|
|
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.
on IA for the WWW ch. 20 & 21; Web Theory, ch. 1
The primary take-away from the example of the development of MSWeb is the applicability of traditional library and IT solutions, but with room for maneuvering. This is repeatedly mentioned across both chapter 20 and chapter 21, in regard to Microsoft’s work as well as that with evolt.org, as evidenced in Morville’s summary, “MSWeb’s ‘three taxonomies’ approach is steeped in traditional library science, which isn’t surprising considering the backgrounds of many of those on the MSWeb team. But it’s important to note how willing the team was to abandon the traditional library science concepts that didn’t make sense in the intranet environment. For example, the team did not try to create ‘traditional’ thesauri for its metadata schema and category label taxonomies. Other standards familiar to the library science community, such as Dublin Core, weren’t initially adopted…” (Morville & Rosenfeld, … p. 437). Perhaps evolt even went beyond maneuvering away from typical IS/LS, as Morville pointed out the ability to completely disregard traditional IA rigor and procedures in order to come up with a usable product–though it is worth cautioning that the members of this community were all conversant with IA so to some extent, thus might still have a will toward organization consistent with IA practices, even if the functions were distributed.
References
Morville, P. & Rosenfeld, L. (2006). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (3rd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
on Web Theory, chapter 1
According to the introduction of Web Theory, Burnett and Marshall’s book attempts an analysis of the history and development of the Web by approaching it from a variety of ways—first of which is through technological determinism, specifically through the theories of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. In the brief explications of Innis’ communication theories (time-bias vs. space-bias), and of McLuhan’s ideas about the (1) medium as the message (“content of the new medium is filled with the forms of the past medium and takes a period of time to establish its own reorganization of content”), (2) the global village, and (3) an electronic collective consciousness, (Burnett and Marshall, 2003, pp. 17-19). After Innis and McLuhan – and a gloss of the attempts of contemporary scholarship to recuperate Innis and McLuhan as either predictors or commentators on the Internet and Web—is a segue into primatologist Donna Harraway’s explorations of the cyborg as a method of addressing breaking down barriers between human and machine, (or, as between humans and the Web). Again and again, Burnett and Marshall (2003) present theorists and ideas of technological determinism as limited in providing a full exploration of the complexities of the birth and growth of the Web; in fact, the first chapter presents a dominant narrative about the Web, (as revolutionary development, p. 21), as well as a possibility for a counternarrative that considers the Web as having been “actually built on and intensified many existing institutions, social needs and expressions of desires,” (p. 21). Exploring ‘the story of the Web’ from a number of angles – as this book intends to do, as stated in the introduction – obviously leads into two significant approaches for understanding the Web and its transformative effect on society, the ‘loose Web’ and ‘Cultural Production’ theses, (Burnett and Marshall, 2003, pp. 2-3). I look forward to delving deeper into cybernetics, as well as the intersection of cultural studies as a set of theories and practices, and the Web.
References
Burnett, R. and Marshall, P. D. (2003). Web theory: An introduction. London: Routledge.
on Karin McGrane & Louis Rosenfeld’s PowerPoint, Selling IA
More than anything, this is an addendum to the Morville & Rosenfeld reading of chapters 17 & 18 of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, but it is worth (1) recording a note about this presentation for future reference, and (2) acknowledging that the experience of McGrane and Rosenfeld shown through their presentation actually reinforces some of what anyone who has had to ‘sell’ ideas to others while pursuing any project are already familiar with. This presentation gives any potential justification for IA in a situation firmer ground to stand on by categorizing different methods of presenting the case for IA, as well as showing a few points to address within each method of justification.
on free software sites (Google Pack, FSF, Freeware Files, Free-soft)
For Google Pack, it is important to stress the need to review all of the information on the ‘learn more about Google Pack’ link near the bottom right of the linked page, as well as to read the terms of use for the software a user would install as part of the Google Pack. Customer support, variable user-driven security, and guaranteed continued operations are limited to paying users; those choosing the non-professional edition (i.e., the free edition), have both (1) limited access and (2) less support from Google. It’s more a point of amusement than anything else that Google is inconsistent within their ‘Learn more about Google Pack’ page: the link to the Adobe Reader page is broken, and the Google Desktop opens a new tab when it is clicked on (rather than opening in the main frame, as all of the other links do). Google also seems to be unafraid of diluting their brand image by including products by other companies, (Adobe, Real, Mozilla), even when they have a competing product (Chrome vs. Firefox). I don’t doubt there is a reason for this, but I’d love to know what it is.
