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Information Architecture for web sites
Event Summary
By Daniel Szuc
24 September 2004

UPA Hong Kong, were fortunate to have Gerry Gaffney, a usability expert from Australia, in Hong Kong presenting “Information Architecture for web sites”.

UPAHK used the data from our May 2004 event on User Research techniques to understand what information the HK UPA community would like to see on www.usability.com.hk. As part of the site development we are taking people through a user centered process.

Our events are divided into 2 parts:
Part 1 - Present the theory of a usability activity
Part 2 - A practical exercise; in this event a card sort exercise.

Gerry presented on:

• Comparing the job roles of “architects” and “information architects”
• How information can be organized in different ways and used “playing cards” to illustrate this
• How information is all around us all the time e.g. Maps, timetables, books etc
• How information competes for our attention
• Demonstrating that IA is only one part of the user experience referencing the famous Jesse James Garrett diagram – Strategy, Scope, Structure, Skeleton and Surface
• The need to analyse the information in the current site to inform a new IA
• Card sorting technique

Takeaways

• Corporate web sites have information that is not always useful to the customer and costs the business money to develop and maintain
• The importance of group naming to improve findability
• Sourcing information from various sources in the business to inform the IA including: site visits, existing site, search logs, user interviews etc
• Information competes for our attention