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Book-Holding on to Reality
Chapter 6
Producing Information/Writing and Structure
The Analysis of Structure-Natural information is about reality cultural information is distinctively for the
shaping of reality. Cultural information however can be about as well as for reality.
Alphabetic writing certainly supports that view. A text considered only as regards its spelling
that is merely as a sequence of letters.
Chapter 7
Producing Information/Measures and Grids
Though the structure and operation of language are far from fully understood the advances
of recent linguistics have made one thing clear. The more we have learned about language.
Chapter 8
Realizing Information Reading
Realizing information is to take an abstract design and to have it come to life in the concrete world.
Which can be an exhilarating as much as perilous event.
Where today, when we have difficulty in following someone who is reading to us, we are likely to say let
see that medieval authors who were doubtful about a passage they had dictated would say to their scribes let
me hear that a practice that has come down to us in audit.
Chapter 9
Realizing Information Playing
Signification and Realization
Traditional music involves a different way of realizing information. Music highlights the structure of signs rather than
the context of things and chiefly coverts time into events rather than confinement into possibility.
Chapter 10
Realizing Information Building
Construction and Contingency
The construction of medieval church that has endured to this day can have that sort of presence and
reference. So consider the building of Freiburg Minster in the Upper Rhine Valley. Take as whole the
church appears to strike a perfect balance of energy and harmony.
It would be natural to assume that such power and coherence are the result of an inspired and comprehensive
design. Designs, after all are the means humans employ to overcome the contingencies of building materials and
practices and to impose their will on the vagaries of the world.
Chapter 8
News and the Web
The Web of Information News
Most people read the newspaper, watch television news, and listen to radio newcasts to gain public knowledge neccessary to particpate within their local, national and global communities the quantity of news has increased the time available to use the news has not.
The Use of News
This distinguish indicates than there are gratifications that stem from the use of media message
for direct, intrinsic value to the receiver and gratifications.
Approaches to the Delivery of Digital news
This includes online access to newspaper databases, browsing the World Wide Web newgroups, and
digital new systems which deliver news to the reader.
Digital News Systems Scenario
Anticipating the capabilitie of tomorrow’s broadband delivery technology. numerous efforts are
being made at building digital new delivery platforms that exploit the technology and serve the news
related information needs of readers, journalists and advertisers.
The Role of informational News
New has generally been seen as an essential element in democracies for its role in informing
the citizenry.
Conclusion: A Question of Quality
The model of online publishing brings some of the forces of commerical television to all content publishers the direct drive to attract audiences the short attention span of readers and the need to produce.
Chapter 9
Web of Entertainment
The future of digital media in many way coincides with developments in the entertainment industry.
Why the Music Industry?
With increased use of computers and the internet, creators have found a new outlet from which they can
offer even more to their audience.
Industry Response
The internet poses difficult questions for the retail business. If someday soon you can store all of your
music on your hard drive instead of your shelves.
Seeking Control
The recording companies are intent on developing software coding standards that would specify
what consumers can do with the music they download.
The recording industry has begun selling music CDs designed to make it impossible.
The Gift Economy as a Loose Web
The musice industry must find some way of commericalizing P2P file sharing.
Evem before the Napster case was concluded the Bertelsmann corporation broke ranks with the
other major record companies to buy a stake in Napster.
Conclusion
A growing convergence of policy domain. This means that it is more important than ever to nurture pro active
policy development as opposed to reactive policy development.
Chapter 5
The Look of the Web
Deciphering and analyzing the look of the web. The Web’s appearance has changed over time. The techniques of
quantitative analysis of media forms.
The Mouse Aesthetic: Apples, Apples, Icons and windows
The mythology of the emergence of personal computers, there has a developed a narrative that rivals
the biblical tale of David and Goliath.
The Hypertext Imaginary- The conceptualization of a system of automatically interconnected texts is typically
attributed to Vannevar Bush’s 1945 Atlantic Monthly article on the memex system.
Personalization-commerical portal sites such as Yahoo!
Chapter 6
The Web Economy
Christmas 1999-New York City
United States seemed fundamentally different from past christmasses.
The Gift and the Commodity
Typical political economic analysis of the media begins by detailing who own what and finishes with identifying
the implications.
The Web has developed clear connections to the government, public service and education.
The web has come to represent the future for many countries and computer mediated communication is
now seen as and tool for computer use.
The importance of counting on the web: the making of the audience commodity.
Television stations and networks for instance sell their audiences to advertisers who buy the
audience’s time. The placement of a commerical within a progamme relies on the programme on generate an audience.
