Information Architecture (IA) the classification of information Part 2
Given the response from the last post I’m going to take the educational publishing example a bit further, if I have time before my next contract I will also create an investment banking example. I am also being asked for diagrams that explain these relationships, again if I have time I will do these also.
Educational publishing Information Architecture (IA)
The last point in the previous post was describing multiple audiences looking at the same content from different perspectives. The example in educational publishing the audiences often include;
- Distributors
- Sellers
- Institution
- 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.
Additionally there are criteria that operated as informational facets (now commonly associated with faceted search) which act as secondary entities;
- ISBN
- Bulk price
- Unit price
- Country standards
- Regional standards
- Education level
- Education target
- Education skills
- Education method
- Exam board
- Exam year
- Pupil/student age
- Content subject
- Content brand
- Content group
- Content purpose
- Language
- Language Tone of Voice
- Media type
- Media format
The above entities enable the audiences to find the content assets that meet their specific needs. It is very important at this stage not to confuse entities with hierarchies. Hierarchies are the structuring of entities in a direct or indirect relationship that are above or below (immediate superior or subordinate) this also includes cross related relationships. As previously mentioned (in the last post) there may already be standard hierarchies in the domain in question that should be observed.
But how do you find these entities in any domain?
Taking the above example the standard hierarchy in publishing is ISBN a review of several entities within a single ISBN item will reveal many of entities above. To get the rest research is required (it cannot be done any other way);
- Find out who the audience is and what is their objective?
- Find out what are the rules, laws and governance?
- Find out who buys, distributes, delivers, services, resells and what their relationship is to the originator?
- Find out specifically who the audience is currently, competitor and target audience?
Define ‘What is the smallest component of viable (useful) information?’ and use that to model the information system. I have worked with several huge education providers and universities and the questions I ask is ‘What is a course?’;
- A course has a title
- A course has duration, with a start and an end
- A course has a subject
- A course has a level
- A course has prerequisites
- A course has an outcome, which leads to options
- A course has a delivery mechanism
I also ask, ‘Who is a student?’, ‘Who is a tutor?’, ‘What is an outcome?’ even 'What is a college?', if a course has a regular location then this creates a secondary set of entities.
- A location has an address, telephone number, email address
- A location has facilities
- A location has transportation links
- A location has a community
- A location has accommodation
And it goes on and on, this is Information Architecture 101.
IA is not another name for UX
User experience (UX) and Information Architecture (IA) are very different and have separate skill sets, processes and outputs.
I often talk to people who add IA on the their CV as if it's some simple skill, it's actually more complex and difficult than UX. IA is also hundreds of years old as an activity while UX is less than twenty in it's current form.
- Information architecture is involved in the classification and structure of information.
- User experience is involved in; defining who the audience is, what they can do, how they can do it and matching the aspiration of the content provider with the desires of the audience.
Related
- Information Architecture (IA) the classification of information
- Information Architecture (IA) the classification of information Part 2 - Educational publishing and courses examples
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.
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.
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