Information Architecture

1
Information Architecture Design

• Week 6 Schedule
• Class Work First!
• Research Topic Presentations
• Browsing and Searching for IA
• Other Readings

2
Card(Term) Sorting for Site Labels

• Why Card Sorting So Early?
• Multiple Applications of this Technique,
  unfortunately known (only) as Card Sorting
• Rosenfeld Two Kinds of Labels
• Subject Matter Expert Labels
• Lay Person Novice Labels
• Focus on Needs Problems with Labels
• Categories of Labels help with Design Scope

3
Lable Sorting Speed Sorting

• How Much Time Will Users Spend Deciphering Your
  Site?
• A Series of Quick Label Evaluations
• Terms
• Phrases
• Well Do Traditional Card Sorting Later in the
  Semester

4
Sorting Step 1

• Look at all the terms phrases
• Each of you write a 1 sentence description of
  what the site these terms and phrases must be
  about.
• 2 Minutes!

5
Sorting Step 2

• Read over the terms and phrases and circle the
  ones you immediately certainly understand.
• 2 Minutes!
• Read over the terms and phrases and lightly cross
  out terms and phrases you dont understand.
• 2 Minutes!

6
Sorting Step 3

• Work together suggest terms and phrases for the
  circled items.
• Provide up to 3 alternatives. Focus.
• 3 Minutes!
• Work together suggest terms and phrases you
  crossed out.
• Provide up to 3 alternatives. Create.
• 3 Minutes!

7
ROTATE Label List!

• Each Group Work with Another List
• All Three Steps Again.
• Turn Over Work to Original Project Group
• After Class
• Tighten Up Vocabulary
• Consistency of Use (Nouns Verbs)
• Fix Cases, Spelling, Parallel Word Counts
• Whats Missing?

8
Browsing and Searching

• Information Seeking
• Using Models
• Understanding Navigation
• Designing Navigation

9
What Is Information Seeking?

• a process in which humans purposefully engage in
  order to change their state of knowledge. p. 5
• a process driven by humans need for information
  so that they can interact with the environment.
  p. 28
• begins with recognition and acceptance of the
  problem and continues until the problem is
  resolved or abandoned p. 49 Marchionini
• more than just representation, storage and
  systematic retrieval

10
Information Seeking in Context
Learning
Information Seeking
Information Retrieval
Browsing Strategy
Analytical Strategy
11
Search Strategies

• Analytical
• careful planning
• recall of query terms
• iterative query reformulations
• examination of results
• batched
• Browsing
• heuristic
• opportunistic
• recognizing relevant information
• interactive (as can be)

12
Study Findings

• Few participants deliberately set out to search
  for new sites
• Determined the modes of scanning and moves
  exercised by the participants
• Recurring Web behavioral patterns that relate
  peoples browser actions (Web moves) to their
  browsing/searching context (Web modes)
• Modes of scanning Aguilar (1967) Weick Daft
  (1983, 1984)
• Moves in information seeking behavior Ellis
  (1989) Ellis et. al. (1993, 1997)

13
Modes of Scanning
14
Information Seeking Behaviors Web Moves
15
Integrated Modes Moves Model
16
Behavioral Model of Web Use

• 61 identifiable episodes
• Confirmed in Interviews

17
Interview Highlights

• Most useful work-related sites
• Resource sites by associations user groups
• News sites
• Company sites
• Search engines
• Most people do not avidly search for new Web
  sites
• Criteria to bookmark a site is largely based on a
  sites ability to provide relevant up-to-date
  information
• Methods for identifying new Web sites
• Search engines
• Magazines newsletters
• Other people/colleagues

18
Behavioral Model Highlights

• People who use the Web engage in 4 complementary
  modes of information seeking
• Certain browser based actions events indicate a
  particular mode of information seeking
• Surprises
• No Explicit Instances of Monitoring to Support
  Formal Searching
• Very Few Instances of Push Monitoring
• Extracting Involved Basic Search Strategies Only

19
IA Model Checklist
20
Design Recommendations for IA

• Undirected viewing starting and chaining
• Introduce systems that search/recommend jump
  sites
• Design portals (home pages) to support
  undirected, serendipitous viewing
• Conditioned viewing browsing, differentiating
  monitoring
• Train users to evaluate and escalate priority or
  importance of info
• Provide ways of telling users about new content
  on Web pages
• Informal search differentiating monitoring,
  extracting
• Pre-select sources search engines for quick,
  informal searches
• Prepackage search strategies developed by subject
  matter experts
• Formal search extracting
• Use multiple info sources for comprehensive
  searching
• Show users how to use advanced search techniques

