Information architecture

Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design, architecture and information science to the digital landscape.^[1] Typically, it involves a model or concept of information that is used and applied to activities which require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

Definition

Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in different branches of information systems or information technology:

1. The structural design of shared information environments.^[2]: 4
2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities, and software to support findability and usability.^[1][3]
3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.^{[2]: 4 [4]}
4. The combination of organization, labeling, search and navigation systems within websites and intranets.^[2]: 4
5. Extracting required parameters/data of Engineering Designs in the process of creating a knowledge-base linking different systems and standards.
6. A blueprint and navigational aid to the content of information-rich systems.^[5]
7. A subset of data architecture where usable data (a.k.a. information) is constructed in and designed or arranged in a fashion most useful or empirically holistic to the users of this data.
8. The practice of organizing the information / content / functionality of a web site so that it presents the best user experience it can, with information and services being easily usable and findable (as applied to web design and development).^[6]
9. The conceptual framework surrounding information, providing context, awareness of location and sustainable structure.

Debate

The difficulty in establishing a common definition for "information architecture" arises partly from the term's existence in multiple fields. In the field of systems design, for example, information architecture is a component of enterprise architecture that deals with the information component when describing the structure of an enterprise.

While the definition of information architecture is relatively well-established in the field of systems design, it is much more debatable within the context of online information (i.e., websites). Andrew Dillon refers to the latter as the "big IA–little IA debate".^[7] In the little IA view, information architecture is essentially the application of information science to web design which considers, for example, issues of classification and information retrieval. In the big IA view, information architecture involves more than just the organization of a website; it also factors in user experience, thereby considering usability issues of information design.

Notable people in information architecture

• Richard Saul Wurman, credited with coining the term information architecture in relation to the design of information
• Peter Morville, president of Semantic Studios and co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1998, 2002, 2006, 2015)
• Louis Rosenfeld, founder of Rosenfeld Media and co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1998, 2002, 2006, 2015)
• Jesse James Garrett, co-founder of Adaptive Path and author of The Elements of User Experience (2002)
• Christina Wodtke, author of Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web (2003)

See also

• Applications architecture – type of architecture domain within enterprise architecturePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Card sorting
• Chief experience officer – Corporate officer responsible for overall user experience
• Content management – Creation and presentation of information for an audience
• Content strategy
• Controlled vocabulary – Method of organizing knowledge
• Data management – Disciplines related to managing data as a resource
• Data presentation architecture – Visual representation of dataPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Digital humanities – Area of scholarly activity
• Ecological interface design – Approach to interface design
• Enterprise information security architecture – enterprise architecture focusing on information security throughout the enterprisePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Faceted classification – Method of systematically organizing knowledge
• Human factors and ergonomics – Designing systems to suit their users
• Informatics – Field of study of computational systems
• Interaction design – Specialization of design focused on the experience users have of a product or service
• Process architecture – Structural design of general process systems
• Site map – List of pages of a web site
• Social information architecture
• Tree testing – method of evaluating topic trees for findabilityPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• User experience design – Field of design focusing on the creation of user-centered products and websites
• Knowledge visualization – Set of techniques for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a messagePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Wayfinding – Ways in which people navigate from place to place
• Web graph – Graph of connected web pagesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Web literacy – Ability to read and write web content