GSLIS Information Architecture Project - BIBLIOGRAPHY

Everyone involved in the project should read (or at least skim) the following:

GENERAL REFERENCE

Krug, S. (2005). Don’t make me think!: A common sense approach to web usability (2nd Ed.). Berkeley, Calif.: New Riders Press.

Morville, P. (2005). Ambient findability. Sebastapol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Rosenfeld, L. and Morville, P. (1998, 2002, 2006). Information architecture for the world wide web. Sebastapol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Snyder, C. (2003). Paper prototyping: The fast and easy way to design and refine user interfaces. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

US Department of Health and Human Services. Research-based web design and usability guidelines. Available from http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html

Wikipedia. Information architecture. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture

RESOURCE LISTS

• The Information Architecture Institute (Learning IA)
• Information Architecture tutorial
• IA Wiki (This is down for maintenance on 8//27 – akc)
• Usability.gov
• Jakob Nielsen website
• Brian Talbot bookmarks

SUGGESTIONS FROM PROFESSIONALS

From a web designer:

“The general rule of thumb I’ve used is 7 ± 2. That comes from the fact that your short term memory can only juggle 5-9 things at once. So when designing a menu navigation structure, try to limit the number of items in each branch to 5-9 items. Any more than that, and it starts to become difficult to maintain all of your options in your head and navigate quickly.

“Another general rule of thumb I use is “Less is More”. Look at ebay and amazon – they’ve become so overloaded with features that it’s difficult in looking at any given page to figure out what to do. Compare that to google – there’s next to nothing on the page, so it’s very simple to find what you’re looking for. Too many options / links / etc. on a page is a bad idea, in my opinion.”

Yahoo! Design Patterns Library

USER PERSONAS

A persona is a fictional person who represents a major user group for your site. (usability.gov)

A persona description includes a user’s context, goals, pain points, and major questions that need answers. (wikipedia.com)

Personas help avoid designing for one’s self, or designing for needs that don’t really exist. Design decisions can be made by answering the question “What would Kim [our persona] feel comfortable with in this situation?” instead of advancing a personal agenda. By having personas as references, consistency through the project is increased as the development team is focused on meeting the same user goals at the same level of expertise and experience. (This also from the interactionary.com PDF) (iawiki.net)

Resources:

• IA Wiki – Good step by step design process laid out in “How are they made?” and example in “What do they look like?” (http://www.iawiki.net/UserPersonas)
• Usability.gov – abbreviated example right on the page (http://www.usability.gov/analyze/personas.html)
• Wikipedia – Always a good triple check of descriptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personas)

CARD SORTING

Card sorting generates an overall structure for your information, as well as suggestions for navigation, menus, and possible taxonomies. (boxesandarrows.com)

Participants in a card sorting session are asked to organize the content from your Web site in a way that makes sense to them. Participants review items from your Web site and then group these items into categories. Participants may even help you label these groups. (usability.gov)

Resources:

• Boxes and Arrows – detailed instructions (http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide)
• Usability.gov – abbreviated example right on the page (http://www.usability.gov/design/cardsort.html)

PAPER PROTOTYPING

“Paper prototyping is a variation of usability testing where representative users perform realistic tasks by interacting with a paper version of the interface that is manipulated by a person ‘playing computer,’ who doesn’t explain how the interface is intended to work.” – Paper Prototyping (paperprotyping.com)

Resources:

• A List Apart – tutorial with lots of visuals (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping)
• User Interface Engineering – tips for special issues/problems (http://www.uie.com/articles/prototyping_tips/)
• Paper Prototyping – website for the book, not much how-to (http://www.paperprototyping.com/)
• Wikipedia – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_prototyping)

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