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2024-10-28 Module 1 Introduction

2024-10-28 Module 1 Introduction

Owned by Kidd, Denise
Last updated: Nov 09, 2024
6 min read

Introduction to IA

Information architecture - IA - connects people with content.

Content: Information and knowledge

Done by hierarchies/taxonomy, labeling/metatdata, navigation schemes/UI, search

Definitions

Information Architecture

  • The Art and science of labeling information, this includes websites, intranets, Content Repositories and Knowledge Bases to support usability and findability - The Architecture Institute

Information Architecture Includes

  • The high level rules that govern the manner in which information concepts are defined, related, realized and managed by the enterprise.

3 major parts of IA

  • Context: Business models & goals, corporate culture, resources

    • [Where information is used]

  • Content: Document types Objects, structure, attributes, Metainformation

    • [How to describe the information]

  • Users: Information needs, audience types, expertise, tasks

    • [How to Use the Information]

IA = Users + Context + Content

  • Users:

    • Who they are

    • What their information seeking behaviors and needs are

    • Users navigate and they search, so your delivery mechanism must be precisely searchable and allow navigation to content

      • Do usability testing

  • Content:

    • Volume, Formats

    • Metadata

    • Structure

    • Organization

  • Context: content’s relationship to -

    • Business Model

    • Business Value

    • Resources & Resource Constraints

Definition of IA success

  • Employees and Customers can easily find answers among the collective knowledge of the organization

  • A search capability that is highly effective in finding desired content across manuals, guidelines...

  • A governance model that assists process stakeholders collectively create, manage, and store relevant content (information and knowledge)

  • We have achieved consistent and proper use of content sources repositories available in the organization

  • View of a filtered subset of content that facilitates a quick access to content that matters

  • Consistent and effective content retention

  • Content management related cost is reduced

  • Content that is related to roles, product lines, geography, etc.

  • A consistent use of an Information Architecture process and common language usage that facilitates maintenance of the model going forward

Information architecture roles

Information Architect

  • Investigates the req of customers for the content and structure of info deliverables

  • Understands the underlying content structure of the info types that authors must produce and develops standards based on these structures

  • Instantiating business rules into the structure to support authors and encourage compliance.

  • Creates structures that promote finding and reusing content in multiple contexts, including metadata schemes to label content appropriately for delivery to customers

  • Creates an authoring environment that accommodates both the preferences of authors and the needs of the business for compliance with standards

  • Develops standards for content assembly in multiple media that meet customer and business requirements

  • Builds style sheets that apply appropriate formatting to content for each type of deliverable

Information Architect’s focus

  • Users of the Info

  • The Info itself

  • The business/organization

Understanding users

  • Who are the users?

  • What roles do the users play in their organization?

  • Are the users experts or laymen, decision makers or worker bees?

  • Where do they work?

  • What kinds of information are the users seeking?

  • How do they use that information?

  • What formats are easiest for the users to handle?

  • Do the users search or browse, or a combination of the two?

  • What criteria are the users searching on?

  • What languages do the users work in?

How the IA maintains a user focus

  • Organize, label, and chunk information

  • Construct navigation systems that make the info easy to find

  • Add metadata to the info so other systems can process/understand it

How the IA accomplishes these goals

  • Top-down discovery - get a picture of the entire info space and working down to the details

  • Bottom-up discovery - figure out metadata for each piece of content and working up toward the general (re-engineering)

Usually, findability isn’t related to the effectiveness of the search engine itself, but rather the content and its structure.

Understanding the business/organization

  • Understand how businesses categorizes (Name) their content

  • Understand how the content is being used

  • Support the user's need to take an action-oriented approach

  • Support the user's real-world goals, not goals that are derived from the product (keep them product agnostic)

  • Focus primarily on information needed to solve problems (i.e., troubleshooting and problem-resolution information)

    • Identify levels of support (first, second, third-tier)

    • Self-service; submission of question; chat sessions

  • Support users who want to find just the information they need, users who are primarily interested in performing tasks, as well as users who wish to study information to gain knowledge and understanding

