User Experience 2008
Chicago
Nov 2-7		 Amsterdam
Nov 16-21

Information Architecture 1: Structure in Context

  • Chicago: Monday, November 3
  • Amsterdam: Monday, November 17

Dan Brown
Full-Day Tutorial

As more people clamor for space on your organization’s website or intranet, you must find an easy way to manage, store, and display information. Ad hoc structures or static navigation systems for Web-based content and services won't do the trick—there's too much information growing too quickly, and there’s too much riding on your site.

Information architecture (IA) offers you a way to order information, and thus help customers and colleagues quickly find what they need. To structure an information space—such as a website—IA incorporates context: How information is used, who uses it, and how it fits into your organization.

In short, IA can save your organization's site from complete chaos. In this seminar, we’ll explore the fundamental IA principles and how you can apply them to different types of projects.

What You’ll Learn

In this course, you’ll learn:

  • How IA can simplify difficult projects
  • How to communicate IA ideas
  • Methods for identifying website navigation
  • Methods for structuring and "tagging" content with meaningful metadata
  • Tricks and techniques used by experienced information architects to get to know customers and businesses
  • Best practices in IA and why they're important
  • New trends in structuring complex information spaces for massive content sites and Web-based applications

Course Outline

  • IA tips, tricks, and techniques
  • Paradox of choice
  • Context through content
  • Plain language
  • Interior page priority
  • Scale and growth
  • Multiple wayfinding systems
  • Templating
  • Progressive disclosure
  • IA in the Third Order
  • Everything is miscellaneous
  • Implications of the Third Order
  • Building structures for the Third Order
  • Content types
  • The typology of content
  • Identifying content types
  • Defining content types
  • Explaining content types
  • Navigation
  • Mechanisms and affordances
  • Themes and functions
  • Templates
  • Defining page structures
  • Exposing content
  • Defining page components
  • Writing meaningful business rules

Format:

This full-day tutorial includes lecture and active participation.

Handouts:

Copies of the presentation slides.

Who Should Attend:

Anyone responsible for their organization's website, whether as a manager, content contributor, or designer. The course assumes little to no knowledge of IA.

See Also:

Companion course: Information Architecture 2: Navigation.

Instructor:

photo of Dan Brown Dan Brown is a principal at EightShapes, LLC, a user experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC, that has clients in telecommunications, media, education, health, high-tech, and other sectors. Brown has been practicing information architecture and user experience design since 1995. Drawing on his expertise in communicating complex ideas and abstractions through high-quality visual documentation, Brown wrote Communicating Design (New Riders, 2006). Amazon reviews call it “authoritative”, “practical, personal, comprehensive” and “a cool nerdbook.” Prior to founding EightShapes, Brown consulted with organizations ranging from the US Postal Service, the World Bank, and the Federal Communications Commission to USAirways, FirstUSA, and Fannie Mae. From 2002-2004, Brown led the content management program for the US Transportation Security Administration. His portfolio includes work on public-facing Web sites, intranets, and extranets, and addresses most aspects of the user experience, from information architecture and content strategy to user research and interface design. Brown has participated in nearly every IA Summit since its inception in 2000, moderating panels, leading workshops, and presenting posters. He’s written more than a dozen articles for Boxes and Arrows on topics ranging from PowerPoint to the information architecture of home audio devices. Brown is very active in the local Washington, DC, information architecture community, organizing regular workshops and bimonthly reading groups. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, in a newly renovated 1922 bungalow with his wife, son, and many, many pets.