Overview: Definition of Information Architecture
The world can be seen as only connections, nothing else? A piece of information is really only defined by what it's related to, and how it's related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything. - Tim Berners-Lee in Weaving the Web
Involving both art and science, information architecture is the process of identifying, organizing, and managing information for a particular need. This process ends with a well-designed website or other informational product. Some people view information architecture as a cycle focusing on the continuous evaluation, maintenance, and evolution of a website or other informational product. Viewed as a process, information architecture is often seen as containing four steps: investigation, analysis, design, and implementation.
Like architects of a house, information architects must be aware of their client's needs. Some people prefer small simple homes, while others wish huge trophy homes. In the same way, some website projects are small and focused, while others are large and complex.
Information Architecture Defined
Rosenfeld and Morville (1998) formally define IA in the following way:
- The combination of organization, labeling, and navigation schemes within and information system.
- The structural design of an information space to facilitate task completion and intuitive access to content.
- The art and science of structuring and classifying web sites and intranets to help people find and manage information.
- An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
Let's examine some of the basic concepts of information architecture indepth. Creating an effective website is a balancing act of judging the type of information, connections, usability, and discipline that best meets the needs of users.
Information. From very specific facts and figures to highly structured databases, information architecture is concerned with all shapes, types, and kinds of information. Audio, video, images, and text are just a few of the forms of digital information that can be considered in information architecture for the web.
Connections. Information architecture is concerned with how information is organized, structured, labeled, and presented for maximum access. It looks at the levels of "granularity" or relative sizes of information chunks. For example, a single issue of an electronic journal issue would be a large chunk, while an article, paragraph, or sentence would be a smaller piece of information. In the same way, a virtual museum would have many exhibits and each exhibit would have individual elements such as text, audio and/or photos. When bits of information are too small they are easily lost, however large pieces of information are sometimes difficult to digest. Information architects seek ways to group bits of information into meaningful clusters and categories. Then, create the optimal navigation to travel among this information. They help users make the information connections they need.
Usability. Information architects must balance the complexity of informational content with the needs of users for easy information access. The key is "findability". Can end users easily locate the information they need? The goals of the organization must be addressed while providing efficient, effective, and appealing resources.
Discipline. Information architecture stresses both the art and science of creating usable information environments. Designers must carefully engineer their websites for efficiency and effectiveness in terms of operation. At the same time, they must consider the appeal and aesthetics of the website if they wish people to return to the website.
Some people like to pigeon-hole information architecture into a single category such as graphic design, software development, or usability engineering. Information architecture isn't a single discipline, it's a combination of many areas including psychology, computer science, art, and language. In some cases a dozen different professional may work on various aspects of a project. For example, some professionals focus primarily on examining and addressing the behaviors of users. They examine specific tasks and processes, then develop computer-user interfaces that are user-friendly. Other professional deal with the management of content focusing on how information is organized and accessed.
Read Preface and Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3rd edition by Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld.
Learn More
Information Architecture for Everyone in Evolt.org by D. Keith Robinson.
User Experience Design by Peter Morville.