Free Software Foundation – looks to be a useful information source about free software, as well as a source for free software, (linking as it does to any number of sites for Mozilla products, OpenOffice, open-source media players, and operating systems). This site seems to encourage a similar push toward access for all, as with many IA resources, evident in the variety of languages the site is available in, (and the smart design of different flags to represent different languages – with pop-up text indicating each language). It looks to be a good primer about the free software movement, and uses plain language so that less technical audiences could still engage with the material, (and even easily move down the path to replacing commercial software with functional free alternatives).
Freeware Files – is a much more advanced user site than FSF, I think, based on the noise and language on the site. It also is a bit misleading because of the Google-powered banner ads, (since the content of the ads run at cross-purposes to the content of the site, though it is probably necessary to have the ad revenue to run the site). This site reminds me of CNET, a busy site oriented to a repeat, technically and technologically-savvy audience. It could be a great resource for free software (including new, less widely-popular products as linked from FSF), and the category-driven navigation through the menu along the left side of the page does well to help a user ignore the clutter and get to, say, ripping software or (whatever else) with a minimal number of clicks.
Free-soft – is an outdated site that provides a bit of history about the free software movement. It looks like what might have been the first iteration of FSF, about five to ten years ago. The navigation through the menu along the left side of the page is still fairly standard, but clicking through any of the links like ‘Literature’ makes a user lose context for ‘place’ on the site, as the menu disappears and no form of breadcrumb representation remains. The content of the site, though, does a nice job of capturing a moment in time of the free software movement, and would historically inform any look into the movement.
on IA for the WWW, chapters 17 & 18
As someone already in the position of having to justify staff, student, consulting, and technical services expenditures to a variety of decision-makers, I cannot stress strongly enough how useful Morville & Rosenfeld’s chapter ‘Making the case for IA’ will be. Some of the tactics are familiar – the calculation of returns on investment based on sometimes unknowable numbers or points of comparison—but ultimately still worthwhile to review. Also, the information architecture value checklist should be distributed widely to any working IA, especially as each bullet begs to be illustrated with a quick example that can be shared with potential clients.
Regarding business strategy and aligning IA with that, the questions Morville lists on page 381 seem invaluable—especially, as Morville notes, if a business strategy is not clearly stated but parts of it can be gotten at through stakeholder interviews and the use of these questions, (“What is your company really good at? What is your company really bad at? What makes your company different from your competitors? How are you able to beat your competitors? How can your web site or intranet contribute to competitive advantage?”). The usefulness of identifying all of the invisible base of information architecture cannot be overstated, either. In much the same way that a solid base can form the foundation for a building, as well as its successor buildings over time as the structures give in to stress and time (but the foundation remains intact), Morville posits a solid information architectural base (from addressing content, context, and users, on through using good classification schemes and IA strategies) can support a lasting, changeable top-level IA.
References
Morville, P. & Rosenfeld, L. (2006). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (3rd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
on Textmap.com and Google Sets
Textmap functionality based on entity exploration is difficult if the ‘Entities’ button doesn’t appear on the front page. I’m not sure if this is something that has changed over the past week or two, but the only button at the top of the front page (http://www.textmap.com) is ‘Contact’; only by going to the ‘About’ page (http://www.textmap.com/about.htm) was I able to see two additional buttons appear, ‘Entities’ and ‘Sources’. Also, I don’t understand the basis for ‘positive raw counts vs. negative raw counts’ – so, much as I can appreciate the impressive nature of designing something that trolls through news, aggregates and ultimately interprets data, the lack of a full explanation of statistical significance, (or maybe just my lack in vocabulary) means that I don’t ‘get’ this project. On a higher level, I understand it as a tool for interpreting news and building connections; from the perspective of a user, though, I don’t find the site that easily navigable, (a list of letters beneath each entity type doesn’t exactly encourage browsing, or at least doesn’t encourage browsing that isn’t frustrating!), or intuitively understandable as regards purpose. The language describing each graphic representation isn’t obvious—the site would be much more useful, I think, if there were some sort of indicators of (1) what the data was based on, and (2) why the comparison data is significant. There is no useful glossary or explanation on the site, even on the ‘About’ page.
