Information Architecture
| Collection | GlossariumBITri |
|---|---|
| Author | Mario Pérez-Montoro Mehrad Golkhosravi |
| Editor | Mario Pérez-Montoro |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Number | 1 |
| ID | 7 |
| Object type | Concept |
| Domain | Research and Practice |
| es | arquitectura de la información |
| fr | Architecture de l'information |
| de | Informations-Architektur |
Information Architecture is born in the late 1990s, based on the classical principles of solid traditional Information Science (mainly from the discipline of the Organization and Representation of Knowledge). In a technical sense, it is a discipline (and at the same time a community of practice) focused on design principles and architecture of digital spaces in such a way that they comply with criteria of usability and information retrieval. In other words, it is a discipline that deals with structuring, organizing and tagging elements of informational environments to facilitate searching and retrieval of the contained information, thus improving the usefulness of information environments by users.
One of the main characteristics of the information architecture in an information environment (for instance, a web page) is that it is usually not recognizable by the users. In other words, such architecture is invisible to the user, though there are in fact a number of (not visible) articulated systems or structures, defining the information architecture of, for example, a web page. These systems or structures are called components of the Information Architecture of a web or also anatomy of the Information Architecture of a web. Among these systems or structures that build the information architecture there are systems such as: organization systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, search systems and controlled vocabularies.
Organization systems are classifications that allow structuring and organizing the contents of a website. The labeling systems, however, define the terms used to name the categories, options and links used on the web with a useful language for users. Navigation systems permit to navigate or move through a site to find the information we need; showing us where we are and where we can go inside the structure of a site. Search systems enable the retrieval of information within the website using tools such as indexes. Finally, in this context, controlled vocabularies are documental resources designed to articulate other systems and to facilitate information searches and retrievals.
References
- GARRETT, Jesse James (2002). The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing,
- MORROGH, Earl (2002). Information Architecture: an Emerging 21st Century Profession. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
- MORVILLE, Peter and ROSENFELD, Louis (2006). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. 3rd Edition. Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly Media Inc.
- PÉREZ-MONTORO, Mario (2010). Arquitectura de la Información en entornos web. Gijón: Trea.
- WODTKE, Cristina (2002). Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web. Boston: New Riders Publishing.