Hacking As Counter-Economy
The Web economy’s fragility is that because of the very network of networks upon which it is built
there are possibilities that the security and firewalls designed to protect the citadels of the Web economy.
Chapter 7
The Web of Policy, Regulation and Copyright
The transnational discourse surrounding the Internet.
The significance of Metaphors
One can argue that the metaphors or conceptual frameworks which we use to make sense new
technologies can be either emancipatory or limiting.
Parallel trends can be seen in early discussions of radio where two competing metaphors were circulating.
Ideology of Information Technology
It must be recognized that specific events underpinning the information highway
concept often have antecedents.
The US is widley acknowledged a being a leader in promoting the
information highway idea. During the 1992 presidential election, AL Gore captured the support
of many US academics and the information industries by promoting the idea of “information superhighways”‘.
The Political Myth and the ideology of Information Technology
Studies comparing the investment in or the use of information technology by country, industry, firm and
using various economic indicators, have failed to establish a strong correlation between such technological
investment and growth in productivity.
The World Intellectual Property Organization
The White Paper and Digital Millenium Copyright Act recommendations have been the basis of negotiations at WIPO’s
conferences to consider possible treaties to bring copyright into the digital age. The two relevant to this discussion are
the Digital Treaty.
Content Regulation
Changing the moral values and the rise of the Web combined to make obscenity more pervasive and easier for
children to access.
One can argue that when pornographers discovered the web, politicians were forced to react.
Book-Web Theory
Chapter 2
Information and Networks
The chapter unravels the way that theories of information and theories of the network and network society can help
elucidate the social and cultural changes that are part of Web culture.
Cybernetics and information
Content to allow for its storage, conversion, and transmission is derived from a particular approach to the concept of
information.
A Cybernetic/Digital Information Summary
The reduction of all manner of content into binary systems, what is called digitalization is essential to understanding
not only the Web but computer technology and the flowing convergence of many cultural forms into one accessible
pool.
Information, Value and Knowledge
Cybernetics is essential for understanding the Web and its computer origins, it is not the only way to
think of information has been thought of as the basis of our contemporary economy and culture.
Convergence and Networks: Connections over time and space-
There is a spatial dimension, on other words, how the network works over geographical areas and a temporal
dimension, that is the kind of time frame made possible by the network.
The Web culture represents a new concentration on information and its directional flow-
These flows of information that change work and culture are not the result of the Web.
Web culture facilitates the flow of information for the objectives of globalization.
The Globalization has become a virtual synonym for the network society. Globalization has to
be understood nt as some unifying force such as a United Nations-style world government.
Chapter 3
The Web As Communincation
Media and communication researchers have until recently overlooked not only the internet but the entire field of
computer mediated communication staying instead with traditional forms of media that fit more conveniently
into models.
The Internet
A key to the success and understanding of the internet are two fundamental elements a new way of looking at
computers and a decentralized communication system.
Interpersonal communication and the web
Services of the internet can be classified using the traditional levels of communication although none of the
interaction is FtF.
Emoticons
Emoticons are used to compsensate for the inability to onvey voice infections, facial expressions and bodily gestures in
written communication.
Acronyms
Speed is often a factor in online communication. Chatroom aficionados ensure that their line communication
is confined to short bursts in order to maintain the conversational connection.
Chapter 4
Webs of Identity
The technologies of information and communication media in the broad sense of the term are technocultural hybirds.
Information technology often transcends its status as a thing. Enabling a new interface between the self the other and
the world beyond media technologies become part of the self the other and the world beyond.
Negative
Internet has negative consequences on the offline, real lives of those who use it.
There is an ever expanding literature making this stance with regard to the effect of
online life on offline of interenet users.
Positive
The respondent reported no difference in their socializing with friends or on their children’s time spend with friends
since going online.
Home Pages and the Presentation of Self in everyday life
People are increasingly using the Web to create virtual homes and online communities.
Personal Web pages are an important component of the production of culture theisis.
The cultural production thesis
The propaganda tradition in a discontinuous line has reformed in contemporary thinking through cybernetics
and its significance in new media nd computer mediated communication.
Conclusion: The shifting boundaries of identity
Anonymity
Language
Narcissism
Gender
Collective identities/collective networks
Chapter 20
MSWeb:An Enterprise Intranet
The modular approach and an emphasis on service helped the MSWeb team succeed in revamping the MSWeb intranet.
