Off the Top: Information Architecture Entries
Showing posts: 271-285 of 308 total posts
I spent this evening at the IA Summit and found some of the folks from SXSW there in Baltimore. I spent much of the evening hanging out with the other Boxes and Arrows staff. I have never met some of the other staff that are in Baltimore now. I did get to meet some of the former Argonauts, which was a huge kick. I spent much of this evening playing with ideas and hanging out with more very bright and passionate folks. I could really get used to this, but conference life must end. More tomorrow or Sunday (yes it is late for me, too late) when I get back.
Based on descussions begun with Stewart, Peter, Lane, and others in, beginning in discussions about navigation as a poor metaphor for the interaction of humans and information on the Web (which really breaks down further when looking at other types of Internet information interaction), I am working on another metaphor that struck me while in Austin. Lane asked in another conversation for alternatives to the navigation metaphor. I will be posting a series on this site that will open the idea for discussion and help finding holes or coming to the conclusion the idea sucks. The postings will most likely begin next week sometime. I am going to put the idea past a few friends at the IA Summit and see how hard they laugh or like it. For me the concept is working so far and seems to have a decent reach into Web and non-Web Internet interactions with information. No I am not going to state it now, but I will soon.
Tomorrow evening the IA Summit begins. This kick start an intense two days of just IA. I will finally get to see the rest of my cohorts on the Boxes and Arrows staff
Boxes and Arrows is finally live.
I am feeling marginally better, thanks for asking. My head really is not properly attached as of yet. None-the-less I am packing so to head out to Austin for SXSW tomorrow. I will be in Austin tomorrow evening and most likely abstaining from Shiner and other forms of adult beverages, so conversation, caffine, and food will have to do. Please say hello if you see me (probably wearing blue and orange proudly). Those of you I miss I may see at the IA Summit in Baltimore the following weekend.
Jesse has posted the final installment of his ia/recon. The whole of the series is on one page, which eases reading and following along. I like where Jesse ended up, which is with hunches and working toward building better tools. I can not say that I see things that differently. I am walking some folks through this now teaching the skills and having them grasped is not as easy as I thought. I use IA as one of the skills in my tool belt to help build sites that work better for the users. I use IA to build information applications that are easier to use and more "intuitive".
I did not know what I was doing was IA, but is was how a target audience was defined in communication and also the tasks that I had gone through to develop software (first on the client side and then used it in my own tool belt and had good results). Learning how users think about information and processes then grouping and structuring content toward the results of the research seemed like a natural step. I used to teach Sunday school and learning how to tie lessons to understandable chunks of information was a very important skill to learn. I have always looked at trying to help build a more efficient flow of information between the two or more parties involved in the data/information/knowledge transaction. The best way to ease the information flow is to understand the user and how they consume information. What is the mind set of the user that comes to the information transaction? How do they think of the information? Where will logically place the information in their personal information repository so that they may make use of that information. Half the trick to being knowledgeable if having an easy way retrieve and access the information store, be that stored in someone's mind, in a database, in a book, or on a Web site. Understanding the information transaction from the individual and personal standpoint of a user is the best place to start.
I have weighed through useless metadata repositories and been asked to fill in metadata structures that I knew I personally would not be able to retrieve information from, let a lone glean knowledge. Metadata becomes most helpful when it is seamless, not over burdensome to capture, and ties relevant items together in a means that not only one user group can easily make sense of but multiple user groups. IA is tightly tied to the Web, which is helping this young technology. The Web provides the wonderful ability to cross categorize and cross link to similar interests and store information in places that people can find related materials easily.
I am one that has continually had problems with one of the most commonly used metadata repositories, the Yellow Pages. To me the Yellow Pages are utterly useless. Nothing is ever what I think to call anything. I want to go buy pants. That becomes a task in the Yellow Pages. Even better is having to go retrieve something from a bar and trying to use the Yellow Pages to find the number of a bar name that did not stick in your head the first time by choosing a tavern, pub, or nightclub to start. None it was a bar. Not an option. I love IA and information structure because I have sympathy.
