The design concept of information architecture.

 What is information architecture?

We know that when designing an information architecture for a web site or application system, the most important thing is to design the following four parts:

1. Organization Systems)

2. navigationsystems)

3. Search Systems)

4. labeling systems)

These four systems represent how information is organized, how information is browsed, and how information is searched and identified.

 

ØOrganization System

Some people think that the organizational system is the classification of information. In fact, this statement is not accurate. In the past, we used the E-R relationship diagram to express the relationship model between data and design the database table structure. However, the UI display is very casual, because we often only consider what content should be included in the website system. After the content is roughly classified, then, these contents are inserted into the user interface. The logic between each content and the viewer's feelings are not that important.

The organizational system includes the organizational system and organizational structure.

The organizational system can be divided into an accurate organizational system and a fuzzy organizational system. A precise organization system consists of an Organization based on letters, year tables, and geographical locations. A Fuzzy organization system consists of subject, task, user, metaphor, and mixed use.Mixed ModeIs the most frequently used method.

The organizational structure can be classified into hierarchical (top-down), database mode (bottom-up), hypertext (non-linear), and mass classification (tagging ).

 

ØTag System

Common labels include text labels and Icon labels. Text labels are the most common among them. Text labels are often expressed in the following forms: contextual links, titles, navigation system options, and indexing terms; icon.

Principles for designing a tag system:

2. Focus on website goals as much as possible: identify who is the target user, what the website provides, how to use it, and when to use it, simplify tag design, and better reflect the efficiency.

2. Design a unified tag system: design should be clearly defined when thinking about how to design the system.Unified tag systemInstead of separately designing labels on each page. The concept of uniformity includes: consistent style, consistent layout style, consistent syntax, consistent granularity, consistent understanding, and different user categories.

 

ØNavigation System

From the earliest breadcrumb, compass, maps, road signs, GPS, and so on, humans have been innovating and are committed to solving navigation problems.

General website navigation systems include: Full-site navigation, regional navigation, and situational navigation.

2. Global Navigation: The global navigation system displayed on each page of the website. Regardless of the level of the website, you can directly access important areas and functional pages. The design is centered on intensive and frequent access to users.

2. Regional Navigation: as an aid to global navigation, it is usually used in the construction of a sub-website to meet the non-relevance of navigation between different regions. Currently, many websites integrate regional navigation into global navigation, such as Amazon's switch center.

2. Situational navigation: Generally, it belongs to the category of associative learning. It can also be divided into inline scene navigation and external scene navigation.

The three must collaborate effectively and complement each other to maximize their effectiveness.

There are also some auxiliary navigation systems, such as search, website map, website index, guide, wizard and configurator.

On the basis of the above, advanced navigation capabilities can also be presented by providing personalized and customized capabilities. For example, visual search, user behavior data mining and analysis, social navigation, and tag cloud.

 

ØSearch System

The general search system structure is as follows:

1-User search requirements --------2-Search interface(Search language and retrieval constructor) ---------- 3-Search engine --------4-Content(Metadata, Controlled Vocabulary) ------ 5-Result(Sorting and clustering algorithms and interface design)

There are many search algorithms, but the core goals are the same: Recall and precision ).

There are also many common tools to improve user experience during queries, such:

2. Spell-checkers)

2. input error prevention tool (Poka-yoke)

2. phonetic tools)

2. Stemming tools)

2. naturelanguage processing tools)

2. controlledvocabularies and thesauri)

Search results are displayed by sorting and ranking. For example, sorting by alphabet, sorting bychronology, ranking by revelance, and ranking by popularity ), ranking byusers 'or experts' ratings: Ranking by pay-for-placement ). The search results can also be grouped and displayed according to the search results, or the advanced search can be provided to contract (narrow
The retrieval) Result range.

 

LHow to implement information architecture

The work of information architecture is not simply HTML + database table design, but also a set of formal procedures to ensure the design of information architecture. As follows:

Research-strategy-design-implementation-Management

 

 

 

 

ØResearch

A research framework based on three elements: scenario, content, and user. The following tools and methods are generally used:

2. Background Study

Starting from checking the background materials, we can fully explore useful information in the past. In particular, pay attention to the gap between the target vision and the actual situation. Often, the vision is ambitious, but the reality is complicated and incomplete.

2. Preliminary demonstration report

The demonstration content includes: What is information architecture, why is it important, what is the relationship between information architecture and other website components, and what is the relationship with the organization itself; major milestones and what to do. Use the demo report to identify potential risks and reach an ideological agreement with the team.

2. Research Conference

Policy Group Meeting: Set high-level objectives and define tasks, visions, audiences, content and functions.