Challenges for the User-Microsoft itself, MSWeb is insanely huge and distributed. Let’s use some numbers to paint a
picture of the situation. MSWeb contains: 3,100,000 + Pages, Content created by and for over 50,000 employees who work
in 74 countries & 8,000+separate intranet sites.
Challenges for the Information Architect-the people who are responsible for making Microsoft’s content or aggregating that
content into portals.
Three Flavors of Taxonomies
Search-log analysis
Availability
Politics
Applicability
Metadata schema
URL Title
URL Description
URL
ToolTip
Comment
Contact Alias
Review Date
Status
Strongly Recommended
Products
Category Label
Keywords
Benefits to Users
Microsoft’s intranet environment matured in the mid-90′s, it began to suffer from the same afflictions as most enterprise intranets.
Chapter 21
evolt.org:An Online Community-online community developed an innovative information architecture with almost no budget.
Architecting an Online Community-to succeed they must attract members who are already busy doing other things.
Supporting Different Levels of Participation
Support different levels of access to its content and other resources.
Capital in the Economy-made by producers and payments received by consumers.
Cracking the Nut of Integration
evolt.org information architecture features some major silos
Fit Enough to Survive-created and maintained by one person.
The Un-Information Architecture-there was minimal planning, formal process, or methodology.
Websites
http://www.intranetroadmap.com/
This website very user friendly, reliable content and context when browsing through web pages.
Chapter 17
Making the Case for Information Architecture
You Must Sell-when it comes to a client; that’s what the sales folks do. If you’re an in-house information
architect your boss worries about this.
Debunking the ROI Case
The benefits of complete information architecture cannot be quantified-it’s generally possible to measure
the value of some of an architecture’s individual components.
The benefits of many information architecture components can’t ever be quantified.
Most claims for quantified information architecture benefits can’t be validated.
Talking to the Reactionaries
Not necessarily interested in numbers and often go with what feels right or is in line with their experience.
Other Case-Making Techniques
User sensitivity “boot camp sessions
Expert sit evaluations
Strategy sessions
Competitive analyses
Comparative analyses
Ride the application salesman’s value
Be aggressive and be early
Pain is your best friend
The Information Architecture Value Checklist
Technique you use to make the case for information architecture, and whether you’re making
a quantitative or qualitative case, there is a checklist of points that might be relevant to your case or story.
Chapter 18
Business Strategy-independently and in relative ignorance of each other heretofore.
The Origins of Strategy
The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during the peace or
war.
Famous Fighting Words
The best strategy is always to be very strong;first in general, and then at the decisive point.
Alignment-align our information architecture activities with business strategy.
One Best Way
The best know model for strategy formulation. SWOT stands for the analysis of internal strengths and weaknesses of the
organization informed by the opportunities and Threats posed by the external environment.
Competitive Advantage
The disciplines of business strategy and information architecture are dauntingly abstract and complex.
Websites-Google Pack http://pack.google.com/
The Google pack website provided a lot of softwares to observe and use. The softwares allows you to create and manage certain
web pages that are reliable sources.
hapter 14
Ethics
Ethical Considerations
The truth is that ethics is one of the many hidden dimensions of information architecture.
Intellectual Access
Work is focused on helping people find information or complete tasks efficiently and effectively.
We hope to reduce senseless friction which avoiding wasted time, money and frustration.
Labeling
This discusses the politics and pain involved in the transition over several years from the label gay-related immune disorder through a chain of other labels to the now-accepted acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Pysical Access
Ramp and elevators to large-print and audio books, architects, librarians, and designers are familar
with issues of physical access to traditional libraries.
Persistence
Mission-critical infrastructure. And infrastructure has widespread and long-term impact.
Shaping the Future
Information architect, you ca define any or all these ethical dimensions as not my problem.
Speaking of which, a handful of user experiebce superheroes have written book that tackle
these thorny issues head on.
Chapter 15
Building an Information Architecture Team
Destructive Acts of Creation
Web and intranet redesign projects is the widespread practice of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
The site development process moves from strategy to design to implementation.
Buy or Rent
All sorts of reasons why companies ire consultants in generals, and most of these can be applied to information architecture specifically.
1. Projects
2. Money and politics
3. Perspective
4. Programs
5. Business context
6. Relationships
The Dream Team
1. Strategy Architect-Overseeing design
2. Thesaurus Designer-Develops classification scheme
3. Controlled Vocabulary Manager-controll vocabularies
4. Indexing Specialist-Tag content and services
5. Interaction Designer-Works in the gray area between information
6. IA Software Analyst-Critcial between the IA and IT
7. IA Usability Engineer-Focuses on the interaction
8. Cartographer-Converts patterns in content
9. Search Analyst-Leads the design
Chapter 16
Tools and Software
A Time of Change
We are living in the stone age when it comes to software for information architects.
