Prof.

Neha Tuteja
Dept. of CSE-ET
Panipat Institute of Engineering and Technology

Subject: Internet Web Technology

Code: CSE-210N
The role of Information Architect
Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and
labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. The goal is to help
users find information and complete tasks.

The main components of IA:

1.Organisation schemes and structures – how information is structured and
categorised
2. Labelling systems – how information is represented and defined
3. Navigation systems – how users browse and navigate through information
Search systems – how users look for and find information
As part of an ‘information ecology’, users, content and context work
interdependently.
 Many information architects have experience in writing or design.
They often use Web development tools like HTML and CSS to
help to construct specific presentations for text and associated
elements of a Web page or site. They may also work on a written
or digital blueprint that outlines multilevel goals for a project,
constructing specific digital presentations from these meta-
directives.

Information architects are said to help develop a "user experience,"

which relates to both the content and the style of a Web page or
site, or other facility like a company intranet. The role of an
information architect in a given project can be broad, and these
professionals may work with multiple departments to make sure
that the presentation of information to the audience is as good as it
can be.
Why is it important?
 For producer so that any updation in the information can be
done effectively in the time.
 For any website to be commercially successful because if user
is facing difficulty in searching and navigating the
information, then they will not use the website again.
 Unorganized information cannot be changed into knowledge.
Main Job of information Architect
The main jobs if the information architects are given below:
1)Clarifies the mission and vision for the site, balancing the
needs of its sponsoring organization & the needs of its
audiences.
2)Determines what content and functionality the site will
contain.
3)Specifies how users will find information in the site by
defining its organization, navigation labeling and
searching systems.
4)Maps out how the site will find accommodate change and
growth over time.
The Consumer's perspective
 Users want to find information quickly and easily. Poor Information
Architecture makes busy users confused, frustrated and angry.
Because different users have varying needs it is important to support
multiple modes of finding information. From the consumer’s
perspective there can be two modes of finding information.
 Known item searching: Some users know exactly what they are
looking for. They know what it is called and know it exists. This is
called known item searching.
 Casual Browsing: Some users don't know what they are locking for.
They don’t know the right label. They casually browse or explore
the site and they may learn that they have never even considered.
 If you care about the consumer, make sure that your information
architecture supports both modes. While attractive graphics and
reliable technologies are essential to user satisfaction, they are not
enough.
The producer perspective
If you are producing an external website the users can be actual or
prospective customers, investors, employees, business partners,
media & senior executives. If you are producing an intranet the
employees of your organization are the consumers. The cost of
designing and implementing the architecture is the cost of time
spent:
1)In deciding categories of various users.
2)In arguing over the main areas of content and functionality that
the site would include.
3)Redesigning.
4)In maintaining the information space on increase in information.
Who should be the information Architect?

 Advantages
1)Organization’s information is in safe hands.
2)No extra cost, so cost effective.
3)Insider knows the most about in organization's processes and
how to get things done within that organization.

 Disadvantages
1)Knowledge of an insider may be too specific.
2)Insider may lack the political base required to mobilize
cooperation from others in the organization.
3)Insider gets diverted from his original duties.
Communication and Collaboration
 Communication refers to exchange of information between
persons through internet. Internet provides a basis for
communication and collaboration which can be done using
mail, chat, skype, etc. When dealing with official matters,
electronic mail helps in the exchange of messages text
documents, web pages, audio, video, etc.
Basics of E-mail
 Electronic mail is an application that supports interchange of
information between two or more persons. Usually text
messages are transmitted through email. Audio and video
transfer through email depends on the browser in use. This
provides a faster way of communication in an affordable cost.
 Advantages of E-mail

1. Functionalities like attachment of documents, data files,

program files, etc., can be enabled. This is a faster way of
communication at an affordable cost.
 Disadvantages of E-mail

2. If the connection to the ISP is lost, then you can’t access

email. Once you send an mail to a recipient, you have to wait
until she/he reads and replies to your mail.
Email Addressing
 Email address is a unique address given to the user that helps
to identify the user while sending and receiving messages or
mails.
 Username − Name that identifies any user’s mailbox
 Domain name − Represents the Internet Service Provider
(ISP).
 @ Symbol − Helps to concatenate username and domain
name.
 For example − user_name@domain_name
 Username − user, Domain name − gmail.com
Organizing information
We organize information:
 To understand

 To explain

 To control

As information architects we organize interrelation so that people

can find the right answers to their question.
Organizing Information involves three steps:
1. Structuring
 Structuring information means determining appropriate levels of granularity for

information atoms in your site and deciding how to relate them to one another.
2. Grouping
 Grouping information means grouping the linked information atoms into

meaningful and distinctive categories.

3. Labeling
 Labeling information means figuring out what to call these categories.

 Among these structuring and grouping are considered mainly as organizing

labeling is done as a separate step.

