I think it would be a great tool to show my students for them to collect sites, especially for their webography project we have coming up. But does anyone know how big the risk, if any, for losing your collected sites and information on del.icio.us? Does this kind of thing happen often? Lastly, here is a blog that seemed interesting for us based off or our readings; it is part of the Instone's site mentioned on page 48 for his Navigation Stress Test. I'm sure many of you either already looked at these links, or would be looking at them. I hope I didn't butt in on the moderators this week, but I was just so excited and I'm sure they will have much more to say and show than what I am doing! I just thought I'd throw up a few links to make it quicker and easier for you some of you to see these. But I really want to know about the reliability of del.icio.us, so if anyone knows anything, please respond!