The products are crude as is our understanding of what we really need.
Categories in Chaos
Automated Categorization
Search
Thesaurus Management
Portal or Enterprise knowledge Platform
Content Management Systems
We Analytics
Diagramming Software
Prototyping Tools
User Research and Testing
Automated Categorization-software that uses human-defined rules or pattern-matching.
Search Engines-software that provides full-text indexing and searching capabilities
Thesaurus management Tools-tools that provide support for the development and management of controlled vocabularies and thesuari.
Portal or Enterprise Knowledge Platform-tools that provide completely integrated enterprise portal solutions.
Diagramming Software-visual communication software that information architects use to create diagram, charts. wriefames, and
blueprints.
Prototyping tools-web development software that enables you to create interactive wireframes and clickable prototypes.
User Research-software that supports user research, including online card sorting and remove usability testing.
Websites
http://www.textmap.com/
This site demonstrated content models along with great controlled vocabularies. However, the site motivated you to explore more search engines and style guides. A lot interesting sources and usual text.
Chapter 12
Design and Documentation
Crossing the bridge from research and strategy into design, the landscape shifts quite dramatically. The emphasis moves
from process to deliverables, as your clients and colleagues expect you to move from thinking and talking to actually
producing a clear, well-defined information architecture.
Guidelines for Diagramming an information Architecture
Architectures as we’ve mentioned many times, are abstract conceptual things. Sites themselves are not finite, often you can’t
tell where one ends and the other begins. Subsites and the ‘invisible web’ of databases further muddy the picture of what
should and shouldn’t be included in a specific architecture.
Communicating Visually-diagrams are useful communicating the two basic aspects of an information system’s structural elements.
Content components-how those components should be grouped and sequenced.
Connections between content components-components are linked to enable navigating between them.
Blueprints-show the relationships between pages and other content components and can be used to portray
organization, navigation, and labeling systems.
Wireframes-forces the architect to consider such issues as where the navigation systems might be located on a page.
Content Models-are micro information architectures made up of small chunks of interconnected content.
Content models support the critical missing piece in so many sites.
Controlled vocabularies-there are two primary types of work products associated with the development of controlled
vocabularies. First, you’ll need metadata matrixes that facilitate discussion about the prioritization of vocabularies.
Chapter 13
Education
Transition in Education-a variety of education programs has been tested by the evolutionary pressures of the
market. Only those programs that add value have survived. The independent forces of supply and demand have moved toward equilibrium.
A Word of Choice-freedom of consumers to choose what they want.
1. Experience
2. Apprenticeship
3. Formal education
4. Conference and seminars
5. Literature
6. Communities
7. News and opinion
But Do I Need a Degree
You don’t need a specialized degree to become an information architect, but it helps. As our field matures and become
more competitive, the emphasis on formal educational credentials grows more pronounced.
The State of the Field-Architecture educators and practitioners to get a clear shapshot of this fast-changing environment.
Websites
http://www.net.vg/media7/index.html
This site provided a high-level strategy of metadata schema used by graphic designer and
tagging documents.
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000030.php
This site provided a strong content of identification and management that was used for labeling and
and navigation.
Chapter 10
Research
This phase begins with a review of existing background materials and meetings with the strategy team, aimed at gaining high-level understanding of the goals and business context, the existing information architecture, the content, and the intended
audiences.
Process Overview
Early days of web design, many companies employed a one-step process called “Code HTML”.
A Research Framework
Context, Content & User
Research Meetings
Strategy team meeting
Content management meeting
Information technology meeting
Stakeholders interviews
They are often one of the most valuable components of the business context research.
Content Analysis
Defining component of the bottom-up approach to information architecture, involving careful review of the documents and objects that actually exist.
Gathering content
1. Format
2. Document type
3. Source
Analyzing content
1. Structural metadata
2. Descriptive metadata
3. Administrative metadata
Card Sorting-great understanding of users
1. Open/closed
2. Phrasing
3. Granularity
4. Heterogeneity
5. Cross-listing
6. Randomness
7. Quantitative/qualitative
Chapter 11
Strategy
What Is an Information Architecture Strategy?
