3
Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
Defining Information Architecture1
We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us.
—Winston Churchill
What is it about buildings that stirs us? Whether we’re architectural connoisseurs or
just plain folks, we are all emotionally engaged by the physical structures we experience
throughout our lives.
Each building serves a different purpose. A bustling café with hardwood floors and
large windows facing Main Street provides the ideal place for a quick breakfast meeting.
A steel-and-glass high-rise with its mix of cubes and offices envelops inhabitants in
a collaborative, high-energy work environment. A dark, smoky bar with tin ceilings and
exposed brick walls becomes a sanctuary from the whirl of modern life. And a medieval
Gothic cathedral adorned with granite sculptures, stained-glass windows, and towers
that reach for the heavens provides an experience both humbling and inspirational.
Each building serves its purpose uniquely. Architecture, design, construction, furnishings,
inhabitants, and location all play major roles in shaping the overall experience.
All elements must work together. In successful buildings, the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts.
Why begin a book about web sites by writing about buildings? Because the architectural
analogy is a powerful tool for introducing the complex, multidimensional nature of
information spaces. Like buildings, web sites have architectures that cause us to react.
Some web sites provide logical structures that help us find answers and complete
tasks. Others lack any intelligible organization and frustrate our attempts to navigate
through them. We can’t find the product we need; we can’t locate the report we
found last week; we’re lost inside an online shopping cart. These web sites may
What we’ll cover:
• What is (and isn’t) information architecture
• Why information architecture is important
• The value of explaining and illustrating IA concepts
4 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
remind us of buildings that fail: houses with flat roofs that leak, kitchens with no
counter space, office towers with windows you can’t open, and mazelike airports
with misleading signs.
Bad buildings and bad web sites share similar architectural roots. First, many architects
don’t inhabit the structures they design. They don’t fully understand the needs
of their customers, and they’re not around to suffer the long-term consequences of
poor decisions. Second, creating structures to stand the test of time is really difficult.
Needs change. Surprises are the rule. The desire for stability must be balanced
against the value of flexibility and scalability. Architects are often faced with complex
requirements, competing goals, and high levels of ambiguity. Transforming this
chaos into order is extremely hard work that requires rare vision and perspective.
However, as designers of web sites, we should not become trapped by the metaphor
of building architecture. Throughout this book, we’ll also talk about information
ecologies, knowledge economies, digital libraries, and virtual communities. We learn
what we can from each analogy, and we leave the baggage behind.
A Definition
If you’re new to the field, you may still be wondering: what exactly is information
architecture? This section is for you.
in•for•ma•tion ar•chi•tec•ture n.
1. The structural design of shared information environments.
2. The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within
web sites and intranets.
3. The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support
usability and findability.
4. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of
design and architecture to the digital landscape.
Were you expecting a single definition? Something short and sweet? A few words
that succinctly capture the essence and expanse of the field of information architecture?
Keep dreaming!
The reason we can’t serve up a single, all-powerful, all-purpose definition is a clue to
understanding why it’s so hard to design good web sites. We’re talking about the
challenges inherent in language and representation. No document fully and accurately
represents the intended meaning of its author. No label or definition totally
captures the meaning of a document. And no two readers experience or understand a
particular document or definition or label in quite the same way. The relationship
between words and meaning is tricky at best.*
* For a humorous perspective on the trickiness of the English language, see Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue:
English & How It Got That Way (William Morrow).
A Definition | 5
We’ll now descend from our philosophical soapbox and get down to basics. Let’s
expand on our definitions to explore some basic concepts of information architecture.
Information
We use the term information to distinguish information architecture from data
and knowledge management. Data is facts and figures. Relational databases are
highly structured and produce specific answers to specific questions. Knowledge
is the stuff in people’s heads. Knowledge managers develop tools, processes, and
incentives to encourage people to share that stuff. Information exists in the
messy middle. With information systems, there’s often no single “right” answer
to a given question. We’re concerned with information of all shapes and sizes:
web sites, documents, software applications, images, and more. We’re also concerned
with metadata: terms used to describe and represent content objects such
as documents, people, processes, and organizations.
Structuring, organizing, and labeling
It’s what information architects do best. Structuring involves determining the
appropriate levels of granularity* for the information “atoms” in your site, and
deciding how to relate them to one another. Organizing involves grouping those
components into meaningful and distinctive categories. Labeling means figuring
out what to call those categories and the series of navigation links that lead to
them.
Finding and managing
Findability is a critical success factor for overall usability. If users can’t find what
they need through some combination of browsing, searching, and asking, then
the site fails. But user-centered design isn’t enough. The organizations and people
who manage information are important, too. An information architecture
must balance the needs of users with the goals of the business. Efficient content
management and clear policies and procedures are essential.
Art and science
Disciplines such as usability engineering and ethnography are helping to bring
the rigor of the scientific method to the analysis of users’ needs and informationseeking
behaviors. We’re increasingly able to study patterns of usage and subsequently
make improvements to our web sites. But the practice of information
architecture will never be reduced to numbers; there’s too much ambiguity and
complexity. Information architects must rely on experience, intuition, and creativity.
We must be willing to take risks and trust our intuition. This is the “art”
of information architecture.
* Granularity refers to the relative size or coarseness of information chunks. Varying levels of granularity might
include: journal issue, article, paragraph, and sentence.
6 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
Tablets, Scrolls, Books, and Libraries
Humans have been structuring, organizing, and labeling information for centuries.
Back in 660 B.C., an Assyrian king had his clay tablets organized by subject. In 330
B.C., the Alexandria Library housed a 120-scroll bibliography. In 1873, Melvil
Dewey conceived the Dewey Decimal System as a tool to organize and provide access
to the growing number of books.
In modern times, most of us become familiar with the basics of information organization
through our experiences with books and libraries. Table 1-1 shows how the
concepts of information architecture (IA) apply to the world of print and the World
Wide Web.
