Week 1 - Web Information Architecture Overview

The word information makes me think "make sense of gibberish". Collecting raw data and making sense out of it has become an obsession to the modern man today that the saying "Knowledge is Power", developed hundreds of years ago, is just making more sense to our present world.

With terabytes upon terabytes of data/information processed in a single day by both individuals and companies alike, data processing, mining and information management has taken on a different toll.

Putting all these data shape and information into a shape and form that is not only palatable and gullible for human consumption has led to the development of very lucrative trades like "Information Architect".

When we hear the word Architecture, it makes us to think Buildings, Structures, Shapes, Designs, Drawing Boards and White Boards. When this word is assigned to information, we start thinking of designing and structuring data for applicable human consumption.

Web information Architects collect data, design enterprise level websites within which they structure the data into consumable and digestible information with a touch of aesthetics such that the average human being can not only retrieve, but can make sense of, and use this information fruitfully.

There's always the question "Do we need Information Architects (IA)? Who's qualified to practice Information Architecture? 

I'll say "Yes", we do need IAs. Have you ever been directed to a website just to get a phone number to talk to an individual and it took you over five minutes to retrieve this information? How frustrating! I do believe a public, or even private website should be designed with human interaction in mind, The designer should put themselves into the consumers' shoes and try to consume their own produce. If it it's not appetizing, then it's a subject for revision and improvement.

As to who's qualified to practice this very lucrative trade, I'll leave that open to you who are reading this article.

However, I'll like to stress that a mastery of the following attributes might come in very handy for the Information Architect - Mastery of the language in which the website will be published, Human centered interaction, artistic touch to captivate not only the eye, but the mind, top notch organizational skills to able to structure, organize and classify information.

This leads us to the basic principles of IA. 

IA can be considered both an art as well as a science. As a science, it follows specific taxonomies to help classify and structure information such that a single glance at a particular web should catch the user's attention on the major attributes or topics under which detailed information and sub-links are placed.

The art of Organization and labeling, developed in the yesteryear's with Library Science all come into play to produce a good IA.

The art and science of design brings its importance in setting up navigation and search systems within a website, whilst accommodating Thesauri and controlled vocabularies with back-end Metadata about the information that’s available for consumption.