As a follow up to my post in January, the winners to the Explain IA contest have been announced and are worth checking out.
The winner of the grand prize
A Dinosaur Family Explains Information Architecture
The winner of the best video award
IAs are Like Robin Hood
The two winners (tie vote) of the best diagram award
Information Architecture Connects People to Content
The Information Architecture Institute is currently running a competition to Explain IA. There’s a $1000 prize involved too!
In this contest, you are invited to explain information architecture. What is it? Why is it important? What does it mean to you? Some folks may offer a definition in 140 characters or less, while others will use this opportunity to tell a story (using text, pictures, audio, and/or video) about their relationship to IA. Anyone can enter, but only IA Institute members can vote for the winners.
Entries are added to the Explain IA Flickr pool and I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with. I’ll also be putting my thinking cap on to see if I can come up with something to submit.
The Journal of Information Architecture’s second issue is now available.
I haven’t read it all yet, but I’m part way through the article on Card Sorting, Category Validity, and Contextual Navigation by Stefano Bussolon which is long but incredibly interesting.
An article I wrote recently for FUMSI is now available to be read online.
Information Architecture Principles: Use in a Library Setting
Over the past couple of months I’ve started doing quite a bit of research into the field of Information Architecture (IA) and User Experience Design (UXD). I’ve been busily designing site architectures and wireframes, and talking to others about the importance of both. And in the process I’ve come to realise that librarians really should be more involved in the area.
As librarians we are involved in both finding information, and in making that information easier to find for others. We are experts at structuring information in ways that make it easy to find and use. In the legal sector particularly, we’re often also involved in creating and maintaining taxonomies which feeds back into the previous sentence – we’re structuring knowledge so that it’s easy to find and use. And both IA and UXD are about the same thing – structuring information. There is more to it than that of course, but really that’s what it comes down to.
So why aren’t there more librarians involved in the field? Is it because we lack the techy/web skills? I don’t think it’s that as I know many many librarians just as skilled in that area. So I think that maybe it’s because there is a lack of awareness that this kind of role exists. So in an attempt to rectify this fact, below is a list of resources, blogs and other websites that I’ve found incredibly useful recently.
Enjoy!
Websites
The Information Architecture Institute – a great place to start, has a fantastic library section.
UX Booth – Complete Beginners Guide to Information Architecture – Another great introduction and overview.
IA Summit – This conference was on earlier this month, but even just reading the program summaries is a good way to get familiar with the issues of interest to the community at the moment.
Grace Smith – Wireframing All in One Guide – Great intro to Wireframing
Jesse James Garrett’s IA articles and resources
Digital Web Magazine articles on IA
Boxes and Arrows – Great site covering topics such as wireframing, IA, UXD and more.
Blogs
Konigi – covers IA, UX and other topics of interest
IAPlay – UK based blog and site with links to lots of useful resources.
Adaptive Path Blog – Adaptive Path is a company that specialises in Experience Design.
Wireframes Magazine – All about wireframe techniques and tools.
User Pathways – Blog of James Kelway covering IA, UXD and general web design.
Findability.Org – Peter Morville co-wrote the original Polar Bear book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Oh, and he’s a librarian
Tools/Resources
Lovely Charts – excellent web based wireframing tool, perfect for when you don’t have access to Visio or similar software.
Omnigraffle/Visio – two pieces of software that are great for creating mockups, wireframes and flow charts. If you have access to them, have a play! Otherwise it’s probably best to stick with Lovely Charts above, or simply use PowerPoint.
IA Institute list of tools - various tools, papers and presentations.
Konigi Graph Paper templates – Graph paper that’s designed for use as wireframes and storyboards.
ACIA Information Architecture Glossary – from 2000, but still a useful guide to key terms.
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