As we go beyond books to collections of books, the comparisons become even more
interesting. Imagine a bookstore with no organization scheme. Thousands of books
are simply tossed into huge piles on table tops. Such a bookstore does, in fact, exist:
Gould’s Book Arcade in Newtown, Australia. It’s shown in Figure 1-1.
Table 1-1. Differences between books and web sites
IA concept Books Web sites
Components Cover, title, author, chapters, sections, pages,
page numbers, table of contents, index
Main page, navigation bar, links, content pages,
sitemap, site index, search
Dimensions Two-dimensional pages presented in a linear,
sequential order
Multidimensional information space with hypertextual
navigation
Boundaries Tangible and finite with a clear beginning and
ending
Fairly intangible with fuzzy borders that “bleed”
information into other sites
Figure 1-1. Gould’s Book Arcade (image courtesy of Seth Gordon)
Tablets, Scrolls, Books, and Libraries | 7
From a philosophical perspective, you might feel that this casual jumble of books
represents a refreshing break from the rigid structures of everyday life. And this
bookstore really can provide a wonderful browsing experience filled with adventure
and serendipity. But if you arrive seeking a specific book or if you have a particular
author or topic in mind, you’re almost guaranteed to have a long and painful needlein-the-haystack
experience.
Compare the chaos of this bookstore to the order of a library (see Figure 1-2). Even
on the surface, the contrast is like night and day. But look deeper and you’ll see that
a library is more than a warehouse for books, magazines, and music. There are complex
systems and well-trained professionals operating behind the scenes to select,
evaluate, label, describe, structure, and organize the collection so that users of the
library can find what they need. And though the library’s information environment is
highly structured, the subject-oriented approaches of the Dewey Decimal and
Library of Congress classification schemes also support exploratory browsing and
serendipity.
In short, a major way that libraries and librarians add value to printed materials is by
placing them within the framework of an information architecture that facilitates
access to those materials. Information architects perform a similar role, but we typically
do it within the context of web sites and digital content. Of course, there are
major differences between libraries and web sites. Table 1-2 shows just a few.
Figure 1-2. Browsing in a library (image courtesy of http://intergate.sdmesa.sdccd.cc.ca.us/lrc/
stacks.jpg)
Table 1-2. Differences between libraries and web sites
IA Concepts Libraries Web sites
Purpose Provideaccesstoawell-definedcollectionof
formally published content.
Provide access to content, sell products, enable transactions,
facilitate collaboration, and on and on...
Heterogeneity Diverse collections with books, magazines,
music, software, databases, and files.
Huge diversity of media types, document types, and
file formats.
Centralization Highly centralized operations, often within
one or a few physical library buildings.
Often very decentralized operations, with subsites
maintained independently.
8 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
Developing an information architecture for a library presents many challenges, but a
library is a relatively well-defined environment, and there is much collective experience
and wisdom to draw upon. Web sites, on the other hand, present an array of
new challenges. Virtual spaces are more flexible than physical spaces and can therefore
be more complex. And at this point, we have precious few guidelines for creating
information architectures for digital spaces.
Obviously, we’ve made some gross generalizations in these comparisons, and have
oversimplified to illustrate key points. As you try to communicate information architecture
concepts to others, you’ll probably have to do the same.
Explaining IA to Others
One of the most frustrating things about being an information architect is the fact
that most of your family members and neighbors will never have a clue what you do.
The more you try to explain it, the more confused or bored they become. Their eyes
glaze over. They nod politely. Then comes the desperate attempt to change the subject.
“Hey, speaking of information architecture, did you hear tomorrow’s weather
report?”
Friends and relatives aren’t the only tough audience. Sometimes you have to sell the
concept to colleagues, clients, or managers. Each audience presents its own set of
challenges. There’s no magic bullet, but it’s helpful to be prepared with an “elevator
pitch” and an analogy suited to your particular audience.
The elevator pitch explains what you do in a sentence or two of plain language. If
you can combine an analogy that resonates with your audience, even better!
Here are a few approaches to try out:
• “I’m an information architect. I organize huge amounts of information on big
web sites and intranets so that people can actually find what they’re looking for.
Think of me as an Internet librarian.”
• “I’m an information architect. I help my company by making it easy for customers
to find our products on our web site. I’m a kind of online merchandiser. I
apply one-to-one marketing concepts on the Internet.”
• “I’m an information architect. I’m the one who takes on that information overload
problem that everyone’s been complaining about lately.”
Sometimes we’re too close to what we do. That’s when it’s a good idea to call for
help. Ask someone who’s familiar with you and your job to describe what you do in
one or two sentences. Often you’ll be amazed by how well they nail it, and grateful
for their clarity and brevity.
What Isn’t Information Architecture? | 9
What Isn’t Information Architecture?
One of the most effective ways to define something is to identify its boundaries. We
do this all the time. This is my property. That’s your property. This is England.
That’s Scotland. She’s a brain surgeon. He’s an ophthalmologist.
Sometimes it’s very easy to explain the differences. Mammals breathe with their
lungs and give birth to live young. Dogs, cats, dolphins, and humans are all clearly
mammals. Fish live in water, breathe with their gills, and lay eggs. Salmon, bass, and
guppies are all clearly fish.
But as with many classifications, you quickly run into problems. What about fish
with lungs? What about fish that don’t look like fish? Are sharks, skates, eels, and
sea horses really fish? (Yes, they are.) And where do we put that darned platypus?*
Biological taxonomists have argued about these classification issues for centuries.
Mapping the boundaries of information architecture is even more slippery. Some
things are clearly not information architecture:
• Graphic design is NOT information architecture.
• Software development is NOT information architecture.
• Usability engineering is NOT information architecture.
Makes sense, right? But as soon as you start working within the messy reality of web
site design and construction, you find yourself in the gray areas between disciplines.