SEO Analyst

Overview

  • Content quality

  • Contribute to the dev of the metadata schema

  • Usability and conversion optimization

  • Rankability of content (search ranking factors)

  • Develop standards for content search

  • Crawlability of content

Responsibilities

  • Assist in development and execution of communication/content strategies via social communities in coordination with SEO goals

  • Keep pace with SEO, search engine, social media and internet/intranet industry trends and developments

  • Monitor and administer web analytics dashboards, reports and key reporting tools, and point out key areas of importance in accordance corporate goals

  • Monitor and evaluate search results and search performance across the major search channels

  • Communication to team and management on SEO project development, timelines, and results

The Taxonomist

The accidental taxonomist (book)

This is a more concise and comprehensive rendering of the above content

  • Creating the thesauri and data structures that drive the browse and navigation portions of internet/intranet, CMS, or KMS Documentation that allows for easy categorization

  • Identify the best ways to gather, categorize and classify content

  • Troubleshoot categorization issues, tool and system issues

  • Solving many types of metadata issues across multiple CMS, KMS, and internet/intranet environments

  • Serves as an advocate for data quality standards

Content authors

  • In collab with the Info Architect, creates and authoring environment that complies with standards

  • Designs/builds style guides/sheets for content deliver in collab with Info Architect and Communications (look and feel)

  • Applies plain language and information design (PLAID) to content creation

    • Standardized format of language to make things more coherent; more consumable; reduce/eliminate jargon

  • Requirements gathering for content and structure

  • Develop standards for content assembly

  • Understand and use in-house content creation tools and quality standards

  • Perform ad hoc research to dev and produce new web based and print content

  • Add to creative and strategic ideas for online content creation

  • Create and publish timeline content in various environments

  • Lead social networker and manage social media presence

  • Use industry and org knowledge to dev ideas/content

  • Maintain process and determine effic/effect methods for dev content

  • Dev compelling content for various learners/audiences

  • Use in-house content creation tools and apply quality standards

  • Use graphics/media creation programs to dev prototypes and storyboard

  • Apply current content requirements and identify digital tools and collaborators

The UI/UX Designer

  • Conducting usability testing

    • Exploring many different approaches to solving a specific user interface problem

  • Adhering to IA component designs

    • Leverages the taxonomy and metadata

  • Use UI standards

    • Maintaining consistency in visual elements and defining behavior

    • Create a style guide and ensure a consistent design language is applied throughout

    • Design each screen/page to ensure that the UI visually communicates the intended design

  • Developing wireframes, mock-ups, and specs

    • How it’s rendered on the screen; ensures intentions are captured, which includes users

  • Define and communicate models, user task flows, and UI specs

  • Define interaction models

    • Ensures that product logically flows from one step to the next

Information architecture components

Information (Content) model

  • Depicts all the different types of content for a specific area

  • Contains detailed info of the content type’s elements (metadata) and their relationships to each other

  • The level of detail in the model is determined by its purpose

    image-20241028-154138.png

Metadata schema

  • Data describing the context/content/structure of records and mgmt over time

  • Logical plan showing the relationships between metadata elements, normally through establishing rules for the use and management of metadata, which is depicted and descriptors of the content

    image-20241028-155030.png

Supporting compliance of metadata

  • Require tags upon upload (won’t save unless added)

  • Use default values

  • Drop-down menus

  • Folders

  • Change of culture to engage supervisors

  • WIIFM?

Business rules of the structure

  • Statement that defines or constrains some aspect of the business

  • Intent is to structure/control/influence business’ behavior

  • Determine the relationships between content depicted on the content model

  • For example, a product belongs to a product family

Taxonomy

  • Classification and naming things in an ordered system intended to indicate relationships usually into hierarchical groups

  • Classifying and organizing things

    • Utensils > silverware > forks/spoons/knives

IA governance

  • Process, policies, and procedures to manage and maintain the IA structure

  • Consists of the content model, taxonomy, and metadata

  • Managing/maintaining the structure may include developing new content types, expanding/collapsing the taxonomy, and modifying the metadata, as well as relationships between content types and its associated business rules.

  • When content is changed, one or more of these might need to change, too.