Can I tell you how ready for sleep I am? This week included the approach of an ISO audit at work, end of the month usual stuff, tons of paperwork for work and home, spending time with my wonderful parents that were in town (although they stayed in a private club/hotel that lost them when I was trying to meet them for dinner), realized I could not find my running shoes I liked (hello Adidas for home delivery), figured out that the ASIS IA Summit is largely on a weekend that I have not away and close by in Baltimore (hello I am now going), finally got tired of my cell phone and its poor battery life and my non-national call plan for that phone that put me back more than $300 while stuck in SF around Sept. 11 (vavoom a new phone and a national plan, which includes e-mail, text messaging, and Web and a much longer battery life), and allergy season beginning. I also realized I leave for Austin a week from tomorrow.
I think a note of clarification is needed regarding the frames comments from the other day. I am a huge fan of the Content Management Bible and have been perusing it for a couple months (or so) now. The use of frames is not all bad, if used in a proper context.
One reason to use frames is using the browser client as an application interface and there are distinct sections with quasi-interrelated functionality. A mapping application (select any one of these elements on the page to see the use of frames - keep in mind there is a heavy use of JavaScript that requires a version 4.5 browser or higher). The application interface often has command elements that are essentially toolbars and definition selection elements that set the metadata layers of the information to be displayed. These toolbars direct the actions of the other frames or provide tools to be used in other frames (a zoom tool, etc.). The functionality in a toolbar is not an element of the map display and it should not be an incorporated element of the map as it has a much different functionality from the map display. Conversely, our users are familiar with navigation being incorporated into the Webpage and that is now a common and preferred construct. But, we are looking at an application being displayed in a Web browser, which requires a different mind set.
Another use of frames is in a controlled environment that has a plethora of distinct content items that are within a contiguous text, such as an extensive table of contents. Here the Metatorial CM Bible is a good example of when to use frames. There table of contents is a helpful information tool to quickly scan through the information to place the reader at distinct point in a larger body of text. The table of contents is a large (long) element of text that could work as an element is one distinct page, but that would require rebuilding those elements of the page with every snippet of information delivered to the browser.
Frames should be used when the distinct content elements require each other. The table of contents and the page display elements should not work with out the other components (if they can we really have to ask ourselves why we are using frames). If we can enter a page in the CM Bible without the table of contents the functionality of the site is broken. The navigation is not available and the assistive information (navigation and/or metadata elements) is not available.
The last item is to ensure that if a frame can stand alone as its own page, please ensure there are the needed navigational elements on the page. In the example that drove my frames rant (largely because the CM folks understand information and its need to be used, but the site breaks information use constructs we know from experience and research to be proper and needed) the thing that was disconcerting was each of the frame elements needed the other to provide complete information for the user. The user needs context. We need to provide the user a means to get to our front page or to other areas within our sites, because if they like our information we should offer them more. If we build a site using framed elements and these elements can be used on their own (no JavaScript sniffers to ensure the other frames are open as a requirement for displaying the content, or other similar technique) the content must have navigation elements (the footer is an unobtrusive placement) and really should have some branding or other statement of ownership.
We know that users of information have varied purposes and methods of using our information. We need to provide the users the tools to help the user provide this information. We are often proud of our information work, but if a user does not know it is us or we do not want to claim our work is decreases credibility.
We need to embrace functional information architecture to ensure proper information use. This bleeds in to user experience design, but understanding how information is used and the information interface is used must be integrated into the IA. Proper functional IA should keep improper use of frames from occurring. Functional IA would walk through a string of questions using a wireframe of a site and ask how the frame sections would interact. We would ask what information is lost if not all the frames function (a surprisingly common occurrence). We would ask if frames maintain context for the information. We would look at methods of insuring the whole of the frames remains so to provide proper navigation, proper context, and proper metadata to help understand the information provided. Not asking these questions is not being responsible to the information, those that collected the metadata and spent time understanding how the information is to be used, and is not responsible to the consumers of the information.