Information Architecture

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Information Architecture Findability
Peter Morville The Yaffe Center Conference
on Creating Persuasive, Credible Web
Sites University of Michigan Business
School January 30, 2004
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Peter Morville

• Background
• Library and Information Science (1993)
• Information Architecture Pioneer
• CEO, Argus Associates (1994 - 2001)
• Co-Author, IA for the World Wide Web (1998, 2002)
• Current Roles
• President, Semantic Studios
• President, Asilomar Institute for Information
  Architecture
• Adjunct Faculty, UM School of Information
• VP, User Experience, Q LTD

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1. The combination of organization, labeling, and
   navigation schemes within an information system.
2. The structural design of an information space to
   facilitate task completion and intuitive
   access to content.
3. The art and science of structuring and
   classifying web sites and intranets to help
   people find and manage information.
4. An emerging discipline and community of practice
   focused on bringing principles of design and
   architecture to the digital landscape.

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Search Systems

• http//semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics
  /search.html

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Why is IA Important?

• Cost of finding (time, frustration)
• Cost of not finding (bad decisions, alternate
  channels)
• Cost of construction (staff, technology,
  planning, bugs)
• Cost of maintenance (content management,
  redesigns)
• Cost of training (employees, turnover)
• Value of education (related products, projects,
  people)
• Value of brand (identity, reputation, trust)

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• Employees spend 35 of productive time searching
  for information online. Working Council for
  Chief Information Officers
• The Fortune 1000 stands to waste at least 2.5
  billion / year due to an inability to
  locate and retrieve information. IDC
• Poorly architected retailing sites are
  underselling by as much as 50.
  Forrester Research
• 50 of web sales are lost because customers
  cant find content fast enough. Gartner
  Group
• Content on a typical public corporate website
  grows at an 80 rate annually.
  The CMS Report

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Most Common Usability Problems Most Common Usability Problems
Poorly organized search results 53
Poor information architecture 32
Slow performance 32
Cluttered home pages 27
Confusing labels 25
Invasive registration 15
Inconsistent navigation 13

• Vividence Research
• The Tangled Web
• Vividence found poorly organized search results
  and poor information architecture design to be
  the two most common and serious usability
  problems

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Findability will eventually be recognized as a
central and defining challenge in the development
of web sites, intranets, knowledge management
systems and online communities. Peter
Morville, The Age of Findability

• A case of librarians trying to muscle into the
  usability field with their own spinfindability
  is just a subset of user-centered design.
• Reader Response

http//www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/002595.php
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?Hits
?Trust
Location
Location
Location
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popularity ? authority
melanoma
cancer
Melanoma Home Page
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1
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Types of Cancer
NCI Home
Cancer Information
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• The fundamental premise of the cluetrain
  manifesto is that companies have been blind to
  the sea change the Internet represents,
  desperately clinging to methods that worked
  wonders in the broadcast era but that are
  radically unproductive online.

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Pull ?
? Push
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• Buying Info
• 14 Screens
• 300 Links
• 3,000 Words

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Ambient Findability
surrounding, encircling, enveloping
the ability to find anyone or anything from
anywhere at anytime
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Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media
produced about 5 exabytes of new information in
2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information
was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard
disks.
How big is five exabytes? If digitized, the
nineteen million books and other print
collections in the Library of Congress would
contain about ten terabytes of information five
exabytes of information is equivalent in size to
the information contained in half a million new
libraries the size of the Library of Congress
print collections.
Although the Internet is the newest medium for
information flows, it is the fastest growing new
medium of all time, becoming the information
medium of first resort for its users.
http//www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how
-much-info-2003/
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A wealth of information creates a poverty of
attention. Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate
Economist
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David Rose ambientdevices.com
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An Austrian firm (Tholos Systems) is developing a
giant video-conferencing system that will be
deployed in public spaces in London and Vienna
next year, allowing people in the two cities to
meet and talk eye-to-eye. Wired News, Oct 22
2003
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CNET News. Nov 25, 2003. Radio frequency
identification tags aren't just for pallets of
goods in supermarkets anymore. Applied Digital
Solutions is hoping that Americans can be
persuaded to implant RFID chips under their
skin to identify themselves when going to a cash
machine or in place of using a credit card.
Automatic Locates Schedule an "automatic locate"
to see where your child is at a given time.
Breadcrumbing Feature This feature is great for
identifying a specific route or series of
destinations.
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• Peter Morville
• morville_at_semanticstudios.com
• Semantic Studios
• http//semanticstudios.com/
• Q LTD
• http//qltd.com/
• Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture
• http//aifia.org/