For example, consider the ubiquitous global navigation bars in Figure 1-3.
The navigation bars feature labels and links that lead to other sections and pages
within the web site. These labels are dependent upon the underlying structure and
categorization of the site. The creation of categories and choice of labels fall clearly
inside the domain of information architecture.
* To find out, read The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination, by Harriet
Ritvo (Harvard University Press).
Figure 1-3. Top and bottom navigation bars on the United Nations web site
10 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
But wait a second. What about the look and feel of the navigation bar? What about
the choice of colors, images, font styles, and sizes? Now we enter the realms of
graphic design, interaction design, and information design. And what if a designer
challenges the labels proposed by an information architect? Perhaps those labels are
too long to fit on the navigation bar. What happens then?
What if the information architect wants a search link on the navigation bar, but the
software developer says that adding a search capability to the web site is too expensive
and time-consuming? And what if the usability engineer says that user tests indicated
there are too many options on the navigation bar? What happens then?
These are the questions and challenges that live in the gray areas between disciplines.
These gray areas drive some people crazy. Lots of heated arguments have resulted from
attempts to draw clear lines. We believe the gray areas are necessary and valuable. They
force interdisciplinary collaboration, which ultimately results in a better product.
Gray areas and caveats aside, here is our attempt to draw some boundaries between
information architecture and a number of closely related disciplines.
Graphic design
Traditionally, a graphic designer was responsible for all aspects of visual communication,
from the design of corporate logos and identities to the layout of
individual pages. On the Web, we’re seeing increasing specialization due to the
complexity of the environment. Even so, many graphic designers do a great deal
of information architecture as part of their work.
Interaction design
Interaction designers are concerned with the behavior of tasks and processes that
users encounter in software and information systems at the interface level. They
often have a background in human–computer interaction, and are focused on
helping users successfully achieve goals and complete tasks.
Usability engineering
Usability engineers understand how to apply the rigors of the scientific method
to user research, testing, and analysis. Their background in human–computer
interaction and their experience observing users provide them with useful
insights into design. They are often concerned with testing all aspects of the user
experience, inclusive of information architecture and graphic design.
Experience design
Experience design is an umbrella term that encompasses information architecture,
usability engineering, graphic design, and interaction design as components
of the holistic user experience. You’ll find relatively few “experience
designers,” as there aren’t many people with skills in all these areas. The term is
useful insofar as it encourages cross-disciplinary awareness and collaboration.
Software development
People rarely confuse software development and information architecture, but the
two fields are highly interdependent. Information architects rely on developers to
Why Information Architecture Matters | 11
bring our ideas to fruition. Developers help us understand what is and isn’t possible.
And as the Web continues to blur the distinction between software applications
and information systems, these collaborations will become even more
important.
Enterprise architecture
In the 80s and 90s, a movement calling itself enterprise architecture arose in the
information systems discipline. While the early stages of this movement were
focused on data and system integration, later definitions have encompassed business,
process, information, and technology architecture.
Content management
Content management and information architecture are really two sides of the
same coin. IA portrays a “snapshot” or spatial view of an information system,
while CM describes a temporal view by showing how information should flow
into, around, and out of that same system over time. Content managers deal
with issues of content ownership and the integration of policies, processes, and
technologies to support a dynamic publishing environment.
Knowledge management
Knowledge managers develop tools, policies, and incentives to encourage people
to share what they know. Creating a collaborative knowledge environment
means tackling tough issues surrounding corporate culture such as “information
hoarding” and “not-invented-here syndrome.” Information architects focus
more on making accessible what has already been captured.
Why Information Architecture Matters
You now understand what information architecture is and what it isn’t. So, why is it
important? Why should you care? Why should your company or your clients invest
time and money in the design of their information architectures? What is the return
on investment (ROI)?
We’ll tackle these tough questions in detail later in the book, but for now, let’s hit
the highlights without getting bogged down in subtleties. When you calculate the
importance of information architecture to your organization, you should consider
the following costs and value propositions:
The cost of finding information
What does it cost if every employee in your company spends an extra five minutes
per day struggling to find answers on your intranet?* What is the cost of
frustrating your customers with a poorly organized web site?
* Jakob Nielsen deserves credit for publicizing the fact that the costs of poor navigation-system design in a
large enterprise can add up to millions of dollars of lost employee productivity.
12 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
The cost of not finding information
How many bad decisions are made every day in your organization because
employees didn’t find the information they needed? How much duplication of
effort results from this disconnect? How many customers do you lose because
they can’t find the product they want on your web site? How much do you
spend every day providing telephone support to existing customers because they
hate navigating your online technical-support database?
The value of education
What is the value of educating your customers about new products and services
related to the ones they’re actively seeking on your web site?
The cost of construction
What does it cost to design and build a web site? How much does it cost to redo
it six months later because it doesn’t support findability or doesn’t scale?
The cost of maintenance
Similarly, what does it cost to ensure that good designs don’t crumble over time?
Will the people who maintain your site know where to put new content and
when to remove outdated content?
The cost of training
For internal, mission-critical information systems that support call centers, for
example, what does it cost to train employees to use that system? How much
could you save if it wasn’t so complicated to use?
The value of brand
No matter how beautiful your web site is, if customers can’t find what they
need, your brand loses value in their eyes. How much did you spend on those
brand-building TV commercials?
And the list goes on. In your particular situation, there are sure to be a whole slew of
opportunities to make money, save money, improve employee or customer satisfaction,
or just plain make the world a better place. Figure out what they are and communicate
them as clearly and directly as possible.
We’re not saying this is easy. In fact, it’s very difficult to calculate an exact return on
an information architecture investment—there are simply too many variables. This is
really no different from most other areas of activity within the business world. It’s
just that people in more traditional areas like sales, marketing, engineering, human
resources, and administration have had more time to get their stories straight.