The Google Sets function is interesting, and I’d be curious to see what data Google draws from (and how) to determine connections, in order to fill out a ‘set’. I tried a few terms – Jens Lekman, Sweden, Acid House Kings, (the first and third Swedish musicians, the second their home country), to see how this would work. It did well, in a sense, as the set predicted was a long list of bands from Sweden and on the same or associated record labels. (A somewhat similar function can be had, although only starting from a single musical entity, at http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/). I don’t see, though, that this sets feature is actually building—or even implying—relationships between the search terms. For instance, when I searched for Richard Nixon + Burma + Lyndon Johnson (also tried Richard Nixon + Myanmar + Lyndon Johnson), the results list of US presidents, with a couple of VPs and ‘Iraq’ near the bottom of the long set. On the up side, it is easy enough to use (by just listing terms in different boxes), and Google even included suggested searches under ‘Examples’ at the bottom of the page.
on IA for the WWW, chapters 14, 15, and 16
As the unfortunate victim of convoluted government websites and their poor search functionality, I consider Morville & Rosenfeld’s case for ethics in IA to not just be about intention but results. Similar to their example about Amazon’s unintended editorializing in response to ‘abortion’ queries, I noticed that information demonstrating necessary steps for American visa application for potential international workers were not easily found on either the Department of State site (http://www.state.gov) or the Immigration Services site, (www.uscis.gov). Even if the correct pages—because a visa application requires multiple pages to find the application process, timeline, correct visa type to apply for, and contact information for local consulate office—are all found, and in order, understanding the information presented, especially if not a native English speaker, looks to be a herculean task. As the Web is more and more often the first stop for information-finding, issues of labeling and categorization that Morville & Rosenfeld bring up will become even more important. Imagine the negative associations that could be built by nefarious folks at Google, for instance, if Google searches for our president were skewed to return terrorist propaganda, or sites filled with conspiracy theories (which, arguably, could be terrorist propaganda). I don’t imagine that many users would be so immediately think negatively as a result, but I do think that consistent categorization in this way—or categorization in this way that is a user’s introduction to a subject—could have a negative impact.
On jig.net, I looked at Elements of User Experience and appreciated a model that could identify not just different areas to address in designing a website, but also as a guide that could be used to assign tasks to different groups working on developing web content while providing a staged model to follow. Jesse James Garrett’s ‘elements of user experience’, as outlined in the introduction to his book of the same title, (http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements_intro.pdf), and in his diagram, (http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf) could prove to be useful tools to understanding this aspect of IA, ‘user experience,’ and its significance in site development.
I also looked over Garrett’s IA reconsidered essay, (http://www.jjg.net/ia/recon/) and found his conclusion that ‘most people who do IA will never be able to focus on it exclusively’ (in Part 5) to be especially revealing, comforting, and thought-provoking. Within libraries, I have already experienced the distribution of seemingly diverse tasks – in addition to an Acquisitions manager, I worked reference, performed some cataloging functions, and shared some OPAC management responsibilities. My colleagues—and especially the professional librarians—were expected to assume the same sort of varied groups of responsibilities, and I imagine practicing information architecture is similar. This seems like it might be especially true in organizations where developing and delivering web content is a collection of tasks distributed to many individuals or groups, like academic libraries. While the end product of a non-specialist, as Garrett calls them, might be less than stellar, I imagine that in the same way we divide simpler copy cataloging functions amongst paraprofessionals and student workers, and original cataloging is handed to professional librarians, the same sort of division of tasks within that thought of as the purview of an information architect might also occur.
Finally, I reviewed Garrett’s ‘Visual vocabulary for describing information architecture…” (http://www.jjg.net/ia/visvocab/), and quickly bookmarked the site for future use. In much the same way that certain chapters of Morville & Rosenfeld’s Information architecture and the World Wide Web will be a rich, practical resource when attempting to carry out the tasks described as ‘information architecture’, so too is this page. In fact, this might have been useful to review before reading Chapter 12 of IA for the WWW, to help more easily understand the diagrams shown as examples.
On Morville’s site, I reviewed the following:
Information seeking behavior – “From Information Retrieval to Information Interaction” by Gary Marchionini – From the development of hypertext onward, it seems that Marchionini argues that interaction with information has become more dynamic; rather than a simple enter-query, retrieve-response method of interacting with information, various forms of interfaces allow users to combine browsing and searching by using faceted navigation, (Marchionini uses Relation Browser ++, or RB ++, to show this). As Marchionini (2004) points out, these new interactive interfaces have changed the face of information seeking, so that “a person with an information problem is best able to meet that need through action, perception, and reflection rather than through query statements alone,” (p. 11).
