on DigitalWeb, InfoCamp, Intranet Roadmap, Adaptive Path, and Information ArchiTECH

DigitalWeb Magazine – http://www.digital-web.com/ – This site seems decent resource for web development, though with the rapid progression in IA, the resources linked are more an historical survey than they are updated, reliably new content. It doesn’t appear that the entire site was updated when the web magazine was discontinued – had it been, the ‘events’ tab would have been removed or not the stop in production. Not sure about the search function on the site – seems to retrieve based on keyword but can’t tell if this is retrieving and sorting by relevance. The key navigation aids are present as you move through the site, too, which is a positive.

InfoCamp – http://infocamp.info/ – While the distributed nature of InfoCamp represents the egalitarian approach to information (and the practices of those professions seeking to manage it), and the site design reinforces this distribution through its dispersion amongst wikis, it is difficult to get at the actual information underlying InfoCamp (or any of the individual InfoCamps).  The  InfoCamp wiki’s ‘About’ page is filled with little actual information—which really is a shame since the intention to create a gathering ground a real community of practice, for some productive end, is certainly a worthy one; unfortunately, the site does a poor job of actually providing any useful information, at least at a superficial level. If a visitor to the site is patient enough to navigate further, s/he could help to define InfoCamp (the intention behind it as well as its results) through the Seattle InfoCamp section of their wiki: http://wiki.infocamp.org/index.php?title=InfoCamp_Seattle_2010/Topics.

Intranet Roadmap – http://www.intranetroadmap.com/– This site looks to be a comprehensive, easily navigated resource for intranet creation and restructuring.  The navigation aids are clearly organized, and the linear path the site design presents is simple enough for even a novice to engage with; also, the all-inclusive nature of the site is such that history and definition of an intranet, justification for creating an intranet, as well as instructions for each step in setting one up and links to the tools necessary to do so are all clearly laid out and easily accessible to any visitor of the site, (although ‘hierarchy’ is misspelled in the URL: http://www.intranetroadmap.com/Heirarchy.cfm).

Adaptive Path – http://www.adaptivepath.com/ — In much the same way that InfoCamp’s might be accused of a remarkable dearth of substance, Adaptive Path pulls in the extreme opposite direction. Perhaps their explosion of content—and their broad variety of services and expertise—is a symptom of having such a large team with diverse skill sets (or at least diverse titles, and, presumably, varying focuses – see The Adaptive Path Team along the right side of the page: http://www.adaptivepath.com/aboutus/). Perhaps the all-inclusive nature of Adaptive Path is an attempt to fit within any niche of information mastery and delivery via the Web. Despite seeming a little out of date (a four-month lag for a company selling cutting services meant to be contemporary isn’t ideal), and not offering much in the way of content, the site is easily, intuitively navigable, (despite how many different groupings of information exist). Their site sells their products passably well, in other words.

Information ArchiTECH – http://www.informationarchitech.com/ — As Morville has already warned us, categories on sites like ‘Uncategorized’ are danger zones, and to see a company claiming expertise in ‘findability’ making such a misstep is less than encouraging, (see the ‘Subjects’ box at the top of http://www.informationarchitech.com/about-information-architech/). Although the content (such as that found by browsing through the ‘Subjects’) is free and instructive, the quickly outdated nature of programming leads a user to wonder if articles about AJAX that are five years old are relevant today, and if so, if they will remain relevant. Also, the content itself is a bit scattered – if this is a site meant primarily to sell the services of a firm, moving off target by presenting opinions to the larger IA community dilutes the product focus of the site; alternately, if the site is intended primarily as a resource for members of the IA community, pitching an organization in such an intermixed way is likely to annoy information professionals looking for content rather than a sales pitch. The overall site design seems clean enough, but only upon first glance: placing widely varying content inside of a number of little boxes does not necessarily mean logical organization, nor does it mean so much information on the front page is inherently easier to understand.