Bringing Our Work to Life
Information architecture lives beneath the surface. Users rarely look at a web site and
exclaim, “Wow, check out this brilliant classification scheme!” In fact, much of our
work is intangible; many people who are directly involved in web design have only a
superficial understanding of information architecture. They may recognize the need
Bringing Our Work to Life | 13
for clear labels in a navigation bar, but have no clue how a controlled vocabulary
could improve the search experience. If you can’t see it, touch it, taste it, or smell it,
it doesn’t exist.
This invisibility is fine with respect to users. We don’t want to force users to see our
hard work; we want them to complete tasks and find information in blissful ignorance
of our labors. But invisibility is a major problem when it comes to justifying
our existence to colleagues and making the case for investments to decision makers.
We must constantly work to help people see the complexity of the challenges we face
and the long-term value of our solutions.
We must find ways to articulate the key concepts of our craft, helping people to
understand the sophisticated nature of user needs and behavior. We must show the
interconnections between people and content that underpin knowledge networks,
and explain how these concepts can be applied to transform static web sites into
complex adaptive systems (Figure 1-4*).
Figure 1-4. Information architecture concepts
* This series of images was designed by Myra Messing Klarman of Studio Mobius (http://studiomobius.com).
Concepts
Context
Content Users
Complex systems
Interface
Information architecture
Invisible work
Knowledge networks Information seeking behavior
Search
Ask
Browse
14 | Chapter 1: Defining Information Architecture
We must be prepared to dive into detail, identifying and defining the component systems
that support our sites (Figure 1-5). We must show how semantic networks can
provide a foundation for fluid navigation. And we must convince our clients and colleagues
that an effective searching experience requires not just a good engine or a
nice interface, but a carefully integrated system of interdependent parts.
Finally, we must be ready to produce concrete deliverables (Figure 1-6). We must
learn to render our constructs of semantics and structure in clear and compelling
ways. In short, we must help people to see the invisible.
In this book, we explain the concepts, systems, and deliverables of information architecture.
By drawing upon words, stories, metaphors, and images, we’ve done our
best to bring our work to life. However, no single collection of words and images can
serve all purposes. A key to the craft of information architecture is understanding
how to shape your message for your audience. This requires some sense of what your
managers, clients, and colleagues want to hear and how they want to hear it.
Did we mention that information architecture involves a little magic? How else
would you read minds and make the invisible visible? So put on a black hat, bring
along your sense of humor, and prepare to enter the secret society of information
architects.
Figure 1-5. Information architecture systems
Broader
Searching systems
Systems
Query languages
Query builders
Metadata
Controlled vocabulary
Ranking and clustering
algorithms
Interface design
User’s
Query
Search
interface
Search
engine Content Results
User will ask,browse,or search again
until they succeed or give up
Navigation systems Semantic networks
Global navigation
Contextual
navigation
Localnavigation
Narrower
Synonym Acronym
Related Related
Bringing Our Work to Life | 15
Figure 1-6. Information architecture deliverables
Accepted term
Blueprints
Metadata schemaControlled vocabularies
Variant terms
Email Electronic mail
E-mail
Fax Facsimile
Photocopier Copier
Photostat
Xerox
Logo Ad
Holiday Sale
Welcome
Search
Browse
Recommended
New
Your Store Books Music Games
Wireframes
Deliverables
16
Chapter 2CHAPTER 2
Practicing Information Architecture 2
What is information architecture? Is it an art, a science, or a craft? Who should do
this work? What qualifications are required? These are the questions we grapple with
as a community of information architects. We write articles and publish books. We
debate on discussion lists and argue passionately at conferences. We pull out our
hair. We lose sleep. This is serious stuff.
And yet, independent of our intellectual theories and existential agonies, something
very powerful is taking place. We are being surrounded, quite literally, by information
architecture.
Have you ever walked through Times Square in New York City at night? It’s quite a
spectacle. You’re on the corner of 42nd and Broadway. The glassy facades of buildings
are pulsing with real-time information, courtesy of the latest in flat-panel display
and projection technologies. Business news, financial data, corporate logos, and
URLs are lit up in neon. Taxicabs sport billboards on their roofs as they honk their
way through traffic. Pedestrians (or shall we say “users”) hustle past one another,
chattering into their cell phones or stopping on the corner to check email or get
directions on their wireless PDAs. This is William Gibson’s cyberspace turned inside
out, physical architecture meets information architecture, a world of content, labels,
and metadata all competing for your attention.*
What we’ll cover:
• Information architecture is everywhere
• Whether the world needs information architects
• Qualifications and source disciplines for information architects
• Information ecologies and their impact on the practice of information
architecture
* See the Flickr photo pool “Everyday Information Architecture”: http://www.flickr.com/groups/everyday-
information-architecture/pool.
Do We Need Information Architects? | 17
And that’s nothing compared to the real cyberspace, a new reality where we spend
increasing amounts of time. How many hours do you spend staring at a computer
monitor each day? How often do you check email or pop open your web browser?
When your Internet connection is broken, how do you feel?
The World Wide Web has lived up to its name. It has connected and transformed
the world. Want to know what’s going on? Check out nytimes.com, bbc.co.uk, or
your favorite blogs. Planning a trip? orbitz.com and kayak.com will meet your every
need. Having trouble with your green iguana? No need to leave the house. You’ll
find the answer at iguana.com.
Billions of web pages have sprung up since the Web began. And guess what? Information
architects played no role in designing most of them. This has been an emergent,
bottom-up, grass-roots phenomenon. But every single web site that exists does have an
information architecture. They’re riddled with labels and taxonomies, vocabularies and
metadata, sitemaps and indexes. There are portals linking to portals linking to search
engines. Pure navigation. Some is good. Much of it isn’t. We can critique it and we can
make fun of it, but we can’t stop it. Information architecture happens!
Do We Need Information Architects?
