Column: Finding Our Way

The title of this column could have been “Getting Your Information Architecture Right.” But, to be honest, my guess is that the majority of people still don’t understand information architecture and the value that it brings to Web sites and other information-technology experiences. Uttering the term information architecture when speaking to a sophisticated business person or even an intelligent lay person typically leads to raised eyebrows and a tilted head—that is, an expression of perplexity—or perhaps curiosity.

While information architecture, as a term, sounds impressive, it consists of two concepts that can be difficult to grasp—even for IA practitioners and academics.

Even though the average person deals with many forms of information every day, people’s popular view of information is as an abstract idea that applies to just about anything. Anything can be information. As for the term architecture, it’s equally troublesome. Read More

In 2004, UX design professional Peter Boersma suggested that information architecture was one of the many disciplines that come together to shape the multidisciplinary practice of user experience design for the Web. He titled the diagram he used to express this concept The T-model, shown in Figure 1. Before Boersma’s articulation of this viewpoint, many information architects had considered the practice of information architecture as the overarching umbrella, referring to this as Big IA.

Since Boersma created his diagram, many respected practitioners of information architecture have adopted a similar position. In his 2008 IA Summit plenary, Andrew Hinton described the practice of information architecture as one of a tribe of many disciplines that contribute to the broader practice of user experience design. And in their latest book, Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel Experiences, [1] Andrea Resmini and Luca Rosati have concurred with Boersma—referring to the practice of information architecture as a necessary part of the user experience design elephant. Read More

Methods for measuring the various aspects of a Web site’s information architecture are hard to find. In this month’s column, I’ll demonstrate how we can use the six tiers within the information architecture (IA) vertical of the DSIA Research Initiative’s UX Design Practice Verticals, shown in Figure 1, to create an IA maturity assessment tool. The benefit of this method is that it helps to quantify IA solutions in a more tangible and actionable manner. Read More