What is Information Architecture?

“Information architecture is basically about structuring and presenting the content to the target audience. It is the information architect’s job to ensure that information is well organized and presented in an easily accessible interface.”

“Information architecture is a combination of art and science to organize information into a functional and usable format,allowing end users to easily find the information they’re looking for.”

Creating Effective Information Architecture

Effective information architecture comes from understanding business objectives and constraints, the content, and the requirements of the users.

Users + Context + Content = IA

Users

Effective information architecture must reflect the way people think about the subject matter.

Business/Context

Understanding an organisations’ business objectives, politics, culture, technology, resources and constraints is essential before considering development of the information architecture.

Content

The most effective method for understanding the quantity and quality of content (i.e. functionality and information) proposed for a system is to conduct a content inventory.

Who are the Information Architects?

Increasingly companies are realizing the importance of information architecture and are employing specialist ‘information architects’ to perform this role.

Information Architecture is also defined by:
Intranet designers and managers

Website Designers and Managers

Visual Designers

Other people designing information systems

Programmers

Librarians

Technical Writers

Technical Writers as Information Architects

If IA is about “architecting” information on a professional level, technical writers architect information every day.

Technical Writers as Information Architects do the following tasks:
1.Information Classification

2.Information Search and Retrieval

Information Classification

Organizing information in the table of contents of an end user document is called information classification.

Information Classification involves three basic structure:

Sequences: The simplest way to organize information is to place it in a sequence. Sequential ordering may be chronological, a logical series of topics progressing from the general to the specific, or alphabetical, as in indexes, encyclopedias, and glossaries.

Hierarchies: Information hierarchies are the best way to organize most complex bodies of information. As sometimes documents are developed on a single point of agenda, hierarchical schemes becomes more suitable. Hierarchical diagrams are very easy to understand.

Web: Web like organizational structures pose few restrictions on the pattern of information use. In this structure the goal is often to mimic associative thought and the free flow of ideas, allowing users to follow their interests in a unique pattern.

Information Search and Retrieval
Identifying key-words or phrases that users might search for

Creating an index for efficient search and retrieval

Providing navigation aids or hyperlinks to the key text.

Focus on Content

Information Architects (IAs) sometimes get carried away with the visual design of sites and forget about one of the most important components of the work–i.e. content. (Neil Turner, London)
*Keep focus on the content, and don’t get carried away with the presentation. This is applicable to both documents and diagrams (wireframes, site maps, personas, etc.).

*A good looking document with poor content is as similar as a not-so-good looking document having good content.

Information Chunking

Why “Chunking Information” is required?
*Mostly end users are in hurry and ignore reading long passages of text on-screen.

*Discrete chunks of information lend the end users to Web links and find a specific unit of relevant information easily, not a book’s worth of general content.

*Chunking can help organize and present information in a uniform format.

*Concise chunks of information are better suited to the computer screen, which provides a limited view of long documents. Long Web pages tend to disorient users/readers as it requires the users to scroll long distances.

Content Architecture

Content Architecture is a specific subset of the Architecture and Design phase that focuses on:
*identifying the links and relationships among documents and content

*specifying consistent document requirements and attributes, and

*defining the structure of content in a content or document management system.

Five Steps for Organizing Information

There are five basic steps in organizing your information:
*Divide your content into logical units

*Establish a hierarchy of importance among the units

*Use the hierarchy to structure relations among units

*Build a site that closely follows your information structure

*Analyze the functional and aesthetic success of your system

Some of the more simple matters regarding personal finance prove to be bamboozling to the nation’s adults, according to the latest research from Abbey.

The bank set more than 1,000 British adults a ten-question personal finance exam, similar to GCSE standard, with the number of adults not achieving a GCSE-level C grade or an O level pass numbering one in ten, the equivalent of 4.7 million Britons. Issues including credit card interest, negative equity and secured loans repayments were all tackled in the questions, which were taken from previous exam papers.

Abbey said that following the examinations, 25 per cent of those that undertook the tests scored the equivalent of an A*, whereas 30 per cent scored an A. When the 21 per cent that achieved a B level are added, some three-quarters are covered in the top three grades, but 24 per cent are not. “While most people are in the realms of a GCSE pass almost five million British adults would fail a simple personal finance exam,” said Steve Shore, head of banking at Abbey. “Quite worrying given we selected questions that we felt everyone with a bank account should know.”

Following the research, Abbey has also released a list of the top five questions that stumped those that took the tests. Some 86 per cent did not know that six weeks were allowed to pay back a balance on a credit card before interest is accrued, while just under half (47 per cent) were unaware what negative equity meant.

Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of those that took the Abbey exam did not know that non-payment of secured loans could lead to the house it is secured against being sold to cover the loan, while seven per cent thought that the contents of a house, rather than the house itself, would be sold to pay off the secured loan.

The Abbey research seems to support government plans to introduce a personal finance element into Maths GCSE and this is something that the bank itself is calling for. “Abbey certainly welcomes the government’s plans to introduce a much-needed personal finance element into the curriculum. We would also urge anyone who doesn’t understand something on their bank statement to contact their branch or a financial adviser,” Mr Shore said.

Other issues that puzzled those that took the test concerned unpaid cheques and bank statements, as well as the meaning of hire purchase agreement, something that left more than one in ten (12 per cent) confused.

In July, the ifs School of Finance welcomed the decision by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to call for mandatory teaching of financial education in schools across Britain. The organization welcomed the “stronger place” financial education would fill in the curriculum after the FSA called on Ed Balls to work to achieve this. Along with the Abbey research, a study by Lloyds TSB last month showed that young people are concerned about taking on too much debt, suggesting that education about products such as personal loans and current accounts could prove beneficial for schoolchildren.