Since information architecture happens anyway, does the world really need information
architects? If you’ve attended any of the IA Summits* in recent years, you know
this has been a hot topic. A few speakers in particular have stirred the pot. Andrew
Dillon is fond of saying, “I know we need information architecture. I’m not so sure
we need information architects.” And Peter Merholz suggests that “we need to teach
everyone to do information architecture, rather than isolating the practice to a handful
of professionals.”
We have to give credit to the information architecture community for having the guts
to ask these questions in public. But we’d like to respond with a firm assertion that
we absolutely do need information architects. We’re not too particular about the specific
job title; if you prefer to call them user-experience designers, knowledge managers,
or findability engineers, that’s fine with us. What we’re focused on is the need
for professionals with specialized skills and experience, who know how to create useful,
usable information systems within massively complex environments.
Programmers and graphic designers are great at what they do. They’re not great at
what we do. And information architecture design is not a skill you can pick up by
taking a half-day seminar. There’s real depth to the discipline. Information architecture
resembles the games of Othello and Go. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
* Sponsored by the American Society for Information Science & Technology, the Information Architecture
Summit is held in February or March each year. Learn more on the IA Summit web site: http://iasummit.org.
18 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
Does this mean that all web developers will need a licensed information architect on
board before they write their first line of code? Of course not. Information architecture
happens, with or without information architects, and that’s just fine with us.
That’s why Peter Merholz is right to emphasize the vital role information architects
must play in education. We can have a major positive impact on the world by sharing
what we know with all those people who do information architecture in the
course of doing something else.
But the most important and complex information environments already rely on professional
information architects. Large organizations like IBM, Microsoft, and Vanguard
already have teams of information architects dedicated to the long-term strategy
and design of their web sites and intranets. Smaller organizations tend to involve
information architects in a consulting capacity during a site redesign. This allows the
information architect to make a major contribution without breaking the bank.
This selective use of expertise is not isolated to the field of information architecture;
in fact, it is quite common. Consider, for example, the practice of law. A huge percentage
of legal decisions are made every day by business managers rather than by
their lawyers.
Manager #1: “Should we approve this nondisclosure agreement?”
Manager #2: “Yes, that’s fine. It’s no big deal. Let’s move on.”
Most companies don’t have lawyers on staff. They get lawyers involved when the situation
is particularly messy, complex, or important. The same happens and will continue
to happen with information architects.
In fact, as web sites and intranets become more sophisticated and mission-critical,
the demand for information architects will only rise. This demand will be partly offset
as other professionals learn the basics of information architecture. Our responsibility
as information architects will be to continue to push the envelope, to learn how
to do what we do faster and better, and then to share our knowledge and experience
with those around us. We all have so much to learn and so much to do. We fully
expect information architects to be very busy for at least the next few hundred years.
Who’s Qualified to Practice Information Architecture?
Unlike medicine and law, the field of information architecture has no official certification
process. There are no university consortia, boards, or exams that can prevent
you from practicing information architecture. As we explain in Chapter 13, a number
of academic programs are emerging to serve the needs of prospective information
architects, but for now very few people have a degree in information
architecture.
Who’s Qualified to Practice Information Architecture? | 19
Disciplinary Backgrounds
As you look over this list, you might not find your home discipline listed. Don’t be
daunted: any field focused on information and its use is a good source of information
architects. And the field is still young enough that just about anyone will have to rely on
experience from the School of Hard Knocks to practice IA effectively and confidently.
If you’re looking for IA talent, keep in mind that, because the field is relatively new
and because demand for information architects continues to explode, you can’t just
post a job description and expect a flock of competent and experienced candidates to
show up on your doorstep. Instead, you’ll need to actively recruit, outsource, or perhaps
become the information architect for your organization.
Of course, if you are looking for someone else to fill this role, you might consider the
following disciplines as sources for information architects. If you’re on your own, it
might not be a bad thing to learn a little bit about each of these disciplines yourself.
In either case, remember that no single discipline is the obvious source for information
architects. Each presents its own strengths and weaknesses.
OK, on to the list:
Graphic design and information design
Many of the people who have written about and practice information architecture
are graphic designers by training. This is not surprising, as both graphic
design and information design involve much more than creating pretty pictures.
These professions are geared more toward creating relationships between visual
elements and determining how those elements can be integrated as a whole to
communicate more effectively.
Information and library science
Our backgrounds in information science and librarianship have proven very useful
in dealing with the relationships between pages and other elements that make
up a whole site. Librarians have a long history of organizing and providing
access to information and are trained to work with searching, browsing, and
indexing technologies. Forward-looking librarians understand that their expertise
applies in new arenas far beyond the library walls.
Journalism
Journalists, like librarians, are trained at organizing information, but in a setting
that places special emphasis on timeliness. If your web site is geared toward
delivering dynamic information, such as a news service or online magazine,
someone with a background in journalism might have a great sense of how this
information could be best organized and delivered. Because of their writing
experience, journalists are also good candidates for architecting sites that will
have high levels of edited content.
20 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
Usability engineering
Usability engineers are experts at testing and evaluating how people work with
systems. These human–computer interaction professionals measure such criteria
as how long it takes users to learn how to use a system, how long it takes
them to complete tasks and find answers, and how many errors they make along
the way. Of all the disciplines we list, usability engineering is probably the most
scientific in its view of users and the quality of their experiences.
Marketing
Marketing specialists are expert at understanding audiences and communicating
messages effectively. They are particularly valuable in the design of customerfacing
web sites, where product sales and brand are critical to success. Marketing
expertise can ensure that the message is presented in the language of the target
audience. We’ve run into a number of “online merchandisers” who have
become expert information architects.
Computer science
Programmers and software developers bring important skills and sensitivities to
information architecture, especially to “bottom-up” processes. For example,
developers are often excellent at modeling content and metadata for inclusion in
a database or content management system. They’re also great at figuring out
how all of the component systems and technologies of an information architecture
fit together.
