Stephen Turbek shows how to save time on site diagramming using either Excel and Visio or Word and Inspiration.

"Use these lazy techniques and spend your time on better and more interesting problems than lining up little boxes!"

Links:

• The Lazy IA's Guide to Making Sitemaps

Henrik Olsen - February 01, 2006

See also: Site and flow diagramming (4)  Tools (50) 

According to Clay Shirky, the ways we apply categorization to the electronic world are based on bad habits. In his opinion tagging (free-form labelling, without regard to categorical constraints) is a better fit for large amounts of information.

Categorization can work for a limited information space that is based on formal and stable entities organized by small number of expert cataloguers. But it doesn't work for a large amount of information that has no formal categories and a non-expert user base.

Links:

• The article Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags

Henrik Olsen - May 22, 2005 - via InfoDesign

See also: Search engines (7)  Navigation (44) 

O'Reilly has made the 1st edition of the book Architecture for the World Wide Web by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville freely available online.

Links:

• The online book Information Architecture for the World Wide (1st edition)
• Previous posting about Information Architecture for the World Wide (2nd edition)

Henrik Olsen - February 13, 2005 - via Column Two

See also: Online books (5)  Books (32) 

Faceted classifications are increasingly common on the web, especially on commercial web sites. In this article Willian Denton suggests a seven-step model for the creation of a faceted classification, and gives advice on when to use one, how to make it, how to store it on a computer, and how to design the web interface.

Links:

• How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On the Web

Henrik Olsen - March 20, 2004

Periodically, we hear about the rule of 7 +/- 2 from inexperienced interaction designers: Users can't handle more than 7 bullets on a page, seven items in a form list, or more than seven links in a menu. According to James Kalback, this has no evidence in reality – on the contrary. The psychologist George Miller's conclusions apply to what we can memorize – not what we can perceive.

Current research strongly supports that broad structures perform better than deep structures. Users can more easily cope with broad structures, they have a greater chance of getting lost in deep hierarchical structures, and new visitors are able to get a better overview of sites offerings from a broader structure.

Links:

• The Myth of Seven, Plus or Minus 2

Henrik Olsen - June 23, 2003

See also: Research (91)  Links (10)  Navigation (44) 

Brett Lider and Anca Mosoiu have written an eye-opening article on the benefits of using metadata to organize web content and separating the content aspect of web sites from the presentation layer.

One of the big advantages of separating content and presentation is that relations between content entities, for example a product and its related services, isn't trapped a in a proprietary system, such as a traditional content management system (CMS). In traditional CMS, relations between content are created by cross-reference hyperlinks. Using metadata to establish such relations, important relations can be preserved and reused in different contexts.

Links:

• Building a Metadata-Based Website

Henrik Olsen - April 29, 2003

Using a lost-in-the-woods analogue, John S. Rhodes explains information architecture in a very simple and clear manner. Print plenty of copies and use them as handouts at family parties.

Links:

• The article Information Architecture for the Rest of Us

Henrik Olsen - February 26, 2003

See also: Primers (9) 

Since reviewing "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition" (AKA the Polar Bear book) we decided it would be of interest to our readers to interview the authors of this book to see how the role of IA has changed since the first edition was released. Meryl K. Evans conducted the interview.

Links:

• An interview with Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld, Information Architects
• Book Review: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

Nick Finck - December 12, 2002 - via Digital Web Magazine

See also: Interviews (9) 

Two new article are up on Digital Web Magazine about User-Centered Design. Both articles make some good points when it comes to UCD and how the Web industry is handling it.

Links:

• The myth of User-Centered Information Architecture
• Client Centered Design

Nick Finck - October 24, 2002

Digital Web Magazine interviews Jeffrey Veen and Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path

Links:

• interview

Nick Finck - August 14, 2002

See also: Interviews (9)