Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success

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Table of Contents
real-life tips
real-life stories
Information architecture reviews
Cartoons
Pictures

4 Table of contents
6 http://iabook.com
8 Author’s note
9 Index of tips

Introduction

12 What is information architecture?
13 What does an information architect do?
14 The user experience
14 Flow and tasks
15 Deliverables
   List of content and organization
    Description of functionality
  Wireframes
18 Conclusion
19 Learning more...

1. Website strategy

22 Strategy
24 What do business goals have to do with design?
24 Discussing business goals
26 User goals and tasks
27 Measuring success
29 Content and functionality
37 Conclusion
37 Learning more...

38 Case study: State of Georgia Online Encyclopedia

2. Audience research

44 Research
46 First-time researcher
46 Asking the right questions
48 Designing and selling a research plan
49 Why client market research isn’t enough
50 Three easy research methods
    Interviews
    Observation with contextual inquiry
    Usability testing
    Which method to use
59 Analyzing your research
62 Three research deliverables
     Audience analysis
     Personas
     Scenarios
67 Sharing research with the team
69 Conclusion
69 Learning more…

71 Case Study: Pottery Barn Kids

3. Information architecture

78 Structure
80 Organization schemes, categories, and labels
    Organization schemes
    Categories
    Labels
96 Work the information architecture into the design
108 Sitemaps
      The classic sitemap
      A visual vocabulary
      The 2.5D or isometric sitemap
      The automated sitemap
      The high-level sitemap
      The content table
114 Conclusion

116 Case study: SRC Collaborative Extranet

4. Designing functionality

124 Functionality
126 Identifying tasks
126 Analyzing tasks
128 Turning task analysis into web pages
132 Documenting functionality
Drawing flow charts
Writing functionality descriptions
133 Conclusion
133 Learning more...

134 Case study: XMRadio

5. Interface design

142 The interface
144 Wireframes
148 Interface objects
150 Iteration works
153 HTML prototypes
153 Conclusion

155 Case study: Lycos Asia

156 Final word
158 Bibliography
159 Webography
160 Acknowledgments

real-life tips

The book contains dozens of tips on how to handle real-life information architecture challenges.

1. Website strategy

24 “Strategy? But we want to get to work!”
25 Speak the client’s language: learn some business terms
25 Business goals and the economic climate
27 Do you really care about the number of visitors?
27 Be careful when interpreting server logs
29 When in love with the wrong functionality

2. Audience research

49 Planning time for your research
49 Do an initial research exercise
49 Don’t sell research as a separate step
49 A little research can go a long way
50 Avoid focus groups
52 How much research is enough?
54 Contextual inquiry: keep it real
55 Finding test participants
55 Go through your notes every night
56 Increasing motivation with real money
56 Everyone should do usability testing
56 Invite a team member to your usability test
67 Presenting research data and conclusions

3. Information architecture

88 Extend categories by combining them
89 Don’t try to decide on labels in a meeting
89 Don’t use a company’s internal organization scheme
96 “Just add a tab for this new function”
108 “Can you make a quick sitemap for this?”

4. Designing functionality

127 How much task analysis do you do for a typical website?
133 Walk the client through the functional spec
133 What is the difference between a flow chart and a sitemap?

5. Interface design

144 Don’t design your wireframes
144 Wireframes in HTML
149 Using interface objects
150 Even sketches can be tested

real-life stories

The book also contains many real-life stories, from information architects from around the world.

1. Website strategy

25 "A client was convinced that their website was missing key content ..." - Jess McMullin, Information Architect.

2. Audience research

46 "We're starting a project this fall for a FTSE 100 company that won't go ahead until research is completed ..." - Jared Folkmann, Information Architect.
46 "On one project, I called local hotels and set up 15-minute interviews ..." - Garrick Van Buren, Information Architect.
46 "I almost always do some user research ..." - Donna Maurer, Information Architect.
48 "On an e-business project, the client said there was no need for user research ..." - Kathy Marshak, Senior Conultant for IconMedialab.
49 "Once we were examining the site visitor statistics ..." - Eric Scheid, Information Architect for Ironclad Networks.
50 "I was talking to users ..." - Donna Maurer, Information Architect.
52 "I was doing one-on-one interviews in the participants' setting and took our visual designer along ..." - Katie Ware, Information Architect.
64 "On many recent projects we have found client opinion starting to dictate the direction of the website ..." - Jared Folkmann, Information Architect.

3. Information Architecture

81 "Defining Information Architecture is a recurring theme ..." - Eric Scheid, Information Architect.
88 "For a recent project, we did several rounds of usability testing, ..." - Heidi Gunderson, Web Consultant.
88 "I always get users to do a card-sorting exercise ..." - Donna Maurer, Information Architect.
110 "Sitemaps are a useful tracking system when ..." - Liz Danzico, Information Architect.

5. Interface design

144 "Wireframes are becoming an integral part of the design process. What our designers have realized is ..." - Jared Folkmann, Information Architect.
153 "We were designing a website containing speech therapy resources. During a walkthrough of a prototype with users, ..." - Daniel Cunliffe, Senior Lecturer in Multimedia Computing.

Information architecture reviews

Apart from the case studies, which were written after in depth interviews with the responsible information architects, the book also contains many information architecture analyses of various types of websites.

1. Website strategy

28 http://dimecomoestoy.com: Dime Como Estoy
32 http://www.aa.com: American Airlines
34 http://www.nwa.com: Northwest Airlines
36 http://www.continental.com: Continental Airlines

3. Information architecture

81 http://www.NYTimes.com, http://CNN.com, http://news.bbc.co.uk: Comparing categories and labels for The New York Times, CNN and BBC News
82 http://news.bbc.co.uk: BBC News: categories in the world edition vs. the UK edition
85 http://dell.com: Dell Classification schemes for Dell
89 http://www.epinions.com, http://amazon.com, http://www.halfords.com: Comparing classification schemes for Epinions, Amazon and Halfords.
92 http://cars.com, http://fish4cars.com: Comparing classification schemes of a US and a UK car buying website.
96 http://barnesandnobles.com: Classification schemes for Barnes and Nobles.
98 http://bestcellars.com: Classification scheme of Best Cellars.
98 http://www.apple.com: Mixing classification schemes for Apple.
100 Unidentified website Confusing classification.
101 http://www.indexstock.com: Comining classification schemes for Index Stock Imagery.
102 http://ibm.com: IBM's redesigned classification systems analyzed.
104 http://wine.com: Wine.com's faceted classification scheme.
106 http://bluemountain.com: Blue Mountain's various classification scheme's.

4. Designing functionality

130 http://hotmail.com and http://mail.yahoo.com: One detail of functionality flow compared for Yahoo mail and Hotmail.

5. Interface design

146 http://summerjobs.com: Wireframes explained.
147 http://evolt.org: Wireframes explained.

Cartoons.

The book contains cartoons illustrating various information architecture practices.

1. Website strategy

30 A strategy discussion

2. Audience Research

51 A bad interview
53 Contextual inquiry
55 Contextual inquiry - the folow-up interview
58 Setting up a usability test
63 Using personas
65 But would my mom like it?
68 Using scenarios

3. Information architecture

97 Multiple organization schemes help users find information

5. Interface design

151 Paper prototyping

Pictures.

Finally, the book contains many photographs illustrating information architecture concepts in real-life - not on the web. I didn't index these, you'll have to browse the book!