Structure and Organization – “Depth vs. Breadth in the Arrangement of Web Links” by Panayiotis Zaphiris and Lianaeli Mtei – While a brief article, the gist of it—that broad site design results in more effective use than deep design—is immensely useful for anyone designing the structure of a website. I doubt the conclusions are a surprise to any of us who have become frustrated with moving deeper and deeper into a site without arriving at our intended destinations, but still, it is reassuring to have an experiment the results of which reflect what I had only known through experience and anecdote.
Navigation – “Website Structural Navigation” by Noah Lazar and Michael Eisenbrey – While the results of the experiment recorded in this paper were no surprise, it was interesting to read about the experiment and to see some quantitative data (despite what Garrett might have said on jig.net about those concerned with IA acting the part of scientists) to back up the existence of navigation bars—especially for large sites. As I have found numerous times of late while attempting to pull data from government websites, following a path identified from a series of presets in a navigation bar and resulting menus can often lead to better results (and more speedily) than other functions, like search. This seems especially true on sites where the search function was poorly implemented and the results list is in no way ranked by relevance.
Search – “Bringing Order to the Web: Optimizing Search by Showing Results in Context” by S. Dumais, E. Cutrell and H. Chen – This article, as with the one reviewed above about depth versus breadth in website structure, reinforces a sense I had of design with the outcome of a study. The study is worthwhile in aiding IA work, in that it supports delivering content within context – I would argue both in terms of menus on a site and within search results for any site.
References
Marchionini, G. (2004). From information retrieval to information interaction. Retrieved from: http://www.ils.unc.edu/~march/ECIR.pdf
On Media 7, I noticed a similarity between Martin Howard’s content presentation and the news aggregator we looked at before, at least in terms of centrality of graphics. Since design is clearly the focus here (evidenced by the giant, bold DESIGN near the top of the page), it does not come as any surprise that while context is provided by the menu on the side of the page, the image content of each page takes center stage (without any explanation). The site design is inconsistent, though – by clicking on ‘Corporate ID’, you are taken to an ad-laden page (interestingly forming a frame for the content) that lacks the navigation menu.
Continuing with the same theme as with chapters 10 and 11, Morville & Rosenfeld’s “Design and Documentation” chapter in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is the next set of instructions for putting IA into practice — and will clearly provide a solid checklist for the beginning of actual work product in the form of blueprints, wireframes, and content maps–and, though I know of no such guide that is available for anyone producing web content for the University of Florida Libraries, I can see the lasting impact having an IA style guide could have on building and maintaining a unified, usable site, (& wish I’d had one to reference when working on my little web corner). To that end, I’ve started looking at the changes that are being made to the site I used to maintain, and have begun listing all of the content. During a future campus visit, I hope to be able to engage in a bit of the research as outlined in chapter 10 of this book, so that by semester’s end I might be able to produce a plan for a better, more usable site.
Chapter 13, on education for information architects, was encouraging both as regards (1) pursuing this specific education in Library and Information Science, and (2) buoying any flagging self-confidence about my potential to be an information architect, (since it seems a rigorous IA-focused curriculum is hard to find, and a background in Library Science can be a useful starting point!). In practice, I know that Library and Information Science programs are turning out IAs, as is evidenced by a good friend of mine who recently graduated from UNC with his MIS and has been hired as an information architect by the Wall Street Journal. While I believe his coursework was more focused on IS and less on libraries, I remain hopeful that the courses offered at USF can be helpful to a similar end.
on Peter Morville’s column Strange Connections column, “Information Architecture and Ulcers” (http://argus-acia.com/strange_connections/strange002.html), and quantitative data
I was happy to read Morville’s column, and also see the link within it to the book How to Lie with Statistics. I had already ordered a copy of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and though I expect both works might cover similar ground, I look forward to paging through both to get a better sense of how to detect bogus statistics (or bogus representations of), as well as how to do a better job correctly gathering, interpreting, and representing statics in my own work. I am interested in investigating ‘triangulation’, which I had not heard of before Morville’s link–if this is a method to combine qualitative and quantitative research in meaningful ways, I expect this to be a tremendously useful method.
|
|
