The core construction elements of website information and its practice process

U.S. Federal government website navigation system

Information Construction (information Architecture,ia) was founded in 1975 by American architect Wallman, 1998 by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville Two scholars apply the theory of information organization and management in the environment of network construction. It includes investigation, analysis, design, and execution processes, involving the design of organizations, logos, navigation, and search systems to help people successfully discover and manage information.

　　Features of website Information construction

The network integrates many technologies and content forms into one interface, in addition to a variety of media, various forms, a variety of granularity of information gathered together, these sets for the plane, cross and three-dimensional combination of a variety of thematic information to overlay, forming a collection of information, interface and user-constituted complex information space.

Because of the variety of information on the World Wide Web, the diversity of content, the fragmentation of information storage, and the widespread use of hyper-link technology, the World Wide Web has a very complex information space in which users can easily lose direction. Therefore, the World Wide Web, in particular, needs IA as an idea and tool for information sequencing and optimization to help people manage and access information in heterogeneous information spaces.

Generally speaking, the organization of Web site information requires excellent information content, good information structure, beautiful information interface, easy navigation of information space, and save time of downloading files. In foreign countries, information construction has been a necessary knowledge of web design and development.

　　core elements of information construction

Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville that the core elements of information construction are the four systems of information organization system, identification system, navigation system and search system of the website. Take the new version of the U.S. Federal government website as an example to explain in detail.

　　Organization System

The organization system is the most important part of the 4 system, it is responsible for the classification of information, it determines the organization and structure of information, logically groups the information, and determines the relationship between the groups. Organizational system aims to generate a good information architecture, the content of the information block composed of a perfect, harmonious, unified, organic whole.

The information organization mode of the United States federal government website is characterized by: organizing the information content with the user as the center, embodying the humanized design concept, making full use of the technical features of the website, displaying the information in a multi-level and multi-angle manner, and using it conveniently; the information of the same module is relatively concentrated, Facilitate the rapid selection and diversion of site visitors; The website provides complete auxiliary information and help information as well as help means, the visitor can look for the query support that the website provides from different aspects.

　　Identification System

The identification system is responsible for the presentation of the information content, to determine the name, label or description of the content, in which the selected indexing name can be derived from the control word list or thesaurus, experts or users, existing logo practice, etc. The purpose of the identification system is to set a suitable name for each defined class, which is consistent with people's usage, and can encompass and contain all items under that category, and can distinguish all items of other classes.

U.S. Federal government web site to select the logo concise, clear meaning without ambiguity, detail properly without redundancy, marking system to make the organization system formed information module can be more clearly expressed to the audience.

　　Navigation System

The navigation system is responsible for the browsing of information and the movement of information, through the display of various logos and paths, so that users can know the information they have seen, where they are now and what they can get further. Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville believe that an elegant navigation system can have many options, many attractive technologies, but we can not divert our attention, we should focus on the real important thing is: build context background, Improve flexibility and help users find the information they need.

　　Search System

Search system is responsible for helping users search information, through the provision of search engines, according to the user's question-type, according to a certain search algorithm for the site content, and submitted to the user search results. The search system emphasizes that the result of retrieval is appropriate, the correlation is strong, the Cha Chun rate is high, and the retrieval interface is friendly, and the method of user's self-correcting retrieval mechanism is also provided.

The search system in the U.S. Federal government Web site allows visitors to select and filter search results, shorten the time for users to browse and select search results, and improve the efficiency of using government Web sites by classifying search scopes and search results.

　　general processes and methods

　　Process

In the 2000 IA Summit of the American Society for Information Science and technology, the elements of information construction include navigation tools and icons, browsing levels, site maps, class matrices, catalogs, and special interest guides. In addition, there are user testing standards, providing rich access points for browsing and searching and providing detailed categories, identification of information objectives, interesting and innovative visualization concepts in the information structure, and hyperlinks linking as a variety of portals for information.

John Shiple, head of Internet consulting, said the first step in building a website's information is to define the objectives of the site, collect the views of the customers or partners, and bring them together in the order of coordination and importance; The second step is to find out who the audience is and start organizing the content and functionality pages that the site needs The third step is to create a creative framework, develop navigation systems, generate plans, design frameworks and models, and start building. According to the basic process of system design, the process of information construction can be divided into 5 stages: research, strategy, design, implementation and management.

　　The method used by information architects in practice

The information architects who are engaged in information construction work in practice can be divided into 4 kinds of methods mainly:

The first approach should be used to understand the employer's situation: interviews, observations, background checks, working meetings, interactive feedback, etc., the main purpose of which is to understand the employer's career characteristics, objectives and tasks in order to further design the employer's satisfactory information system or website. The results of employer analysis can help to establish the goal of website design, well-designed site allows users to open the site after a simple browsing, within two minutes to understand the basic objectives of the site. So this kind of website is actually in with the user carries on the silent communication and the communication.

The second approach should be used to understand the user's situation: including interviews, online surveys, ethnology, user experience, usability testing, user-participatory design meetings, and so on all user discovery technology, the main purpose is to understand the end user's information needs, information behavior and information content, structure evaluation, So that the results of information construction achieve maximum user satisfaction.

The third type of approach applies to the analysis and organization of information content: including card classification, pen and paper records, information navigation, indexing, organization and other methods to determine the relationship between the information set, the main content target type, identify the information set, in order to form a meeting all aspects of the requirements, easy to update the modified, clear information structure model.

The fourth method is used to plan the whole process of IA work, mainly including work flow chart, development standard and schedule, and other methods used in project management, the main purpose is to ensure that the activities of information construction can be completed according to plan, time schedule and budget. These methods need to apply the knowledge of the relevant disciplines such as project management.