Building a Solid Information Architecture for a Website

I attended a working session recently to plan out the information architecture of an organization facing profound problems with their existing websites.

The organization's web content is deep and they tried to solve this by having two websites. A recent stakeholder revolt convinced the organization back to the drawing board with the website. This time they were seeking the input of a the various different stakeholder groups (always a great idea).

I decided to participate as I love information architecture (IA). I relished categorizing things since I was a youngster and as a website manager among my favourite duties was planning out (and replanning) the IA of a site.

Here are some tips I gathered from my experience and the session.

The expert introduced us to the pioneering work in this field by Richard Saul Wurman (here's a brief history of IA).

The expert also recommended when preparing to do an IA start by listing all the stakeholders and user groups. A stakeholder and user group may be one in the same, but not always. Stakeholders need to be considered as even if they don't use the website, the final IA still has to be fine by them.  It is also important to consider, the expert noted, how a user group changes over time and the resulting changes in information needs. For example, a student changes (hopefully) over time to an alumnus or a prospective customer to an owner.

It is important to know how your users think about your content - how they would categorize, structure, and name in their own words. There are various ways to do this. I have done focus groups and user testing and they are good sources, but I think card sorting is the way to go for preparing for IA. Card sorting is where you ask users to "participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they may also help you label these groups" according to Usability.gov.

The IA expert also stressed that it is crucial when labeling the navigation elements "to not worry about being interesting, be clear. The content can be interesting, your navigation should be clear." I recommend using the words your users would use for the labels as much as reasonably possible.

We also discussed at the session on the necessity to make trade-offs and prioritizations. For example, you can't design the IA of a website both for a novice and for an expert user at the same time. They likely won't think about the content and names in the same way the more familiar they get with your topic.

You can consider duplicating content to get around this or other situations, and while this may work it can also make a website more of a quagmire. So thread carefully with duplication as the best solution depends on the unique considerations of each website and its users.

Another challenge we wrestled with is whether to keep users out of content that doesn't apply to them (via separate sites or log-in) or have all your content open to all for transparency. Again, the best solution depends on the individual website.

My biggest tip, however, is invest in a good search engine - the best you can afford. Then customize and maintain it. Great IA and navagation aids can never direct every user all the time to the correct content and some people are search dominant (they go right go the search feature as soon as they arrive). Make sure to configure the search settings with how your users will use it. This means your search engine should support natural language, stem, and fuzzy search (which I believe are standard nowadays). Many search engines will allow for a customized thesaurus. Find out the actual words your uses use to think of your content (via focus groups, surveys, and anecdotal feedback mechanisms). As the essence of search engines is indexing words, it is also a good idea to write your content so that keywords are used.
 
In going through our organization's various content and functions that the website was required to house, it quickly became overwhelming to have one site that could satisfy (let alone delight) every stakeholder. Doing a website's IA for any organization is something that takes time, careful consideration, and no doubt delicate political wrangling. 

It is definitely worth devoting the time, energy, money and machiavellian ploys as truly a good information arcitecture forms the foundation for an effective website.

Help Making Location Based Services Relevant

I've been reviewing the recent literature related to location based services and locative media and came across an incredibly useful article for those building or refining such apps. The article, Criteria of geographic relevance: An experimental study, will be published soon in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science (but is freely available in a pre-print version). The authors, Stefano De Sabbata and Tumasch Reichenbacher are experts in geographic relevance, mobile information retrieval, and location based services.

It's worth reading their entire article, but they include a summary table that lists all the types of information relevance and ones specifically applicable to mobile, geolocative functionality. Relevance, in this sense, refers to the degree to which information returned by a digital service satisfies various user needs and desires. (Read more about information relevance on Wikipedia).

In my efforts to keep updated on location based services, I've noticed that many apps focus on the relevance criterion of proximity to the neglect of all other (possibly more pertinent) factors. De Sabbata and Reichenbacher offer an invaluable list of other factors that developers should consider for more effective and engaging user experiences. Even better, their work is based on actual user studies.

Here is their table of relevance criteria, based on the classes of: properties (of the object), geography, information, and presentation (of the end result, to the user).

Properties	Geography	Information	Presentation
topicality	spatial proximity	specificity	accessibility
appropriateness	temporal proximity	availability	clarity
coverage	spatio-temporal    proximity	accuracy	tangibility
novelty	directionality	currency	dynamism
	visibility	reliability	presentation quality
	anchor-point   proximity	verification
	hierarchy	affectiveness
	cluster	curiosity
	co-location	familiarity
	association rules	variety

For details on a particular concept, the article has useful explanations.

Although location based services are, by definition, preoccupied with location (i.e. spatial proximity) this list offers guidance on other criteria to add that would greatly improve current locative apps.

This list seems definitive to me, but if anyone has a criteria to add or refine, I'd love to hear it below.

I, Conference iConference

Today was the last day of iConference 2012. The conference, geared to topics of interest to iSchools (i.e. Information studies), was hosted by my school, University of Toronto, Faculty of Information. When I wasn't volunteering, I was able to attend several sessions. This post captures my ramblings as I make sense of my first foray into iConferences and immersion in the iSchool movement.