21
Tauscher Greenberg (1997)

• Mostly Re-Visits (58)
• Continually Visit New Pages
• Access Only A Few Pages Frequently
• Clusters (Sets) Short Paths of URLs
• Frequency
• Recency
• Distance
• Types of Navigation
• Hub and Spoke
• Depth Searching (lots of links before returning,
  if at all)
• Guided Tour (Tasks)

22
Tauscher Greenberg (1997)2

• Back Button Use Affects Everything (Even More
  Since Study)
• Navigation Methods Differ
• Reasons for Revisiting
• Explore Further
• Use Feature (Search or Home Page)
• On the Way to another Page (IA Problem)
• Users Dont Understand Browser History Very Well
  or Do They Misunderstand Page/Site Navigation?
• Provide Navigation Support
• Work with the Back Button Dont Break its
  Functionality

23
Maglio Barrett (1996)

• What Do People Do When They Search?
• Cognition
• Mental Maps
• Mental Models (Task Conceptualization)
• Build Agents Through Understanding
• IA Take Advantage of Understanding
• Small Dataset with Specific Searches

24
Maglio Barrett (1996) pt 2

• Participants Conceptualize Searching as Standard
  Routines
• Misremembered Searches
• Favorite Search Sites
• Participants Remember Only Key Nodes From a
  Search
• Pages as Waypoints (Landmarks)
• Page Elements
• Bad News for IA?
• Predictable Use (Patterns Can Be Perfected in
  Testing)
• Imperfect Memory (Use New Mnemonics Graphics
  Text)
• Leverage Waypoints (Easier to Find Again and Use)

25
Navigation Systems IA

• Layout
• Global Navigation (Toolbars or Nav bars)
• Local Navigation (Sidebars or Link Sets)
• Content Navigation (Intra Site Links?)
• Relational Navigation (Inter Site Links?)
• Mechanisms
• Toolbars, Nav bars, Sidebars
• Menus, Interactivity (Javascript, Flash, )
• Sitemaps (Indexes (A-Z), Task, Guides or Content)
• Lists (Big and Small, Broad and Focused)
• Graphics (Logos, ImageMaps, Dynamic Data)
• Text (Descriptive, Prescriptive, Content)
• Too Much vs. Too Little (of any combination)

26
Navigation Browser (no IA?)

• Browser Indicators
• Buttons
• Bookmarks - Titles
• URLs
• History Use
• List - Titles
• Menu (Go or Window)
• Visualization
• Why Browse When You Can Search?
• Memorize URLs vs. Google it
• Social Navigation (Wear Paths Popularity)
• Your Behaviors and Results Sets
• Personalization

27
Navigation and Use

• The Best Design is not Always the Most Usable
• Redundancy in Design
• Graphics
• Links
• Page Titles
• Button Names
• Topic Heading Titles
• Users Should Immediately Understand Where They
  are and Where to Go

28
Instones Navigation Stress Test

• Random Page is Chosen
• Find the Chosen Page in Relation to Site
• Hierarchy (Where in the site?)
• Purpose
• What is it doing on this site?
• Is this the main task of the site?
• Interface
• How can I get back to the chosen page?
• How can I understand it in relation to other
  pages?
• Graphics (Who is the page for?)
• Decide Where Page Links To
• Associated Pages
• Part of a Content Unit
• Part of a Task

29
Search Systems IA

• Rosenfeld Dont Build-in Search?
• Search vs. Browse?
• Conflict in Design should be Complement in
  Design?
• Good Search Makes Up For Bad IA?
• Search and Browse Percentages?
• New Users (to Site)
• New Users (to Web)
• Advanced Users
• Who Will Need What Functionality?

30
Designing Search Systems

• Indexing
• Markup Languages Other Attributes
• Metadata
• Content (All, Some, New, Newer?)
• Functionality
• Boolean
• Augment with Context
• Personalization (Simple to Complex)
• Interface (p 149-175)
• Search Boxes, Buttons Query Builders
• Sorting and Ranking Hierarchy (Metadata)
• Results (Abstracting, Gisting(ML), Selection,
  Keywords)
• Functions (More Like This, None Like This,

31
Browsing Searching (Now)

• Should Users Always Know Where They Are?
• Should Users Always Understand Searching (Terms,
  Operators and Depth)?
• How Can You Leverage Conventions to Make Browsing
  Easier?
• Combinations of Elements
• Hierarchies
• Classification
• How Can IA Augment Basic Searching?
• Context on the Page
• Individual Pages
• Search Results
• Repetition from other Sites