Technical writing
Professionals who have spent time writing technical documentation or developing
online help systems are often well-sensitized to both the needs of users and
the potential for structuring, labeling, and describing textual content.
Architecture
While the transition from bricks and mortar to bits and bytes is obviously a big
move, we actually know quite a few building architects turned information
architects. These folks tend to have a great deal of experience studying people’s
needs and seeking behaviors, and an excellent foundation in the concepts and
challenges surrounding strategy and design.
Product management
Many information architects play the role of “orchestra conductor.” They understand
how to tap the motivations and talents of a diverse group of professionals,
creating a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. People with a background
in product, program, or project management can become very effective
information architects, particularly in the areas of strategy formation and interdisciplinary
team management.
...And many more
This list is far from comprehensive. There are dozens of established fields from
which we can learn (see Figure 2-1). No list or picture will ever capture the true
diversity of practicing information architects.
Who’s Qualified to Practice Information Architecture? | 21
Innies and Outies
When staffing an information architecture project, it’s also worth considering tradeoffs
between insider and outsider perspectives. On one hand, there’s value in having
an information architect who can think as an “outsider,” take a fresh look at the site,
and be sensitive to the needs of users without being weighed down by internal political
baggage. On the other hand, an “insider” can really understand the organization’s
goals, content, and audiences, and will also be around for the long haul,
helping to design, implement, and manage the solution.
Because it’s difficult to choose between these two perspectives, many intelligent
organizations put together a balanced team of consultants and employees. The consultants
often help with major strategy and design initiatives, and provide highly specialized
varieties of IA consulting, while the employees provide continuity as projects
transition into programs. Even if you’re the lone in-house information architect, you
should seek to work with outies—whether by convincing management to hire consultants
or specialists for you to collaborate with, or simply by hanging out with and
learning from other IAs at local meetups and conferences.
Really, the fact that both innies and outies are flourishing is a sign of the field’s maturation:
in IA’s early years (coinciding with this book’s first edition), most practitioners
were outies, working at agencies and consultancies. After the bubble burst (see the second
edition), many of us ran for cover in the security of working in-house, often assisting
with the implementation and customization of large applications like CMS and
search engines. And now, as our third edition comes out, the field is in balance—there
Figure 2-1. Information system design in the Web era (designed with help from Jess McMullin)
Established fields
(Providetools,techniques,experience,
credibility,heritage)
Marketing
Web era
information system design
(Newinterdisciplinaryfields
providedunifiedmethodand
waysofthinking)
Industrial design
Information
science Indexing
Librarianship
MerchandisingEthnography
Anthropology
Cognitive
psychology
Human factors
Human-
computer
interaction
Usability
engineering
Sociology
Organizational
behavior
Management
Business analysis Artificial intelligence
Project management
Systems engineering
Software engineering
Computer science
Programming
Database
administration
Object modeling
Interface design
Markup
languages
Graphic design
Writing and
editing
Journalism
Technical
communication
Abstracting
User experience
Information architecture
Experience design
Info design
Interaction design
Knowledge management
Content management
Customer relationship
management
22 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
is room for both innies and outies, and a symbiotic relationship exists between them.
It’s truly indicative of a healthy profession, and good insurance against the vagaries of
the next sudden economic downturn. We’re not going away.
Gap Fillers and Trench Warriors
IA’s early practitioners got their jobs by taking on work that no one else wanted or
realized existed. Structuring information? Indexing it? Making it findable? Even if
these tasks sounded appealing, few had the vocabulary, much less the skills, to address
them. So stone-age information architects were, by definition, natural gap fillers who
often tackled these tasks out of opportunism or simply because someone had to.
Over the past five or seven years, the field has matured and the practice of IA has
solidified. What an information architect does is now much better understood and
documented; you’ll even detect a whiff of standardization among job descriptions. In
effect, IA has moved from the exotic to the everyday, and more and more the people
filling those roles are heads-down crack experts in the nuts-and-bolts of IA practices.
These are the information architects that you’ll want and need down in the trenches,
grinding out an information architecture amid the guts and gore of your organization’s
users, content, and context. These trench warriors aren’t pioneers, but providers
of an important commodity service.
Of course, as trench warriors began to take over, gap fillers didn’t disappear. They
saw other opportunities that needed filling—only this time, the gaps popped up in
the field of IA itself, rather than within specific teams or organizations. Information
architects are now making livings as independent consultants, often working in such
specialized areas such as taxonomy development, or as user experience team leaders,
or as teachers and trainers for in-house IAs. Increasingly, many of us have become
independent entrepreneurs who are developing own IA-infused products and services;
there are always new gaps to be filled.
As the field continues its healthy evolution, gap fillers and trench warriors will continue
to fill changing roles. Whether you’re looking to staff your team, hire a consultant,
or determine if IA is in your future, it’s important to know that the field is now
large and healthy enough to accommodate many personality types.
Putting It All Together
Whether you’re looking to become an information architect or hire one, keep this in
mind: everyone (including the authors) is biased by their disciplinary perspective. If
at all possible, try to ensure that various disciplines are represented on your web site
development team to guarantee a balanced architecture.
Additionally, no matter what your perspective, the information architect ideally
should be responsible solely for the site’s architecture, not for its other aspects. It can
be overly distracting to have to deal with other, more tangible aspects of the site,
such as its graphic identity or programming. In that case, the site’s architecture can
Information Architecture Specialists | 23
easily, if unintentionally, get relegated to second-class status because you’ll be concentrating,
naturally, on the more visible and tangible stuff.
