In general, the Carlson Marketing user experience group creates user interfaces for two types of products: reusable components referred to internally as “durable assets”, and custom sites and products that are created on a case-by-case basis. These products include web sites such as online catalogs and loyalty systems, email marketing campaigns, and call center operator interfaces.

The software developers at Carlson Marketing base their projects on the Rational Unified Process (RUP), an iterative methodology that in its most common form doesn’t really address usability or user experience. In order to address this deficit, Carlson Marketing contracted with a third party vendor of user experience processes tailored for use in RUP. According to Larisa, this process has been extremely useful. This is not to say that it is applied rigidly and blindly to every project; steps are shuffled or skipped as appropriate, but the process is a solid framework for each member of the team to fall back on. The process doesn’t “talk back, and it doesn’t point fingers.”

Once a business need and goal have been defined, there is a role for an information architect in every step of the user interface creation process, according to Larisa. The particular challenge that the user experience faces at Carlson Marketing is that there’s often a project manager in the IT group concerned with the programming, and perhaps an account manager or operations team member concerned with managing the client relationship, but there isn’t necessarily a dedicated project manager for the UI process. As a result, the user experience group sometimes finds itself left out of crucial steps in the process such as testing or basic planning. This presents an opportunity for the UI team to refer back to the established process to assert its role.

Larisa gave me some useful insight into the practicalities of the research phase of the IA process. In his essay, Jakob Nielsen addresses the common disparity between how users say they use a site and how they actually use it. Nielsen says that it is crucial that usability be genuinely tested rather than simply put through a focus group. Only by observing the way individuals use a site can you really gain insight into what’s going to be useful and intuitive. If users are asked simply to look at a layout, they will gravitate to what seems cool or interesting, rather than what’s useful.

Rosenfeld and Morville’s chapter on research identifies a basic approach to research based on their venn diagram showing Context, Content, and Users. In the context realm, they discuss the importance of researching the client’s business environment in order to understand the goals, business plan, budget, and infrastructure constraints of the project. In this, Rosenfeld and Morville reemphasize the possibility of resistance to the notion of information architecture, and the challenges of explaining the concepts and their value to clients.

Larisa bridged these two challenges with an interesting real-world scenario, in which it is the client, not the user, who has a preconceived notion of how the users will interact with a system or product. This can often be a touchy situation, because the client may feel strongly that they know their customer base intimately, and that an outside party couldn’t possibly know their business better than they do. However, if an IA researcher can get permission from the client to analyze help center call logs, or support request e-mails, or better, actually interview users, a picture of how users actually interact with the system or site quickly emerges.

Worth noting are the explanations of “top-down” and “bottom-up” information architecture. “Top-down” information architecture refers to the process of identifying, predicting and anticipating the set of questions most likely to be in the minds of users of a site. Once an information architect has a grasp on these questions, she can set about structuring the site in such a way as to make the path to the answers as short and intuitive as possible.

“Bottom-up” information architecture refers to structuring content into meaningful and well-documented chunks in order to best support searching and browsing of a site. The idea here is that if the atoms of information that make up your site are accessible to search engines and have robust metadata, then users can discover answers to their questions outside of any navigational structure or page hierarchy you may have created. This concept strikes me as increasingly important as users become primarily searchers rather than browsers. Google is a powerful tool for directing searchers deep into a site, but improper “bottom-up” IA can easily make for search results which reflect old or inaccurate content, which may actually be worse than having a site which is opaque to search engines.

The key components of a site’s information architecture, according to Rosenfeld and Morville, are Organizational Systems, Labeling Systems, Navigation Systems, and Searching Systems. The first two, the subjects of chapters five and six, are old hat to librarians, although understanding the notion of a system like DDC or LC subject headings is quite different from actually creating an organizational or labeling system.

In fact, the timing of my readings couldn’t have been better this week, because I had the opportunity to attend an event directly related to the creation of organizational and labeling systems. Sponsored by the local chapter of the Usability Professionals Association and hosted by the Target Corporation’s user experience research team, the topic of the event was “Card Sorting from the Bottom Up (and the Top Down).” I’m going to forego a detailed recap of the rest of my reading in favor of sharing some thoughts about this event.

The members of the Target group gave a quick walkthrough of their card sorting process, which they use to generate taxonomies primarily for use in navigation on their internal corporate sites. Card sorting is an exercise in which people who have been recruited because they match the profile of site users are given a set of cards, each of which has a term or phrase on it, and are asked to sort them into groups of like cards. The terms on the cards are drawn from the content to be organized, and should be a representative sample of user destinations or tasks.

