20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat heavy on theory, March 10, 2007
This review is from: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites (Paperback)
What this book does is show you how librarians fit into 21st century. The book does very good promotion of IA itself, and shows why it's important.
The first half of the book is somewhat theoretical and hard to read. However, it's really worth reading. It will explain some concepts (thesaurus, categorization,...) librarians have used for a very long time, and how to easily used them while designing web sites.
The second part is where the book gets more practical and actually shows how to use IA in practice, which was, at least for me, the more interesting part. If you are in any way connected to web development, you should read this book.
The entire book is exactly what it says it is - "Designing large-scale web sites". Although some concepts can be applied to smaller sites, you will hardly find resources to make use of some of the things authors talk about.
There are many books on usability out there, but this one is dedicated to findability. If these terms are new to you, I recommend you read Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" and Jakob Nielsen's "Prioritizing Web Usability" before reading this book. It might make it easier to read, and the book will definitely make more sense to you.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Information for web design!, December 26, 2006
This review is from: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites (Paperback)
What is information architecture? Actually that is a question that I never really knew until I came across this book. Information architecture (as defined by the author) is the structural design of shared information environments. It is the combination of organization, labeling, search and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. IT is also the art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability.
Does that definition make it any clearer? Maybe a little, but basically it means how to properly design the architecture of medium to large websites (kind of).
Unless you're a senior developer of a large company that has a large website, or are in the process of doing so, you probably never had the first hand experience of how to set the foundation of properly displaying large amounts of data to customers.
The beginning of the book the author explains the importance of Information Architects and how one can gain the experience to be one since there is really no degree or certification at this point in time. The author explains the backgrounds one may need to have to gain the necessary knowledge: journalism, library science, product management, technical writing, etc. To be an "AI", does not mean you have a computer background, it means that you have an understanding of how to use information to convey the meaning they are trying to get across to the customer. Indexing data, organizing data, structuring data are some of the tasks that are needed. It seems to me that it is one of the "unknown solders" disciplines in web development, but it is necessary for a successful site design.
The book also discusses the niches of AI that are popping up recently such as:
Metadata Specialist
Content Manager
Director, User Experience
Search Schema Content Editor
The first part of the book focuses on the anatomy of information architecture. The author goes through many web page examples of showing how to visual information architecture. Showing each sites home page and going through categories such as navigation systems, search systems and labeling systems shows you how important small bits of information can convey a particular question to the user.
The questions could be:
How do I get around the site?
What's important and unique about this organization?
What's available on this site?
How can I contact a human?
What's there address?
Later in the book the author describes different browser aids, search aids, content and tasks and invisible components that an AI can use to help the user get the information they need.
Examples would be:
Browser aids:
Sitemaps, site guides, site wizards, contextual navigation systems, local navigation
Search aids:
Search interface, query language, query builders, search zones, search results
Content and tasks:
Headings, embedded links, lists, sequential aids, identifiers
"Invisible" components:
Retrieval algorithms, categorizing data, specific vocabularies
All of these are discussed throughout the book in an easy-to-read manner so that when you design or re-design a site you can keep these in mind if you can't afford to hire an AI yourself.
A really interesting book that makes you re-think the design of your site!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Important to put IA in the design phase of very large websites, January 24, 2007
This review is from: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites (Paperback)
This is the book you need for designing large-scale web sites, where a well-planned information architecture is absolutely essential. In building effective large-scale websites, as in programming large computer applications, much work has to be done in the preliminary design stage. The early design effort of the information architecture is valuable not only in the building of the successful large web site, but for the future maintainability and revision of this web site.
This classic primer is written by pioneers in information architecture and shows information architects, designers, and web site developers how to build large-scale web sites that are easy to navigate and appealing to users. To accommodate the many web site display options available today, the book also addresses how to design for multiple platforms and for mobile devices.
The authors first lay the background for introducing and defining information architecture and for presenting the basic requirements to be good information architects. Information is defined as different than data, different than knowledge and information-seeking behaviors are looked into before delving further into the study of information architecture.
The components of information architecture are then defined as organization systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, and searching systems. Organization systems define how we categorize information; labeling systems define how we represent information; navigation systems define how we browse or move through information; and searching systems tell us how we search information. The study of these components in designing the information architecture of our web site comprises a major part of this book.
Conclusion: In designing large-scale web sites, there are a lot of complex relationships between the information involved, the expected users of the web site, the objects involved, the storage of the objects, the search or browse methods involved, and yet many more subjects. This comprehensive book purports to address all (or most all) of the elements and components of information architecture that need to be addressed in designing a large-scale website so that when the web site is completed, it is an appealing and easy to use and navigate web site that users will enjoy, complete their tasks successfully, find their desired information, and return to the site again and again.
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