Information architecture

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Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.[1] Typically, it involves a model or concept of information that is used and applied to activities which require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

Information architecture is considered to have been founded by Richard Saul Wurman.[2] Today there is a growing network of active IA specialists who constitute the Information Architecture Institute.[3]

Definition

Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in different branches of IS or IT:

  1. The structural design of shared information environments.[4][page needed]
  2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities, and software to support findability and usability.[1][4][page needed]
  3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.[4][page needed][5]
  4. The combination of organization, labeling, search and navigation systems within websites and intranets.[4][page needed]
  5. Extracting required parameters/data of Engineering Designs in the process of creating a knowledge-base linking different systems and standards.
  6. A subset of Data Architecture where usable data (a.k.a information) is constructed in and designed or arranged in a fashion most useful or empirically holistic to the users of this data.

Debate

The difficulty in establishing a common definition for "information architecture" arises partly from the term's existence in multiple fields. In the field of systems design, for example, information architecture is a component of enterprise architecture that deals with the information component when describing the structure of an enterprise.

While the definition of information architecture is relatively well-established in the field of systems design, it is much more debatable within the context of online information systems (i.e., websites). Andrew Dillon refers to the latter as the "big IA-little IA debate".[6] In the little IA view, information architecture is essentially the application of information science to web design which considers, for example, issues of classification and information retrieval. In the big IA view, information architecture involves more than just the organization of a website; it also factors in user experience, thereby considering usability issues of information design.

Information architect

Richard Saul Wurman says the term information architect is "used in the words architect of foreign policy. I mean architect as in the creating of systemic, structural, and orderly principles to make something work — the thoughtful making of either artifact, or idea, or policy that informs because it is clear.[7]

Notable people in information architecture

Pioneers

First generation

Second generation

Influencers

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
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  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Rosenfeld & Morville 1998.
  5. Resmini, A. & Rosati, L. (2012). A Brief History of Information Architecture. Journal of Information Architecture. Vol. 3, No. 2. [Available at http://journalofia.org/volume3/issue2/03-resmini/]. Originally published in Resmini, A. & Rosati L. (2011). Pervasive Information Architecture. Morgan Kauffman. (Edited by the authors).
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  7. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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