The “top down” and “bottom up” in the title of the event should not be confused with Rosenfeld and Morville’s distinction mentioned earlier. Rather, they refer to two types of card sorts, which the book calls open and closed, respectively. In top down, or open, card sorts, users are asked to create groups in which to place their cards, and to label those groups. These sorts have the potential for greatest use because they hint at potential structural and labeling schemes for content. Bottom up, or closed, card sorts ask users to file the cards into a predetermined and pre-labeled set of groups. These card sorts are primarily used as a means of validating results from earlier top down sorts.

Reaction from some of the other usability professionals in the session seemed to indicate that the Target group was somewhat unique in that they preferred to run their card sorting exercises with small groups of users, rather than single users. The value they see in using groups of 3-5 users is in the users’ conversation, which can often give a glimpse into users’ thought processes and give the researchers more data than is reflected in the piles of cards at the end of an exercise. The tradeoff, of course, is that group dynamics can override individual users’ behavior. One strong-willed user can unduly influence a group’s results, and anyway, when was the last time you browsed a web site with 2-4 peers?

The Target team said that they often find that patterns emerge quickly, which was borne out when the event attendees did their own card sorting exercise in small groups. The same terms and concepts were echoed by group after group. Ideally, the Target team performs top down card sorts with multiple groups in each user demographic that they identify for a given site. The results from these exercises are then tested with bottom up card sorts. It strikes me that bottom up card sorts may also be a useful opportunity to test any terms or other organizational schemes that may be second nature to the site’s creators, but obscure to the site’s users, such as internal organizational charts.

Lastly, the team shared some of their techniques for data capture and analysis, which they warned was not particularly pleasant work. The tool of the trade seems to be the Excel spreadsheet, which allows for easy sorting and resorting of data by card and by group.

It appears that Rosenfeld and Morville go into greater depth about card sorting later in the book, but I was glad to have the opportunity to get an introduction to the topic from some skilled practitioners.

In this elegant diagram, Garrett addresses the differences between the web as “hypertext information space” and “remote software interface”. His diagram attempts to reconcile the information-oriented focus of the former with the task-oriented HCI/software engineering focus of the latter.

This diagram dates from early 2000, and the lines between these two aspects of the web have only further blurred in the past six years. In particular, interface design, navigation design and interaction design are now one and the same as sites achieve a degree of interactivity unimagined at the turn of the millennium. Sites like Google’s Writely and Gmail thoroughly replicate functionality heretofore relegated to desktop software, in this case word processing and e-mail, respectively. Likewise, renewed emphasis on web standards such as CSS, and the integration of data formats like RSS and OPML require rigorous information architecture and content management.

Rosenfeld, Louis, and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd ed.. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2002. 3-35.

The first two chapters of Rosenfeld and Morville’s book are devoted to defining and defending information architecture. Rather than attempt a single definition of the practice of information architecture, the authors offer several different definitions each of what IA is and is not. I particularly like one of their definitions: “The art and science of structuring and classifying web sites and intranets to help people find and manage information.”

I also found interesting their assertions about the boundaries of information architecture. In particular, they take pains to say that graphic design, software development and usability engineering are not IA. While Rosenfeld and Morville are eager to draw bright lines in order to define IA, it’s important not to confuse these tasks with job titles. A graphic designer may also from time to time act as an information architect, for example. Each of these areas of expertise inform and reinforce the other, but they should not be confused for one another.

The impression I get from these first two chapters is that the authors presuppose a degree of suspicion on the part of decision-makers about the value of information architecture, largely because it is not visible to site users. One of the more effective illustrations is a diagram credited to Myra Messing Klarman depicting a web site as an iceberg, with the user-accessible interface represented by the small fraction of the ice floating above the surface while information architecture, the bulk of the iceberg, lurks beneath the murky waters. This is a metaphor that can only be taken so far, as web sites are intended to be simple, inviting and pleasing to users, not dangerous icy obstacles.

The invisibility of information architecture is addressed in the foreword, by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, who writes, “Allow users to focus on their tasks, and let information architects be the ones to spend time worrying about the structure of the web site or intranet…The more that answers are located in the places you look for them, the easier the design will feel to users, and the more successful the project.”

Rosenfeld and Morville define project success in IA as harmony between three factors, Users, Content and Context. Roughly speaking, this means providing users with fulfillment of their information needs through intuitive means, creating a site structure that accounts for the variety and volume of content necessary, and balancing both of these with business goals, politics, and budgets. Chapter three begins to get in to the meat of this by examining the needs of users.

The information needs of users, the authors say, vary greatly, as do their information seeking behaviors. Some users on some sites will know precisely what they want, where to find it and that the information does, in fact, exist on the site. Others will have a broader need, one that more closely resembles “learning about” than it does “learning that”. And still others will be interested in exhaustive, indiscriminate information gathering. Most often users will exhibit information seeking behavior that is iterative, which combines a number of techniques (i.e., searching, browsing), and which has a goal that changes throughout the process. Rosefeld and Morville cite Bates’s berry-picking model, which is one of my readings for next week.

This chapter serves mainly to introduce the concept of information needs and models of information seeking behavior. In Part III, Ch. 10 of the book it appears that the process of systematically identifying the needs and behaviors of users is addressed more specifically. I’m looking forward to it.

I was pleased to find that Peter Morville himself has published a syllabus that focuses on his book, but also offers further readings and case studies. I intend to use his syllabus as my main reading list, but because it appears to be a few years old, I’ll be supplementing it with some more recent case studies and articles drawn from other sources.

Below you’ll find citations and links to the syllabi, articles, and other resources I’ll be studying from now until mid-December. I’ll likely be making additions and subtractions, and would appreciate any suggestions for further readings.

(Citations are listed in the order I’ll be reading them rather than in alphabetical order.)

Main Syllabus:

Morville, Peter. “Information Architecture Syllabus.” Semantic Studios. 2003. 22 July 2006.
http://www.semanticstudios.com/publications/iasyllabus.html.

Garrett, Jesse James. “The Elements of User Experience.” Jesse James Garrett’s Hidden Agenda. 2000.
http://jjg.net/ia/elements.pdf.

Bates, Marcia J. “The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface.” University of California at Los Angeles Graduate School of Library and Information Science. 1989. 22 July 2006.
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/berrypicking.html.

Berners-Lee, Tim, James Hendler and Ora Lassila. “The Semantic Web.” Scientific American May 2001. 22 July 2006.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21.

Merholz, Peter. “Innovation in Classification.” Peterme.com. 2001. 22 July 2006.
http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000063.html.

Leise, Fred, Karl Fast and Mike Steckel. “All About Facets & Controlled Vocabularies.” Boxes and Arrows. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/all_about_facets_controlled_vocabularies.

Flamenco Search. http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/. UC Berkeley School of Information. 9 September 2006.

Nielsen, Jakob. “First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users.” Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. 2001. 22 July 2006.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010805.html.

Willis, Dan. “Classic IA Tools.” Boxes and Arrows. 2003. 22 July 2006.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/images/042103_willis/dswilliscom_classictools.pdf.

Crotty Fraser, Janice. “Taking a Content Inventory.” New Architect. 2001. 22 July 2006.
http://adaptivepath.com/events/training/complete/files.php.

Garrett, Jesse James. “ia/recon.” jjg.net. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://jjg.net/ia/recon/.

Shirky, Clay. “Social Software and the Politics of Groups.” Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet. 2003. 22 July 2006.
http://shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html.

Morville, Peter. “Social Network Analysis.” Semantic Studios. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000006.php.

Morville, Peter. “Ambient Findability.” Semantic Studios. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000008.php.

Saffo, Paul. “Untangling the Future.” Business 2.0 June 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://www.saffo.com/essays/untangling.php.

The Long Now Foundation. 22 July 2006.
http://www.longnow.org/.

Case Studies:

Rosenbaum, Howard. “L571: Information Architecture for the Web Syllabus: Spring 2006.” 2006. Indiana University School of Library and Information Science. 22 July 2006.
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/hrosenba/www/L571/syll/outline.html.

Fox, Chiara. “PeopleSoft.com Case Study Enterprise Information Architecture.” Adaptive Path. 2001. 22 July 2006.
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/L571/pdf/fox_peoplesoft.ppt.

Lippell, Helen. “The ABCs of the BBC: A Case Study and Checklist.” Boxes and Arrows. 2005. 22 July 2006.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_abcs_of_the_bbc_a_case_study_and_checklist.

Parrish, Hannah. “Customer Storytelling at the Heart of Business Success.” Boxes and Arrows. 2005. 22 July 2006.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/customer_storytelling_at_the_heart_of_business_success.

Rampoldi-Hnilo, Lynn. “Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization.” Boxes and Arrows. 2005. 22 July 2006.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/uncovering_users_in_your_own_organization.

Story, Greg. “Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia (or Build a Website for No Reason).” A List Apart. 2005. 22 July 2006.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/landwarinasia.

Other resources:

Miller-Francisco, Emily. “A Brief Bibliography on Information Architecture.” Southern Oregon University. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://home.sou.edu/~millere/ia/handout.html.

Jacob, Elin. “L540 : Foundations of information architecture.” Indiana University School of Library and Information Science. 2003. 22 July 2006.
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/syllabi/fall_2003/L540_jacob.html.

Morville, Peter. “Information Architecture Research.” Semantic Studios. 2004. 22 July 2006.
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000030.php.

Turnbull, Don. “LIS385T Information Architecture and Design.” University of Texas Graduate School of Library and Information Science. 2002. 22 July 2006.
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~l385tdt/.

Brown, Mary E. “Course Syllabus: ILS 599 Information Architecture.” Southern Connecticut State University. 2006. 22 July 2006.
http://www.southernct.edu/~brownm/599ia_Sp2006_syllabus.html.