Content Management Conference: understand the essence of content and content management process. Including answers to some questions: what content and services should be planned in the future, what technologies should be used, what formats should be used, how should the system be input, how should the content be updated, how should the content be eliminated, and what should be legally involved, copyright issues and so on.

Information Technology Conference Discussion: on the relationship between information architecture and technical infrastructure, establish trust and mutual respect. For example, the following question is: How can we use the content management system to support metadata registration to implement distributed tags? Can CMS support automatic file classification and search engine flexibility and personalization, automated browser indexes, how to integrate search engines and word lists, etc.

2. Investor interview

Interviewing with insightful leaders and investors is the most valuable part of business scenario research. The goal is to let investors tell you what they are thinking. For example, the following problems are the information-related problems faced by enterprises, the advantages of establishing enterprises using networks, the factors for successful construction, and the usage of existing information systems, how to consider ROI and so on.

2. Technical Evaluation

Through communication with technical staff and gap analysis, we can identify the actual gaps between business objectives, user needs, and existing technical infrastructure, it also analyzes whether existing commercial tools can help eliminate gaps and fully demonstrates whether these external technologies and tools can be integrated into the existing framework.

2. heuristic Evaluation

The expert evaluation method is used to inspect the existing system and propose key problems and solutions. In order to get the available part from the existing system, rather than discard it all, the re-start. For example, experts propose to the existing website system that indexes and website maps should be used to make up for the shortcomings of classification, and the navigation system should let users know where the scenario is located.

2. Content Analysis

Bottom-up careful analysis of existing files and objects in the information architecture. Collect content: Find representative content samples, such as using the Noah's Ark-Noah's Ark method to find available objects, the dimensions for reference are format, file type, source, topic, existing architecture, user, language, and dynamic. Analysis content: including recording structured metadata, descriptive metadata, and administrative metadata, and finding the patterns and relationships between these content objects.

2. Content ing

Content map is a visual expression of the information environment. As shown in,

 

2. Benchmarking

This includes the competitive benchmarking method, which draws on useful information architectures from competitors. Benchmark method: observe and analyze improvements on the same website to answer the ROI questions.

2. Usage Analysis and search Log Analysis

Use Google Analytics to view the Usage Analysis of clicks and visitor information on each page.

By tracking and analyzing the search content obtained by the search engine, you can study what users are searching for and help build controlled word lists to improve the search experience.

You also need to obtain customer feedback and suggestions from after-sales and service support departments, and regularly listen to suggestions from service personnel.

2. User Research

To determine the definition and priority of website users, this is the top priority of user research.

Methods include: Surveys, contextual inquiry, and focus group.

2. User Conference

This includes interviewing users and directly obtaining answers from users by asking questions. You can also use card classification to write key content indexes on a pile of cards in advance, the user looks at the card and says the content related to the keywords on the card, and finally records all the content.

2. User Test

Let the user sit in front of the computer, open the system, complete the tasks you have arranged, each task within a few minutes to see if the user can reach the end. In the process, you must record what you see, click, hesitate, and questions.

ØPolicy

Information Architecture policy is a high-level conceptual framework that allows you to build and organize websites or internal networks of enterprises. Information Architecture policies include: Information Architecture management, technical integration, top-down or bottom-up emphasis, organization system and tag system (top-down), file type identification (bottom-up), and metadata field definition, navigation system design.

Good Designers will start to construct the information architecture of the website and organize feasible strategies for the website before the study. In the research phase, we use data to adjust policies through user-free discussion, content analysis, and benchmarking.

2. Development Strategy

Use the tact method: Think, articulate, communicate, and test ).

Thinking: transforming research materials into creative ideas;

Expressions: icons, blueprints, scenes, metaphors, plots, and frame charts;

Communication: demonstration, interaction, and brainstorming;

Test: Closed card classification and prototype.

2. Achievements

It includes metaphor exploration, scenario, case study, concept diagram, blueprint, and framework diagram.

Policy Report: includes executive summary, website users & missions/visions, and obtained from user interviews and Content Analysis (Organization and content, navigation, tags, features, etc), architecture Policies & Methods (Content models, custom/personalized policies, navigation elements), content management, and other chapter content.

Project Plan: Generation Plan of information architecture design.

2. Demo

Make your policy reports and plans into an efficient and clear presentation document, and have a face-to-face discussion with relevant stakeholders to lay a solid foundation for the next step.

ØDesign

2. Architecture Blueprint

The purpose of the advanced architecture blueprint is to deconstruct the organizational system, generally starting from the homepage, including components in the page, web page grouping, and the relationship between webpages.

This is an example of an advanced architecture blueprint:

Generally, complicated information architecture blueprints cannot be displayed on one page. Therefore, they are composed of multiple information graphs. In this way, it is best to introduce a unique number, relationship between pages and components between multiple graphs. As follows:

2. line diagram

The wiremap consists of high-fidelity wireframes and Low-fidelity wireframes.