Conference vibe
Having not been to any other iConferences, I'm not sure what is typical of their nature or this particular instance. As a smallish conference for a defined body, it had a collegial feel. This was a welcome relief from more vast and impersonal conferences. The organizers did a great job encouraging the collegial feel from such touches as name tags that presented one's name as most important and a welcome reception complete with ice-breaker games and signature cocktails.

Venue
Recaps of conferences often fail to account for the venue. In my mind and body, venue is as important as the content. I'm hoping that in my small way I can convince (or shame) conference organizers and venues to care about this. The conference facilities at Toronto's downtown Marriott was overall quite good. The conference rooms were comfortable and they had a nice central area, dubbed the Living Room, with comfy seats, food, ample (free) coffee, and art installations. It was a great spot to hang out - surprisingly, most venues I've been to lack such space. I also like how the Marriott is centrally-located (even if I hard time finding the passage from the Eaton Centre and spent awkward amount of time walking around Sears' lingerie section until I found it). Even for in-town attendees, let alone for foreign visitors, it is important to be near amenities instead of at a desolate, entrapping conference centre. My only complaints were that the rooms were a little airless (typical) and even though there was free wi-fi, there were difficulties connecting to it and cell networks.

Sessions
Between my volunteering duties and childcare limits, I missed a lot of sessions that I would have liked to have attended. And some sessions were not up my alley. But I greatly appreciated that the conference had a variety of session types - paper sessions, workshops, panels, posters, jams, world cafe and fishbowl discussions. I wish more conferences would mix things up like this.

I would also like to emphatically state at this time how hugely inappropriate it is for people to "present" by reading (often in a monotone) their paper in its entirety. Reading aloud at a conference is as out of place as going to a restaurant to sleep on a table. It is disdainful of the audience and pointless (other than to add it to one's c.v.) and I am peeved at how tolerated (encouraged?) it is in academia.

Rather than recount every session, I'll briefly highlight the main concepts and take-aways:

Positive design - Mary Beth Rosson raised this as a fruitful approach to design that builds upon what a medium enables rather than dwelling on overcoming its constraints. For example, online conversation may not have all the visual clues of face-to-face, but it is easily archivable and searchable. So it helps to consider under what circumstances these benefits are desired and plan around that.

User-defined success - an interesting way to think about the "success" of behaviour observed online or elsewhere is to use the metrics reflective of people's goals. I've seen program evaluation that has this component, but I don't believe this concept is as widespread as it should be in academia or industry. For more on this, read the paper presented by Christopher Mascaro Not Just a Wink and Smile: An Analysis of User-Defined Success in Online Dating (co-authors Rachel Magee & Sean Goggins)

Visual research - there was an interesting panel that examined different methods to solicit research on a concept (see Jenna Hartel's What is Information). I believe that methods that rely on people to textually account for their thoughts and behaviour are limited, as are reductionist surveys and experiments. It's interesting to consider other ways of soliciting participants' ideas - in this case Hartel used drawings, but I think photography, collage, clay, performance, or cultural probes would generate invaluable insight.

Commenting on news websites - Mary Cavanagh studied user comments on news sites.
Among her findings, she found comments used by people for: informing, contesting, criticising, elaborating, questioning, asserting, ampliyfing, mocking, learning, and re-framing. I asked her whether she observed a "community" among these sites' users and although she noted elements of "we-ness", inter-poster conversation and familiarity, she's reluctant to consider it cohesive and reoccurring enough to be a community.

Information browsing versus information seeking - as Jenna Hartel and panellists pointed out, there tends to be a focus on information seeking as rational and expedient, neglecting the role of pleasure and play. The term information browsing helps to capture the elements of affect, embodiment, and serendipity in information use.

Map-based search
Microsoft Research was a sponsor of iConference 2012, so they were there promoting their new products. I was really impressed with their Academic Map search tool. By selecting an academic area and a location on the map, one can easily see clusters of research and click on an individual researcher. They are currently limited to 14 very broad areas (e.g. "Social Sciences") but in talking to the rep. there are plans to refine these categories, which would make it much more useful.

Benefits of locative media
Topics directly related to my research interests were unfortunately limited to one poster, Does the Use of Place Affect Learner Engagement? The Case of GeoStoryteller on the Streets of New York, but it was excellent. The project used locative media, with an optional augmented reality component, to deliver information about the history of Germans in NYC. What I found particularly encouraging is that the researchers, Anthony Cocciolo and Debbie Rabina, found that such applications effectively used place and technology to improve learning engagement. As they note: "This engagement is the result of discovering new information about familiar surroundings using standard mobile user interfaces (lists, maps, videos), and not from more novel user interfaces (augmented reality)".

I would have liked to have seen sessions along this line at iConference, but it offers a panoramic snapshot of work going on in iSchools. It will be interesting to see if mobile user experience, geoinformatics, location-based services or locative media feature more prominently at the next iConference in Fort Worth, Texas.

Is Facebook an Echo Chamber?