However, in the case of smaller organizations, limited resources mean that all or
most aspects of the site’s development—design, editorial, technical, architecture,
and production—are likely to be the responsibility of one person. Our best advice for
someone in this position is obvious but still worth considering. First, find a group of
friends and colleagues who are willing to be a sounding board for your ideas. Second,
practice a sort of controlled schizophrenia in which you make a point to look at
your site from different perspectives: first from the architect’s, then from the
designer’s, and so on. And look for company among others who are suffering similar
psychoses; consider joining the Information Architecture Institute* and attending the
annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit.
Information Architecture Specialists
These general discussions about the role, value, and qualifications of information
architects are worthwhile but incomplete. The community of information architects
is experiencing what evolutionary biologists call a period of “punctuated equilibrium,”
marked by rapid change and specialization.
Particularly in large organizations, people who began as all-purpose information
architects are gravitating towards specialized niches that match their strengths to
their organization’s needs. Here are just a few of the titles that already exist:
• Thesaurus Designer
• Search Schema Content Editor
• Metadata Specialist
• Content Manager
• Information Architecture Strategist
• Manager, Information Architecture
• Director, User Experience
There are so many possible variations and so many different facets. For example,
information architects can specialize by:
• Industry lines (e.g., financial services, automotive)
• Functional department (e.g., human resources, engineering, marketing)
• Type of system (e.g., intranets, web sites, extranets, online magazines, digital
libraries, software, online communities)
• Audience (e.g., small business owners, elementary school teachers, rocket scientists,
teenagers, grandparents)
* Information Architecture Institute: http://www.iainstitute.org.
24 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
Finally, much IA work is centered on making large-scale applications work as advertised.
So many information architects find their specializations centered on a variety
of tools, most commonly:
• Content management systems
• Search engines
• Portals
As our use of networked information environments grows, the possibilities for specialization
are unlimited and unpredictable. We’re watching evolution in fast-forward.
This is part of what makes it so much fun to be part of the information architecture
community.
Practicing Information Architecture in the Real World
Users. Content. Context. You’ll hear these three words again and again throughout
this book. They form the basis of our model for practicing effective information
architecture design. Underlying this model is a recognition that you can’t design useful
information architectures in a vacuum. An architect can’t huddle in a dark room
with a bunch of content, organize it, and emerge with a grand solution. It simply
won’t hold up against the light of day.
Web sites and intranets are not lifeless, static constructs. Rather, there is a dynamic,
organic nature to both the information systems and the broader environments in
which they exist. This is not the old world of yellowing cards in a library card catalog.
We’re talking complex, adaptive systems with emergent qualities. We’re talking
rich streams of information flowing within and beyond the borders of departments,
business units, institutions, and countries. We’re talking messiness and mistakes,
trial and error, survival of the fittest.
We use the concept of an “information ecology”* composed of users, content, and
context to address the complex dependencies that exist. And we draw upon our
trusty Venn diagram (see Figure 2-2) to help people visualize and understand these
relationships. The three circles illustrate the interdependent nature of users, content,
and context within a complex, adaptive information ecology.
In short, we need to understand the business goals behind the web site and the
resources available for design and implementation. We need to be aware of the nature
and volume of content that exists today and how that might change a year from now.
And we must learn about the needs and information-seeking behaviors of our major
audiences. Good information architecture design is informed by all three areas.
* For more about information ecologies, read Information Ecology by Thomas Davenport and Lawrence Prusak
(Oxford University Press, USA) and Information Ecologies by Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O’Day (MIT
Press). Nardi and O’Day define an information ecology as “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies
in a particular local environment.”
Practicing Information Architecture in the Real World | 25
Is this an oversimplified view of reality? Yes. Is it still useful? Absolutely. We’ve been
using this model for over 10 years. It’s held up well in all sorts of environments, from
global web sites of Fortune 100 corporations to standalone intranet applications
within small nonprofits. More importantly, we find these three circles incredibly
helpful whenever we’re confronted by a difficult question. After mouthing the trusty
phrase “It depends”—as all smart information architects do—we develop our answer
by deconstructing the question into three parts that coincide with our three circles.
For example, when asked what are the most important qualities that an information
architect should have, the answer becomes quite simple: some knowledge of users and
their needs (which might come from exposure to human–computer interaction and a
variety of other fields), content (think technical communication and journalism), and
context (read a book on organizational psychology).
The three circles help with other tough questions, too, such as:
• What research and evaluation methods should information architects be familiar
with?
• What’s the ideal education for an information architect?
• What kinds of people should be part of an information architecture team?
• What kinds of books and blogs should I read to keep up with the field and its
practice?
• What should go into the IA strategy that I propose to my new prospect?
The answer to each starts with a balance among the three areas: users, content, and
context.
Should technology have its own circle? Maybe. But we find that technology usually
gets too much attention—and it would look silly to add a fourth circle.
Incidentally, we think it’s important for information architects to have a good sense
of humor. Perhaps you’ve already figured this out. The work we do involves high levels
of abstraction, ambiguity, and occasionally absurdity, and to some degree we’re
all still making it up as we go along. A good information architect knows how to get
the work done while having some fun along the way.
Figure 2-2. The infamous three circles of information architecture
Context
Content Users
Business goals,funding,politics,culture,
technology,resources,and constraints
Audience,tasks,needs,
information seeking
behavior,experience
Document/data types,
content objects,volume,
existing structure
26 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
If there’s one thing that many years of information architecture consulting has taught
us, it’s that every situation is unique. We don’t just mean that web sites are different
from intranets or that extranets should vary by industry. We mean that, like fingerprints
and snowflakes, every information ecology is unique.
The DaimlerChrysler intranet is vastly different from that of Ford or GM. Fidelity,
Vanguard, Schwab, and Etrade have each created unique online financial-service
experiences. Despite all the copycatting, benchmarking, and definitions of industry
best practices that have surged throughout the business world in recent years, each
of these information systems has emerged as quite distinctive.
That’s where our model comes in handy. It’s an excellent tool for learning about the
specific needs and opportunities presented by a particular web site or intranet. Let’s
take a look at how each of our three circles contributes to the emergence of a totally
unique information ecology.