The low-income real-box is mainly designed for page navigation, layout, and area. There are not many details in the low-definition real box, so you cannot see any elements of the information in the box, as shown in:

The advantages of high-fidelity wireframes are more obvious: 1. enrich the content and color to make the web page more active; 2. simulate the actual page size, closer to the final display style, it is easy to get more direct feedback.

You can refer to the following guidelines when creating wireframes:

1. consistency. It reflects the professionalism of wireframes. 2. componentization: componentization of the content repeatedly displayed on multiple pages. 3. white space is left around and at the top of the online box; 4. The availability of the line chart can guide development. 5. Ensure that files can be integrated when multiple people share the development.

2. Content ing

Split or combine the content into content blocks. A content block is generally the smallest part of the content processed on the page. After creating a content ing table, map each piece of content to the page area on the website one by one.

Is an example of a website content ing table:

2. Content Model

After creating a content list, you can create a content model. A good content model can display the relationship between the content and the navigation relationship.

After the content model is established, you can use the following table to describe the relationship between the content and the metadata content:

ØPractice

2. Tools

Tools related to information architecture include:

ÜAutomatic classification softwareAutomatically configure metadata for files. Files are automatically assigned to certain categories according to classification rules. For example, interwoven's metattering Agger, autonomy idol server, and Vivisimo's Clustering Engine.

ÜSearch EngineProvides full-text indexing and search software. For example, sorl, Lucene, Google, endeca, and autonomy.

ÜWord Table Management ToolsDevelopment and management tools for controlled word lists and word lists. For example, multites, Thesaurus master, and term tree.

ÜPortal or Enterprise Knowledge Platform, Enterprise Portal Integration solution. For example, Ms Sharepoint, IBM webshpereportal, and Oracle Portal.

ÜContent Management SoftwareManage the workflow from content collaboration, editing, and publishing. For example, Ms CMS, Drupal, and Wordpress.

ÜWebsite analysis and tracking softwareAnalyzes website usage, collects statistics on performance, and provides data for user behavior analysis and features. For example, Google Analytics and Webtrends

ÜDrawing SoftwareA tool used to draw icons, diagrams, and blueprints. For example, Visio, mockups, and omnigraffle (limited to the Apple platform.

ÜPrototype toolsA prototype development tool that can be used to build an interactive framework and a clickable prototype. For example, Dreamweaver and axure.

ÜUser ResearchSoftware that supports user research. For example, mindcanvas, marae, mcromedia captivate, ethnio, and xsort.

 

2. ROI Calculation)

1. Estimate the loss time caused by current defects. For example, it takes 10 seconds for an employee to search for documents;

2. Calculate the loss time of each employee within a year. For example, the loss time is calculated as follows: 200 business days * 3 times/day * 10 seconds/time = 6000 seconds/year;

3. Total Cost of computing, for example, 1000 employees (employees in similar situations) x 80 (hourly cost of employees, including welfare) RMB/hour * 1.67 hours/year = 133,600 RMB/year.

4. Calculate the ROI. For example, a 50,000 RMB investment for this improvement has a 173% ROI, which is already quite high.

The best example is that IBM spent millions of dollars in improving the information architecture of IBM. com with over 100 employees in 10 weeks, resulting in a 400% increase in sales.

 

2. Information Architecture check list (checklist)

When preparing information architecture instructions, you can check the following key points to ensure that the key points are not omitted.

Ü reduce the cost of searching for information (reduces thecost of finding information)

Ü reduce the cost of finding error information (performancesthe cost of finding wrong information)

Ü reduce the cost of missing information (reduces thecost of not finding information at all)

Ü provide competitive advantages (provides acompetitive advantage)

Ü improve product exposure (increasesproduct awareness)

Ü increase sales (increases sales)

Ü confirm a better user experience (makes usinga site a more enjoyable experience)

Ü improve brand loyalty (improves brandloyalty)

Ü reduce the dependency on the instruction document (reducesreliance upon Documentation)

Ü reduce maintenance costs (reducesmaintenance costs)

Ü reduce training costs)

Ü reduce employee mobility (reduces staffturnover)

Ü reducesorganizational upheaval)

Ü reduce political activities of the Organization (reducesorganizational politicking)

Ü improve knowledge sharing (improvesknowledge sharing)

Ü reduce repetitive labor (cesduplication of effort)

Ü strengthen business strategy (solidifiesbusiness strategy)

 

Information architecture is a complex and huge field. During the design of information architecture, people engaged in information architecture should understand that information architecture is not only visible on the interface, there is also a lot of content hidden under the ice, just like.

 

This article references:

《Information ubunturefor the World Wide Web"

ByPeter morville,Louisrosenfeld