Researchers at Facebook this week published the results of an extensive research project examining the popular conception that social networking sites promulgate a singularity of information sources and voices - creating an echo chamber. With the ongoing demise of broad information sources, such as the newspaper, and the increasing usage of social media (e.g. Facbeook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and other news feeds as the primary, or only, source of news, people are not exposed to anywhere near the same diversity of issue coverage as they used to.

So the study, Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks, is an important contribution in understanding this area. It is truly impressive in its design, scale (millions of Facebook users), and dazzling graphs.  The study found that:

even though people are more likely to consume and share information that comes from close contacts that they interact with frequently (like discussing a photo from last night’s party), the vast majority of information comes from contacts that they interact with infrequently. These distant contacts are also more likely to share novel information, demonstrating that social networks can act as a powerful medium for sharing new ideas, highlighting new products and discussing current events.

Before I settled on my current research topic, I planned to research if the Internet promotes homophily and how to facilitating serendipitous information. I, as with many others, believe that access to a diversity of information sources and voices is important for an informed society and hence good government.

Facebook's study is really useful - but they are a couple claims that differ from my experience.

One, is that the nature of information on Facebook is diverse. It may be vast and it may be broad, but I found that with rare exceptions, the information circulated falls into maybe four categories. To me, I mostly see my social circle accounts, entertainment news & commentary, political news & rants, and occasionally news of the odd (okay it's me sharing those stories).

I am also not sure that those we are less close to, i.e. "weak ties", are necessarily that dissimilar and thus expose use to novel information.  I don't doubt the value of weak ties in sharing information, but I still think the information falls into common categories and still tends to roughly entail a common voice or political leaning. Weak ties are still similar to individuals or they wouldn't be a tie at all. People on social network sites certainly friend indiscriminately, even wantonly, but we don't usually friend our polar opposites.

There is no doubt that the Internet exposes us to a greater diversity of voices than older media allowed.  And the Internet definitely has improved the ability to share information - I did find out about this study through a friend's posting on Facebook. I'm still not convinced, however, that we are receiving anywhere near the diversity of coverage of issues and viewpoints that we need.

Studying Information

Since starting my PhD program in Information at the University of Toronto (iSchool), I keep getting asked what this exactly is. Or they comment that I'm really studying "Information management", "Information technology", or "Library studies" which isn't my case (although it does apply to others). I answer by talking about my research interests (online interface design, usability, user experience, online participatory culture). But I didn't have a good sense of the overall field to share.

Having completed most of my first year of my PhD in Information at I now feel I have a good understanding of the field. Prior to coming to iSchool I researched particular faculty members and found that there were a few that were pursuing the type of reserach I wanted to, but I didn't have a sense of the field. To add to the (my) confusion, the program is interdisciplinary so there are overlaps (at times bewildering) with other departments, such as computer science, sociology, education, communication, and political science.

First, I don't like the term "Information Science" as there are a lot of problematic assumptions that go along with the term science, such as a belief in the supremacy of the scientific method, a bias towards quantative research, a philosohical outlook on the nature of knowledge (postivist). I'm fine with the term "Information Studies", but my faculty is moving just to "Information" as I presume the studies is extraneous for a university program.

The next challenge is defining information. There doesn't appear to be a strong consensus on this and some definitions complicate the concept more than necessary. I believe information is a simple as data communicated and understood. Data may take the form of letters, symbols, numbers, and images. It can be communicated via verbal messages, printed words, visual signals, body language, live music, radio waves, binary code, etc. It becomes information when it has been transmitted from a soruce or sender to a human or animal receiver who perceives the data and understands the significance.

If it isn't understood it remains data or is misinformation. If I don't speak the language of others and they are talking to me, their intent might be to give me information but I receive gibberish. Similarly, if a book collects dust in the recesses of a collection forever unread, the potential for it to offer information is lost. I don't think computers can pass information to each other as they can't yet really understand it, they just follow existing rules and commands. I also don't like definitions that focus on its human role as animals clearly communicate information to each other and to humans.

We are surrounded by information throughout our daily life. Often we are unaware that we are perceiving information, it's just part of our routines and environment:

Alarm clocks. Hungry, pawing cats. Whistling kettles. Hollering children. Traffic signals. Talk radio. Elevator buttons. Overloaded email. Conference calls. Monotonous meetings. Revealing yawns. Secret texting. Watercooler gossip. Trade magazines. Intranet news. Abysmal filing systems. Clock watching. Transit delay messages. Omnipresent advertising. Microwave beeps. Intrusive telemarketers. Escapist entertainment. Facebook updates. Snoring spouses.

The components of information may not always be evident, as we tend to focus on the content of messages and not the message structure or its supporting infrastructure. It is the task of those studying information to examine the components that affect the transmission, storage, and comprehension of information.

To uncover these components information scholars examine the physical environment, social conditions, cognitive patterns, and design implications of the information ecosystem. From this study, we can then better understand how information is produced, recorded, organized, shared, retrieved, and stored. We thus learn how to improve information practices and behaviours or how to design better information technology or systems.

This is my take on the field. I'm still a newbie, so I'm sure I still need a lot more information about information.