DITA Session 01 Introduction to computing 27-10-2010 Supplimental

Following on from DITA session 1 and the set up of the blog, I undertook further reading on the basics of Information Architecture, use of new technology, information needs and "information seeking behaviours" (Morville and Rosenfield 2006).

What is Information architecture (Morville and Rosenfield 2006)?

• The structural design of shared information environments
• The combination of organisation, laveling search and navigation systems within websites and intranets
• The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability
• An emerging discipline and community of practice focussed on bringing principles and design and architecture to the digital landscape

Information overload in modern society has led to the emergence a discipline concerned with structuring, organising and labelling it in order for end users to be able to manage and find what they are concerned with, (and to be distinguished as a discipline from data or knowledge management)it can be classed as both an art and a science (Morville and Rosenfield 2006). Furthermore it sits somewhere in a grey area with other related discipines perhaps all involved in some way with designing, structuring, labelling, using nad finding information. eg. Graphic Design, Interaction design, usability engineering, experience design, software development, enterprise architecture, content management, Knowledge management (Morville and Rosenfield 2006).

Two quite comprehensive definitions of what information architecture is:

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci509934,00.html
(Moon, John. Definition of information architecture; searchstorage.techtarget.com 09 Nov 2003 accessed 02-10-2010)

Users needs must be the driver for the concepts, principles and development of new technology employed by information architects. The very justification for the discipline must come from the reasons why information architecture's are employable. Morveille and Rosenfield write "What does it cost if every employee in your company spends an extra five minutes per day struggling to find answers on your intranet? What is the cost of frustrating your customers with a poorly organised website? The value of education, brand against the cost of construction and maintenance [of the website or intranet], cost of training it's users are all opportunities and constraints for information architecture work.
Users need to find, access, use and interpret information in a myriad of ways. The formats of information found on the internet range from basic text (ASCII format), figures and data through to marked up documents (using markup languages HTML, XML etc) PDF files and databases all referred to as 'content'.

Users, Content, Context. (Moreville and Rosenberg 2006)
"Good information architecture design is informed by all three areas". The infamous three circles of information architecture. (Moreville and Rosenberg 2006 p.25)

An article found at http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000149.php (accessed 02-10-2010) shows the three circles of Information Architecture 3.0 including the concept of 'community' rather than 'users' defined by Moreville and Rosenberg


Information seeking behaviours: The motivation of the community or users and it's needs.
"The too simple information Model. Modelling users needs and behavious force us to ask useful questions about what kind of information the user wants, how much information is enough, and how the user actually interacts with the architecture." (Moreville and Rosenberg 2006)

"Searching, browsing and are all methods for finding, and are the basic building blocks of information seeking behaviour"  (Moreville and Rosenberg 2006)

Technologies are employed to facilitate the storage, management, search, retrieval, organisation and interpretation of information found on the world wide web. Moreville and Rosenberg 2006 state that "much IA work is centred on making large scale applications work as advertised." and go on to make reference to the specialisations information archtiects find themselves centering on: Content management systems, search engines and portals. (Moreville and Rosenberg 2006)

Next blog post will look at what is the www and what is the internet and be based on teh DITA session 2 aims and outcomes including an introduction to "technologies that enable us to share digital information between computers at remote locations".   (Andy Macfarlane 2010, course aims on moodle)

• Morville and Rosenfield (2006) Information Architecture for the World Wide Web Sebastapol CA O'Reilly