Information Architecture (IA) the classification of information
Information Architecture (IA) entities like cells
A simple website may only include 8 top level pages, 50 secondary and perhaps only 300 tertiary labelled (taxonomy) navigation elements, that’s only 358 entities. However IA tends to be associated with the structure and classification of websites, intranets and software that accesses in excess of 100,000+ separate entities to be classified. I have worked on several huge taxonomies for Government, Publishers, Colleges, Universities, Insurance Companies and Banks involved in trading that involve between 1,000,000 and 25,000,000+ entities.
An IA when embarking on a new project will investigate if there is a standardised taxonomy for the project domain and conduct a content audit. For example if the project is a United Kingdom, Government project then there is a standard taxonomy and a classification of entities within that taxonomy.
If a standard exists the task is relatively simple but highly time consuming as it then involves matching the in use taxonomy with the standardise one. However if no standard exists a standard needs to be created. Creating a standard taxonomy is done through domain research. How do other’s of the same domain describe things, at this point it is worth considering ownership of language in the form of brands, trade marks, patients and de facto standards.
Once the entities have been defined with their attributes and all the potential interrelationships then this is combined with or overwrites the content audit to define the new system taxonomy.
However there may be multiple audiences looking at the same content from different perspectives. For example in educational publishing the audiences could be;
- Distributors
- Sellers
- Institutions
- Teachers
- Pupils
- Parents
Each one of these groups will have a very specific context of use, when looking for content, the descriptions they use and understand to find it and their underlying purpose in doing so. In this case they will each require a separate structure around an entity and may require their own version of the taxonomy.
Website help and support systems should avoid FAQ’s
FAQ's are very much vested in intranet thinking, that assumes if users want help they work for us and know the terminology and have similar tasks / goals to other users on the internal net. Websites conversely support users from every experience of life, who while focused on a product or service are not professionals in that product or service.
FAQ's rely on users knowing what the are looking for in the same way the dictionary works. So if I know your jargon, I can find the help I'm looking for. What happens to normal human beings who just want help? For the most part they are frustrated by poor technology and worse poor thinking which reduces their trust in companies and brands.
Building a modern support system is about users not information silos
Users tend to look for help in a specific context, i.e. to their problem, in the age of custom publishing and personalisation its really simple to provide in context help. Not only does contextual help aid users it provides key management information for companies to understand both their customers (user behaviour) and their products or services (performance) as they are used.
Other types of help
If FAQ's are not usable, what is?
- How to (video, steppers)
- Diagnostics (decision trees, interactive triggers in video)
- Discovery (demo, calculators, scenarios, community of use)
If FAQ's are the only content you have you may end up having to use them as the authors may now be senior staff, but someone should think about users first. When users think of the company or brand is it from the perspective of their experience or word of mouth experience.
What does your help and support system tell people about you?
O2 support has awful usability
O2 gets points for trying
I like other users were quite happy when O2 decided to spend some time and money to tie together their various online systems to at least give the appearance of a unified system. You can tell it's all user experience and no information architecture though, everything links so there are no dead ends, unfortunately the information being sought is missing it's an annoying merry go round.
O2 fakes live support
The thing that I cannot think of an excuse for is an automated support search tool built to look like live support. Dear Lucy you gave me hope, then you took it away, you made me think O2 cared about me and the business I bring them. But no your not real your a search tool, that's not really all that good. Changing interactive and interaction metaphors is indeed very brave and extraordinarily stupid as it aggravates users. For users in a support system the normal response is to look for another service supplier or phone up to vent on someone.
Still at least there was a feedback form for me to say how pathetic the experience was. 
Requirements gathering methods determine value
There are lots ways to elicit UCD requirements so I don't intend on listing them all here, what I will note are some of the effective ways that I utilise. They can be described as structured, unstructured or a mixture of the two, but importantly the methods produce differing depth of requirements dependant not only on the method but on the skill of the facilitator and the characteristics of physical location used. In effect the method used is limited by the capability of the facilitator.
Research Structure
It is critical to determine if there is enough usable information around the project to be able to establish a valid research start point. Get the questions right and the answers follow, get the questions wrong and you’ll waste a fortune. If your unsure carry out a pilot study to find out what the questions are.
Methods
Observational / Reflective
Asking users to carry out their normal activities while being observed does take quite a bit of setting up so that the activity data is not skewed as a result of the observation. It is critical not to participate or lead the user. It is especially common when users are told the fine detail about the project; they will try to give you what they think you want. Often this is because they feel threatened by the process, the old notion of time and motion leading to them getting sacked is embedded in British culture. However this type of method is very useful in a pilot study to determine what type of activities should form the basis of questioning or workshop based co-creation.
Narrative
Narrative is about stories, like the narrator in a play, they see the whole thing being able to talk in the present, remind of the past, note the future or describe a similie that others can relate to even if they cannot yet relate to the main story. Asking users to describe how they think something should work, what the differences might be for different user types, how it’s done now, is there anything in other technology or experience that they can relate it to. In this way a multi-path picture can be built up from each participant for each interactive pathway within the new system or technology.
Diagnostic
Diagnostic is about testing something this will often manifest through workshops with groups of people. By setting a group a task or co-creation ‘Design the front page of your new website’ spending ‘K10,000,000 that’s Karl’s currency’ on to meet your goals and noting the group dynamic, decision making and outputs, very rich information is revealed by participants.
Show and Tell
Show and tell is imperative to feed back to participants what has happened to the information they have provided. More it can be used to validate key concepts and project directions in a fairly light environment, where participants can be highly critical knowing that everyone else is in the same frame of reference for that meeting.
Some of the Problems
Although the whole process exists to elicit information suitable to influence the project, some participants will have pet requirements that if not given the correct level of sycophantic response they will seek to invalidate the entire project as it does not represent their vision of what the project is any more. This type of attitude is very common when working with low pay low (self) risk bureaucrats, as they can personally destroy projects then blame it on 'expensive' consultants.
Case Study 4
On a national census project that was due to be run online and offline a member of the bureaucratic project team insisted that their opinions were correct on the basis of having won an award for a website ten years earlier. The opinions were very dated to the point of being bad practice, incorrect and were a constant disabler to the project. This client refused to consider an open support system, marketing website (to prepare country) or full language landing pages to support the full ethnic background of the country in question. The day to day engagement was painful, but the UX for the several forms, question logic and user interactions were eventually signed off even though the client never signed off the personas based upon the requirements they gave.
iPad Blotter App
I'm currently working on an iPad blotter app as a white label product is there any interest from financial services or investment banking companies in this product?
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