INFM 700 Course Review

1. INFM 700Course Review Paul Jacobs The iSchool University of Maryland Apr. 20 & May 4, 2011 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United StatesSee http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ for details

2. Today’s Topics • Course outline • Review of highlights and tricky issues • Ground rules for exam • Q & A

3. Course Outline • Introduction • Principles, organization and navigation (M&R chs. 1-7) (2 sessions) • Techniques and technology (M&R chs. 10-12 plus case studies) (2 sessions) • Taxonomies and metadata (M&R ch. 9) • Search (M&R ch. 8, Manning chs.) (2 sessions) • Software and business issues (Lenoir talk & case studies, examples)

4. Information Architecture What is it? (for starters) Architecture – structural design [of web sites] to support function and form Information – organized [electronic] content So our goal is to master the design of web sites for organizations that effectively deliver information to their users Consider: the information ecology (users, context, content) Goals; signs of good and bad architecture Basic skills and techniques for achieving goals

5. The IA Circles (“Ecology”) Context Content Users from M&R, p. 25

6. The Process • Understand user and system requirements • Design (and build) organization, navigation, and metadata systems • Evaluate the user experience Figure out if it works Figure out what’s needed Build it Design it (compare with physical architects)

7. Users and Methods • Users are tough, fickle, inarticulate, lying, complaining, ignorant, obtuse, inconsistent, … • …but user experience is still our main measure of success • So what do we do? • Use varying strategies/components • Apply “90-10” or “80-20” rules (you can’t please everyone) • Accommodate variability in our measurements/design

8. Information Architecture Components • Organization systems • “How we categorize information” • Labeling systems • “How we represent information” • Navigation systems • “How we browse or move through information” • Searching systems • “How we search information” Loosely, “structured” Loosely, “unstructured” from M&R, pp. 49-52

9. Architecture Components (examples) • Major organization systems (e.g., by topic, task, community, chronology, …) • Major navigation systems (e.g., navigation bars, breadcrumbs, top-level links) • Local navigation systems • “Contextual” navigation systems • Indices and guides (e.g., sitemap, table of contents, site guide) • Search • Invisible components from M&R, pp. 49-52

10. Organization Systems • Hierarchical organization • What is a hierarchy? • Why organize hierarchically • Shallow and broad vs. deep and narrow (why the tradeoff, where is the optimum) • Relation to navigation, layout, blueprints

11. Navigation Systems • Global • Shown everywhere • Tells the user “what’s important” • Local • Shown in specific parts of the site • Tells the user “what’s nearby” • Contextual • Shown only in specific situations • Tells the user “what’s related”

12. Research & Strategy • Research: identify goals & issues • User needs • Organizational/context • Content and other issues • Strategy: build and sell the plan Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, human resources Context Content Users Audience, tasks, user behavior, experience, vocabulary Data types, content objects, metadata, volume, existing structure MR, p. 233

13. Ground rules for exam • What can be on it • Anything that’s “really” covered, not passing mention • Focus on concepts, but can include definitions, examples • Style of exam • As objective as possible • Mostly multiple choice, some matches, short answers • Designed to fit in < 1.5 hours • Degree of difficulty and grading • Prepare, but try to make the most of it and enjoy!

14. Examples (from last year) X. Hierarchical organization schemes are frequently used in IA because: a. they are consistent with user mental models and help maintain content as well as supporting effective navigation b. it is easy to implement them using binary trees or B-trees c. they conform to ANSI standards for thesaurus design d. the scientific community has long practiced hierarchical classification Y. When considering the depth and breadth of a hierarchy, a. the tradeoff depends on screen “real estate” as well as users’ ability to grasp information b. it is important to have the same number of links on every page, within one or two c. “shallow but wide” organization is usually more effective because it prevents users from getting lost in the depths of a site d. depth doesn’t really matter so long as you have a “back” button and a breadcrumb to help users find their way around

15. Examples (from last year) Z. An important role of content analysis in the research process is a) to apply a “Noah’s ark” approach to closed-end cart sorting b) to validate and extend a site’s top-down organization c) to make sure all available content is included on the final web site d) to choose the right search engine

16. Process Overview (More Detail) “The Elements of User Experience” Jesse James Garrett http://jjg.net

17. Research and Strategy Methods • User and requirements analysis (inc., e.g., interviews, competitive analysis) • Content analysis • Role of user studies (e.g., surveys, user testing, card sorting) • From research to strategy • Relationship to documentation

18. Design and Documentation Deliverables • Conceptual Diagrams • Blueprints (structural) • Wireframes (physical) • Text (e.g., reports) • Presentations and meetings

19. Top-down and bottom-up

20. Metadata • Literally “data about data” • “a set of data that describes and gives information about other data” ― Oxford English Dictionary • Why do we need this? • Types of metadata • Descriptive/subjective/content (e.g. author, subject, keywords, …) • Administrative (e.g. owner, rights, cost, creation date, version, …) • Technical (e.g. format, size, dependencies, programs) • . . . . • In practical terms: • Metadata helps users locate, navigate, interpret content • Metadata helps organizations manage content • Metadata helps systems manipulate content

21. Related Concepts & Uses • Taxonomies • Anything organized in some sort of hierarchical structure • Tagging • Adding almost any kind of metadata to content, but now often descriptive and user-provided • Thesauri • Focus on relations between terms • Focus on “concepts” • Ontologies • Usually model a specific domain or part of the world • Generally machine-readable Increasing complexity and richness

22. Goals for Search Sessions • Understand the basic issues in information retrieval (searching primarily unstructured text)(e.g. words vs. concepts, word problems, recall and precision) • Know the techniques generally used by modern search engines (vector space model, term weighting) • Learn how search engines can be used most effectively in information architecture (e.g. configuring search, integrating search and browsing, tricks like “best bets”)

23. What we control (the IA part)? Requirements and search engine selection Developing search requirements Build vs. buy Vendor evaluation/selection Consultants? Content selection What to search/zones/etc. Tags Search engine configuration Zones, what gets indexed, sometimes how Number of results, sometimes recall vs. precision Others (very often interface-related) Interfaces

24. Examples (from last year) 8. A good “rule of thumb” in considering the interaction between search and navigation is: a. make the search box large to attract attention to this important feature b. spend more time and resources on search because some users will always go right to the search box c. think of navigation as an effective way to avoid search problems d. try to avoid spending time on search functionality because the user search experience is usually bad anyway

25. Examples (from last year) • Match the concepts on the left with descriptions on the right: Top-down analysis Organizing information according to concepts in a “tree” from the general to the specific Tagging Organizing information by starting with an expectation of what’s important or needed Taxonomy A network of terminology and/or concepts that captures associations and relationships among words, phrases, or ideas Thesaurus Assigning “meta-data” labels to information content to make it easier to organize, understand, or find

26. Examples (from last year) For each of the following examples covered in class, give a word or phrase from the left column of the above table (or the number of the phrase) that best fits what was illustrated by the example (in some examples there may be more than one correct answer). Give a very short (one sentence or less) explanation. 36. HP’s web site uses “best bets” to direct searchers to certain pages, such as how to select a printer for purchase. 37. The National Library of Medicine’s Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) retrieves information about “neoplasms” in response to a search for “cancer” 38. The Best Buy site allows you to select a set of laptop computers by choosing links showing manufacturer or price range 39. In redesigning their web site, E-Bay identified five important task groups and then used a closed end card sort to validate their task groupings 40. The iSchool web site gives links to various student projects and publications under the “Research” tab