Open AccessEight principles of information architecture
Author(s) -
Brown Dan
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
bulletin of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8366
pISSN - 0095-4403
DOI - 10.1002/bult.2010.1720360609
Subject(s) - sketch , architecture , typography , computer science , set (abstract data type) , interpretation (philosophy) , space (punctuation) , human–computer interaction , art , algorithm , visual arts , programming language , operating system
practice of designing structures. These principles help guide the design of structures, but they presume the following: The information architect’s primary focus is the structure itself and secondarily the user interface representing the structure on screen (I make site maps and flow charts) The information architect has a good understanding of how people want to relate to the content and functionality contained in the structure (I’ve done my research) The information architect has a good understanding of the range of content and functionality to be supported by the structure (I’ve inventoried the content) Got those? Good. Let’s look at the principles. Here’s a preview: 1. The principle of objects – Treat content as a living, breathing thing, with a lifecycle, behaviors and attributes. 2. The principle of choices – Create pages that offer meaningful choices to users, keeping the range of choices available focused on a particular task. 3. The principle of disclosure – Show only enough information to help people understand what kinds of information they’ll find as they dig deeper. 4. The principle of exemplars – Describe the contents of categories by showing examples of the contents. 5. The principle of front doors – Assume at least half of the website’s visitors will come through some page other than the home page. 6. The principle of multiple classification – Offer users several different classification schemes to browse the site’s content.