1. Information architecture administration
2. Technology integration
3. Top-down or button-up emphasis
4. Organization and labeling sysems
5. Document type identification
6. Metadata field definition
7. Navigation system design
Research to Strategy-a good information architect starts considering possible strategies for structuring and organizing the site
before the research even begins. During the research phase, through out the user interviews and content analysis and benchmarking studies, you should be constantly testing and refining the hypotheses already in your head against the steady
stream of data you’re compiling.
Metaphor Exploration-Powerful tool for communicating complex ideas and generating enthusiasm
1. Organizational metaphors
2. Functional metaphors
3. Visual metaphors
The Strategy Report
The process of integrating the previous results, analysis, and ideas into a single written document forces rough
decisions, intellectual honesty, and clear communication.
Executive summary
Provide a high-level outline of the goals and methodology, and present a 50,000-foot view of the major problems and
major recommendations. The executive summary sets a tone for the entire document and should be written very carefully.
Content Management
1. Rules
2. Roles
3. Resources
4. Templates
5. Metadata
6 Thesaurus-helps users find information more easily.
Presentations
1. Umbrella Shell for Separate Hubs
2. Integrated Content Repository
3. Active Inter-Hub Management
Website-NewsMap
The structure and organization of this site sort of hurt the search and navigation process. The site has overwhelming content, confusing and frustrating. However, strong color schemes which makes the labeling very readable to some users. The site has a good visual metaphor with the images, icon and color that created a great connection.
Chapter 7, 8 & 9
Chapter 7
Navigation Systems
The navigation systems are composed of several basic elements, or subsystem. The global, local, and contextual
navigation systems that are integrated within the web pages themselves. The embedded navigation systems are
typically wrapped around and infused with the content of the site.
Building Context
When designing complex web sites, it is particularly important to provide context within the greater whole. Since many contextual clues in the physical world do not exist on the web.
Local Navigation Systems
The local navigation systems and the content to which they provide access are often so different that these local areas are
referred to as subsites or sites within sites.
Guides
Rules of thumb for designing guides include:
1. The guide should be short
2. At any point, the user should be able to exit the guide
3. Navigation should e located in the same spot on every page so that users can easily step back forth
through the guide.
4. The guide should be designed to answer questions.
5. Screenshots should be crisp, clear, and optimized, with enlarged details of key features.
6. If the guide includes more than a few pages, it may need its own table of contents.
Visualization
To advent the Web for people have struggle to create useful tools that enable users to navigate in a more visual way.
The attempts to display online museums, libraries, shopping malls, and other web sites as physical places.
Chapter 8
Search Systems
Does you site need search?
Your site should support the finding of its information.
1. Does your site have enough content
2. Will investing in search systems divert resources from more useful navigation systems?
3. Do you have the time and know-how to optimize your site’s search system?
4. Are there better alternatives?
5. Will your site’s users bother with search?
Navigation versus destination
Destination pages contain the actual information you want from a web site: sports scores, book reviews, software
documentation, and so on. Navigation pages may include main pages, search pages, and pages that help you browse a
site. The primary purpose of a site’s navigation pages is to get you to the destination pages.
Query Builders
Are tools that can soup up a query’s performance. They are often invisible to users, who may not understand their
value or how to use them.
Grouping Results
Despite all the way we can list results, no single approach is perfect.
Exporting Results
Providing users with a set of search results.
Chapter 9
Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata
Metadata and controlled vocabularies present a fascinating lens through which we can view the network of relationships
between systems. In many large metadata driven web sites, controlled vocabularies have become the glue that holds the
systems together.
Synonym Rings
Connects a set of words that are defined as equivalent for the purposes of retrieval. In practice, these words are often not
true synonyms.
Authority Files
Is a list of preferred terms or acceptable values. It does not include variants or synonyms.
Classification Schemes
Mean a hierarchical arrangement of preferred terms.
Thesauri
A book of synonyms often including related and contrasting words and antonyms.
Types of Thesauri
You need to choose to types for your website. A class thesaurus, an indexing thesaurus, and a searching thesaurus.
Faceted Classification
Five universal facets
1. Personality
2. Matter
3. Energy
4. Space
5. Time
The business world includes
1. Topic
2. Product
3. Document type
4. Audience
5. Geography
6. Price
Websites-PEW Internet & American Life Project
This website is set up with great labeling and navigation systems, by providing easy browsing using keywords & subject heading that are easy to comprehend. This website provides various of guidance in maintaining specific terminology usage with understanding. Designing complex websites it’s very important to provide good context to what you are building. .
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