Customer Reviews

Information First: Integrating Knowledge and Information Architecture for Business Advantage

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When I came across this book I was first delighted. I was hoping for a proper book on Information Architecture. After reading the book, I must say that the book both delivers and disappoints.

On the positive side: it is indeed a book on architecting information for the enterprise (as opposed to structuring a web site). And the focus of the author is on defining and modelling information, information flows and information responsibilities, as opposed to focussing on IT architecture. His "essential eight factors" and some of the checklist are very useful, as are his discussions on using information to drive change and the various types of information responsibilities. Also his vision on the various viewpoints on information that are at the same time different and all true is spot on.

Why is the book disappointing? Well, it is a "what" book and not a "how" book. It contains checklists and procedures, but hardly any information on how to execute those procedures, or what the results should look like. The author states several times that an "information value chain" is an important technique for the information architect, but never shows an example! Most examples that *are* in the book, are too simple and too abstract to be of use. "Understanding" is one of the essential eight factors discussed, but the book itself lacks understandability. Most sentences are very abstract. The book definitly lacked a good editor: someone should have told the author that he probably is very good at his work, but not very good at writing and explaining about it. The author never defines "information architecture" and the part about "integrating knowledge" (as stated in the subtitle on the cover) is completely missing from the book.

I think that the "real" contents of this book can be written down in about 50 pages. It is sad that the author needs another 170 pages to actually hide what he has to tell.