Context
All web sites and intranets exist within a particular business or organizational context.
Whether explicit or implicit, each organization has a mission, goals, strategy,
staff, processes and procedures, physical and technology infrastructure, budget, and
culture. This collective mix of capabilities, aspirations, and resources is unique to
each organization.
Does it then follow that the information architecture of each organization must be
unique? After all, companies buy generic office furniture. They invest in standard
technology platforms. They even outsource important activities to vendors that service
their competitors.
Still, the answer is a resounding yes. Information architectures must be uniquely
matched to their contexts. The vocabulary and structure of your web site and your
intranet is a major component of the evolving conversation between your business
and your customers and employees. It influences how they think about your products
and services. It tells them what to expect from you in the future. It invites or
limits interaction between customers and employees. Your information architecture
provides perhaps the most tangible snapshot of your organization’s mission, vision,
values, strategy, and culture. Do you really want that snapshot to look like that of
your competitor?
As we’ll explain later in more detail, the key to success is understanding and alignment.
First, you need to understand the business context. What makes it unique?
Where is the business today and where does it want to be tomorrow? In many cases,
you’re dealing with tacit knowledge. It’s not written down anywhere; it’s in people’s
heads and has never been put into words. We’ll discuss a variety of methods for
extracting and organizing this understanding of context. Then, you need to find ways
to align the information architecture with the goals, strategy, and culture of the business.
We’ll discuss the approaches and tools that enable this custom configuration.
Practicing Information Architecture in the Real World | 27
Content
We define “content” very broadly to include the documents, applications, services,
schema, and metadata that people need to use or find on your site. To employ a
technical term, it’s the stuff that makes up your site. Our library backgrounds will be
evident here in our bias toward textual information, and that’s not such a bad thing,
given the heavily textual nature of many web sites and intranets. Among other
things, the Web is a wonderful communication tool, and communication is built
upon words and sentences trying to convey meaning. Of course, we also recognize
the Web as a tool for tasks and transactions, a flexible technology platform that supports
buying and selling, calculating and configuring, sorting and simulating. But
even the most task-oriented e-commerce web site has “content” that customers must
be able to find.
As you survey content across a variety of sites, the following facets bubble to the surface
as distinguishing factors of each information ecology.
Ownership
Who creates and owns the content? Is ownership centralized within a content
authoring group or distributed among functional departments? How much content
is licensed from external information vendors? The answers to these questions
play a huge role in influencing the level of control you have over all the
other dimensions.
Format
Web sites and intranets are becoming the unifying means of access to all digital
formats within the organization. Oracle databases, product catalogs, Lotus
Notes discussion archives, technical reports in MS Word, annual reports in PDF,
office-supply purchasing applications, and video clips of the CEO are just a few
of the types of documents, databases, and applications you’ll find on a given site.
Structure
All documents are not created equal. An important memo may be fewer than 100
words. A technical manual may be more than 1,000 pages. Some information systems
are built around the document paradigm, with the fully integrated document
as the smallest discrete unit. Other systems take a content component or digital
asset approach, leveraging some form of structural markup (XML or SGML, for
example) to allow management and access at a finer level of granularity.
Metadata
To what extent has metadata that describes the content and objects within your
site already been created? Have documents been tagged manually or automatically?
What’s the level of quality and consistency? Is there a controlled vocabulary
in place? Or have users been allowed to supply their own “folksonomic”
tags to the content? These factors determine how much you’re starting from
scratch with respect to both information retrieval and content management.
28 | Chapter 2: Practicing Information Architecture
Volume
How much content are we talking about? A hundred applications? A thousand
pages? A million documents? How big is your web site?
Dynamism
What is the rate of growth or turnover? How much new content will be added
next year? And how quickly will it go stale?
All of these dimensions make for a unique mix of content and applications, which in
turn suggests the need for a customized information architecture.
Users
When we worked on the first corporate web site for Borders Books & Music, back in
the mid-90s before Amazon became a household name, we learned a lot about how
customer research and analysis was applied towards the design and architecture of
physical bookstores.
Borders had a clear understanding of how the demographics, aesthetic preferences,
and purchasing behaviors of their customers differed from those of Barnes & Noble.
It is no mistake that the physical layout and the selection of books differ significantly
between these two stores, even within the same town. They are different by design.
And that difference is built upon an understanding of their unique customer or market
segments.
Differences in customer preferences and behaviors within the physical world translate
into different information needs and information-seeking behaviors in the context
of web sites and intranets. For example, senior executives may need to find a few
good documents on a particular topic very quickly. Research analysts may need to
find all the relevant documents and may be willing to spend several hours on the
hunt. Managers may have a high level of industry knowledge but low navigation and
searching proficiency. Teenagers may be new to the subject area but really know how
to handle a search engine.
Do you know who’s using your web site? Do you know how they’re using it? And
perhaps most importantly, do you know what information they want from your site?
These are not questions you can answer in brainstorming meetings or focus groups.
As our friend and fellow information architect Chris Farnum likes to say, you need to
get out there in the real world and study your “users in the mist.”
What Lies Ahead
So, information architecture happens. Information architectures are being created
every day by generalists and specialists, by innies and outies, risk takers and people
who get things done, and by people who’ve never heard the term “information architecture.”
They’re being created inside all manner of information ecologies with
unique combinations of users, content, and context.
What Lies Ahead | 29
Herein lies the dual challenge to the information architecture discipline. As professionals,
we must advance our own understanding and our ability to perform this very
difficult work inside massively complex environments. We still have so much to learn!
And as a community, we must strive to advance the practice of information architecture
by educating those around us who create or influence information architectures
while they’re focused on doing something else. We still have so much to teach!
In any case, we hope we’ve done a good job of setting the stage. Now it’s time to
delve into the guts of information architecture, so roll up your sleeves and dig in.