Cognitive Psychology and Information Architecture: From Theory to Practice

What do cognitive psychology and information architecture have in common? Actually there is a good deal of common ground between the two disciplines. Certainly, having a background in cognitive psychology supports the practice of information architecture, and it is precisely those interconnections and support that will be explored.

Withrow, Jason and Mark Geljon. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology

Envisioning the Whole Digital Person

As a human society, we're quite possibly looking at the largest surge of recorded information that has ever taken place, and at this point, we have only the most rudimentary tools for managing all this information--in part because we cannot predict what standards will be in place in 10, 50, or 100 years.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Databases

Expanding the Approaches to User Experience

Jesse James Garrett’s 'The Elements of User Experience' diagram has become rightly famous as a clear and simple model for the sorts of things that user experience professionals do. But as a model of user experience it presents an incomplete picture with some serious omissions—omissions I’ll try address with a more holistic model.

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>User Centered Design

Faut-il Supprimer la Barre de Navigation?

Comment navigue un internaute? Qu'est ce qui le motive dans son parcours? Des études comportementales permettent de dégager des principes de base. Les façons d'agir ou de réagir des internautes sont désormais étudiées et testées. La navigation qui faisait la part belle à la structure technique du site se déplace vers une approche plus contextuelle. La barre de navigation va-t-elle donc disparaître?

Eminet, Bernard-Paul. Usabilis (2004). (French) Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

Focus on the Student: How to Use Learning Objectives to Improve Learning

As information architects we all know how important it is to keep the user in mind. The same is true in teaching IA: we must keep the learner in mind. Learning objectives are one tool to help keep your classes focused on the student. They will also help you develop the syllabus, lesson plans, and assessment methods.

Cown, Wendy. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>Information Design>Instructional Design>User Centered Design

Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them

Information-seeking behavior varies from situation to situation. Donna Mauer explores different ways in which users look for information and offers tactics for accommodating them.

Maurer, Donna. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design

Information Architecture of Content Management

When people think about content management, they generally think about it from a systems perspective, focusing primarily on tools and technology. While it is true that content management usually requires a technological solution, it also requires that content be designed for reuse, retrieval, and delivery to meet your authors' and customers' needs. Content management requires that tools be configured to support authoring, reviewing, and publishing tasks, but first, those tasks must be designed. Designing content and the processes to create, review, and publish it is what information architecture is all about. The Information Architecture section of The Rockley Report will focus on the different aspects of information architecture for content management. This article introduces you to some of the components of information architecture that we will cover in The Rockley Report over time.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>User Centered Design

Information Engineering for the 21st Century  

Bowie urges technical communicators to spend less time creating documentation and more time designing products that people can use intuitively.

Bowie, John S. Intercom (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Usability

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

The classic rules of business management are rooted in the manufacturing traditions of the industrial age. Unfortunately, they have yet to address the new realities of the information age, in which products are no longer made from atoms but are mostly software, made only from the arrangements of bits.

Cooper, Alan. Cooper Interaction Design (2004). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

Measuring the Success Of a Classification System

When working with government and large private organizations on complex information systems, project managers and business representatives often demand early-stage validation that the proposed classification system provides the user-friendly solution they are charged with delivering. They also require this validation in a format that will be engaging for senior business stakeholders.

Barker, Iain. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Information Design>Taxonomy>User Centered Design

Semantic Web Based Services for Intelligent Mobile Construction Collaboration

To provide real time, on-demand intelligent mobile collaboration support for their workers, construction enterprises increasingly need to use powerful wireless devices coupled with the availability of improved bandwidth, to tap into different inter and intra-enterprise data resources.

Zeeshan, Aziz, Anumba Chimay, Ruikar Darshan, Carrillo Patricia and Dino Bouchlaghem. ITcon (2004). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

User Preference Tests: Show and Tell for Information Design  

This article relates the author's experiences with user preference tests. User preference tests help a technical communicator make design decisions. To illustrate this point, the author describes a real-world scenario, the prototyping efforts involved in preparing for a user preference test, and three types of user preference tests.

Corbin Nichols, Michelle. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

A User-Centered Approach to Selling Information Architecture

One of the most popular topics for discussion among those practicing Information Architecture is “selling IA.” There is a constant struggle to show the value and benefits of including information architecture techniques on a project. The most common approach to selling IA involves introducing the basic concepts, along with explanations and examples of what deliverables are produced, and some discussion of the benefits. At that point, usually the client will comment, or ask about how these procedures can fit in to a specific project. This is antithetical to the mantra of user-centered design, which says that the needs of the user should be understood before the design begins. How can one design a sales approach before understanding the needs of the client? The proper approach should be to figure out what the goals and needs of the client are before ever starting to try and sell Information Architecture as a possible solution.

Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine. Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

WebCAT Category Analysis Tool

The Web Category Analysis Tool (WebCAT) is a variation on traditional card sorting techniques that allows a web designer/usability engineer to test a proposed or existing categorization scheme of a website to determine how well the categories and items are understood by users.

NIST. Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Card Sorting

What's Your Idea of a Mental Model?

We need a way to document and express mental models that is as simple and robust as personas for user profiles and scenarios for tasks. By laying out users' current mental models and a target mental model, we can clarify our thinking and communication about the user interface's objects, metaphors, and interaction.

McDaniel, Scott M. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology

Write Once, Use Many: Why and How We Make Product Information Modular  

Faced with growing demand from customers for specific courses, addressing only their needs, in very short time-frames, we had to re-examine the way we worked. Patching together one-shot customized coursework was labor-intensive for a non-homogeneous and unsatisfactory result. Each new customer request required repetition of the same amount of effort. With reduced turnaround time and dwindling human resources, a solution had to be found.

McClelland, Patricia J. and Alison Bourdel. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>User Centered Design

XML and the New Design Regime: Disputes Between Designers, Application Developers, Authors and Readers in Changing Technological Conditions and Perceptions of Social and Professional Need    

This study attempts to: (a) to specify a theory that explains the historical character of change or transition in the production of written artifacts, and (b) use that theory to cast light on a particular instance of change or transition in the production of written artifacts, that of the Web, principally, the issue of structured markup and discussions about precisely what a structured Web should look like, the work it should do, and so forth. It attempts to identify, describe, and analyze, are the norms and conventions that govern the production of written discourse.

Wilkes, Gilbert Vanburen IV. Journal of Computer Documentation (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Rhetoric

The Architecture of Meaning  

It is the job of the information architect to discern the internal structure of content and than give it external form to support users in constructing meaning, in relating the content to their own knowledge, needs, and purposes, and thus making sense of the content.

Soergel, Dagobert. University of Maryland. Articles>Information Design>Rhetoric>User Centered Design

Cues, The Golden Retriever

Jamie Owen explores how we can best utilize cues in our work by understanding how memory, cognitive psychology, and multimedia research affect how information is encoded and retrieved.

Owen, Jamie. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology