Information architecture

Write a few articles about the information architecture and systematically output the information architecture I understand.

written in front of the words

sent a blog about recruitment information Architecture Intern, received a lot of resumes.
But when it came to the information architecture, most of them did not understand, and a little bit of knowledge pulled a lot of things.

After a random search, I found the reason:
1 "Web Information Architecture" This book is too conceptual, too academic. Most people don't know how to guide practice.
2 people kidnapped the word "information architecture" and took it out to scare people with fur or something that didn't even have anything to do with the information architecture.

Another reason is that "Web information architecture" 06 out of the first edition, and the earliest version of this book is 1998, and the real theoretical formation, my speculation will be pushed forward for many years, basically can be speculated that "information" encountered the "digital" era, that era of many technology companies.

I know there is a special position for IA in foreign countries, and some organizations specialize in this field, including many university professors and user experience workers in major companies. To tell you the truth, I didn't pay much attention to the details, but I think, we schooled the theory of the foreigner more than 10 years ago, and the information architecture is the very bottom of the design field, it will change with the technology and product changes, the Chinese website design Why few innovation, I believe in this level can find some reasons.

Technology open source, so that the technical level of the domestic very easy and international standards.
Design also needs open source, but relatively difficult.

There are more and more online gatherings in the domestic design industry, but the real idea and the thought collide less and more.
There are more and more articles in the design field, but fewer articles can penetrate the marrow.

Information architecture in this field, I am not an expert, I would like to practice more precipitation some dry goods, and then do the systematic output.
But see about so much for the information architecture misreading, even if the belly inside of the things out to give a discussion.

(This series of articles only allows "valuable" comments, I delete according to mood)

What is the information Architecture (imformation architecture) 1. The structural design of shared information environments.


2. The art and science of organizing and labeling Web sites, intranets, online communities, and Softwareto support findability and usability.


3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of the design and architecture to the digital.

1. The structural design of production and consumption in the field of information.
2. This is a discipline: by organizing and labeling information to address the Web site, intranet, online community, software domain, the availability and accessibility.
3. This is an emerging field focused on the practice of exploring certain rules: the design and architecture of the digital domain.

This is a version of Wikipedia's definition of an information architecture that narrowly targets the digital marketplace, not traditional industries (libraries, supermarkets, warehouses, etc.).

The above definition is too academic, need to give some examples to peel off the concept of the coat.

mistake one: the website layout design is equivalent to the information architecture

"In layman's terms, information architecture is a reasonable form of organization information," This is the current Baidu encyclopedia on the information architecture of a sentence, this description is obviously too popular, the presentation form is the most superficial layer of information architecture. Functional organization, and information organization, is two levels of things.

misunderstanding Two: information architecture is omnipotent, even including interactive design, equivalence to the user experience

Some friends may have read the book, inside the entire word about the vocabulary is not thorough understanding, behind the very few pages is about the navigation design, the man thought to see the essence, and the thought spread to other design field. (To tell the truth, I have done this kind of things in the early years, so I am particularly afraid to write a blog)

All websites have information architecture?

For example, I have said that Alipay is no information architecture, users use Alipay, is to complete the task, the main is the interaction between people and systems.
To be honest, this statement is clearly inaccurate, such as each transaction is actually a message, this information, whether for users or Alipay, have been indexed value.
But you know what I'm trying to say?
If you're paying for treasure, group buys, or even news sites, microblogs, social networking sites, don't talk about the information architecture, it's not going to be a deep guide to your design.

What web products can the

information architecture help?

11 vast repositories of information.
2 The main purpose of a user's visit to a Web site is to obtain information.
3 The timeliness of information is not transient.

Find goods, find a restaurant, find a house, find a car, find a job, find the object ... Involving users of basic necessities.
Books, movies, music ... Involve people's spiritual life.

Although the rise of the search engine to solve the vast majority of users to "find" the demand, but obviously, the diversity of information latitude, as well as the relationship between people and information, is a pure search engine can not reach the field. The early search engine is the information extensive understanding and establishes the relation.
Now you think about how much you have to "find" the demand, not through Google and Baidu? And why?

To argue, all the sites basically need to send information to the user, there is information needed to organize.
Therefore, I would like to cite an example that does not require an information architecture for a website is unrealistic. I can only tell you how much this area of knowledge can help you.

The functional location of the

information architecture

If your site is based on information, then an information architect's location is necessary, and this person can even interact. Interaction design is just one of the opposite fields of information architecture. Interaction design solves the dialogue between people and systems. Information architecture is to comb the information system itself.

If the domestic website says no one is concerned about the information architecture is also a bit too pessimistic. Otherwise there will not be so many vertical can be separated from the entrance of Baidu. My guess is "master in folk". For example, real estate search house, home, car sites, marriage sites, the public comments, where to go ... They may be called "editors" or "Product managers" at the company, and these people may not talk about "information architecture" at all, they are experts in every vertical field, and they are proficient in the information rules and user needs of an acre of three points, they are exercising the function of "information architect". They're a lot more pragmatic than a designer like me with a professional noun.

But I always feel that the information architecture is a regular, reliable architects can walk in a variety of information base, with less detour to solve many difficult diseases. The rules will be described in the following article, if you think that in my information architecture within the scope of the "editor", "Product Manager", your work encountered problems can communicate with me.

"Data ratio algorithm important"

This is what algorithmic engineers often use to educate newcomers and laymen.
The data here is more extensive than the information, but there are a lot of similarities, such as:

You have 10 books, to recommend to users, the quickest way of course is human flesh recommendation, to algorithm hair?
Only say you have 10W book, human flesh can not recommend, just need to find algorithm, the algorithm said that need data, data is not referring to this 10W book, but is the basis of weight calculation.
And how can we have rich data? Only this 10W book's information base, the organization is clear enough, the relationship is clear, the combination of user access and feedback, the algorithm can play a space.

The development of

information architecture

In the Internet, advocating the "cloud" era, the relationship between information and people has been basically synchronized, and the "Web Information Architecture" system, obviously the lack of consideration of real-time impact on the system, but these effects are not interactive, but UGC, users will always contribute new content, Whether your content system can accommodate different people's ideas and thinking habits, and can make these content through the rules to establish the appropriate indexing method.

In the user to participate in depth of content, and even a lot of sites themselves do not have content, all user contributions. The information architecture needs to be considered more naturally.

not the end of the end

1 Write this article, I basically do not consider readability, a lot of links to the place also do not want to add. is a draft, will be fixed at any time, delete nonsense or something.
2 I will be in the right opportunity to organize the PPT, is expected next month Beijing UCD book FRIENDS will lecture, but also may jump the ticket.
3 I am not a pure person, reprint please copy away my advertisement: under the kitchen (this is my entrepreneurial project, information architecture is the core competitiveness of this project).

Source Address: http://uitony.com/?p=166