Organisational Challenges
 High rate of growth of information
 Ambiguity
 Heterogeneity
 Difference in Perspective
 Internal Politics
Organizing Web Sites and Intranets
 The organization of information in web sites and intranets is a major factor
in determining success, and yet many web development teams lack the
understanding necessary to do the job well. Our goal in this chapter is to
provide a foundation for tackling even the most challenging information
organization projects. Organization systems are composed of organization
schemes and organization structures . An organization scheme defines the
shared characteristics of content items and influences the logical grouping
of those items. An organization structure defines the types of relationships
between content items and groups. information websites is a major factor
information determining success.
 Organization systems are composed of organization schemes and
organization structure.
 An organization schemes defines the shared characteristics of content
items and influence the logical grouping of those items. An organization
structure defines the types of relationships between content items and
groups.
Organization schemes
 Various organization schemes are being used today. These

schemes can be divided into two categories:

 1).Exact organization schemes

2).Ambiguous organization schemes

Exact organization schemes
 These schemes divide the information into well-defined and mutually

exclusive sections. Users can search the information only if he knows what
he is looking for and he knows the label so that he can identify the
group/section in which the item is. This is known as well-defined and
mutually exclusive known item searching. No ambiguity is involved.
 Advantages:

1)Exact organization schemes are easy to design and maintain because there is
little intellectual work involved in assigning items to categories.
 Disadvantages:

1)Exact organization schemes require the user to know the specific name of the
resource they are looking for.
Examples
Alphabetical organization scheme
In this scheme all the information atoms are arranged alphabetically and they
are grouped accordingly i.e. atoms starting with letter ‘A’ come information
one group and so on. The implementation of this scheme can be observed
information encyclopedias, Dictionaries, phone books, bookstores,
departmental store directories. On the web you can observe this scheme
information the Address book of your mailbox.
 Chronological Organization Schemes
Certain types of information lend themselves to 'chronological
organization. E.g. an archive of press releases might be organized by the
date of release. History books, magazine archive, diaries and television
guides tend to be organized chronologically. As long as there is agreement
on when a particular event occurred, chronological schemes are easy to
design and use.
 Geographical Organization Schemes
Place is often an important characteristics of information. Political, social
and economic issues are frequently location dependent. We care about the
news and weather that affects us information our location. Example, in a
website of MNC the list products available is different in different
countries according to economy, population of that country. So such a
website manages such location dependent information using Geographical
Organization Schemes.
 Ambiguous Organization Schemes
Ambiguous Organization Schemes divide information into categories that
defy exact definition. They are mired in the ambiguity of language and
organization.
 Advantages:

Ambiguous Organization Schemes are more important useful than exact

organization schemes because the information atoms are grouped on the
basis of there meaning not just because they start from a particulars
alphabet. This grouping of related items supports associative learning
process that may enable the user to make new connections and reach better
conclusions.
 Disadvantages

1.Ambiguous Organization Schemes are difficult to

2.Design
3.Maintain
4.Use
Creating Cohesive Organization Systems
 Organization systems are fairly complex. We have so many options for choosing
appropriate organization scheme and appropriate organization structure. Taken
together in the context of a large website development project, the choice of a
proper system becomes difficult that's why it is important to break down the site
into its components, so you can tackle one option for scheme/structure at a time.
Also we know that all information retrieval systems work best when applied to
narrow domains of homogeneous content we can identify opportunities for highly
effective organization systems, However it's also impotent not to lose sight of the
big picture.
 In considering which organization scheme to use remembers the distinction
between exact and ambiguous schemes.
 Exact schemes are best for known item searching. Ambiguous schemes are best for
browsing and associative learning. Whenever possible use both types of schemes.
Also beware of the challenges of organizing information. When thinking about
which organization structure to use, keep information mind that large websites and
intranets typically require all three tapes of structures. The top-level, umbrella
architecture for the site will almost certainly be hierarchical. While designing this
hierarchy we should keep a lookout for collection of structures homogeneous
information. These potential subsides are excellent candidates for the database
model. Finally, less structured and more creative relationships between content
Designing navigation systems
 When we have lards amount of information then to organize the information
space we divided the information space into groups and label them. To look
for any information atom we need to search for its link information its
group. This is done using browsing/navigation user can get lost in the
information space but a well-designed taxonomy may reduce the chances
that user will become lost. So generally Navigation Systems are beneficial if
information is organized using the hierarchy model. Complementary
navigation tools are often needed to provide context and to allow for greater
flexibility.
 Navigation and Searching
Navigation and Searching both are used for finding information. Navigation
searches for the information to be found by moving between links available.
But information searching we give the information about the information to
be found as text to the search engine and search engine does the task of
finding information for users. We can search for a phrase but can't navigate.
 Types of Navigation Systems
1. Embedded/integrated Navigation Systems :-Embedded Navigation
Systems are typically wrapped around and infused within the content of
the site. These systems provide context and flexibility helping users
understand where they are and where they can go. Embedded Navigation
Systems can be further divided into three categories:
2. Global (site-wide) Navigation System: By definition, a global navigation
system is intended to be present on every page throughout a: site. It is
often implementing in the form of a navigational bar at the top of each
page. These site wide navigation systems allow direct access to key areas
and functions, no matter where the user travels in the site's hierarchy. Most
global navigation systems provide a link to the home page. Many provide
a link to the search function.
 Local Navigation Systems: Local Navigation Systems enable users to explore
the immediate area. Some lightly controlled sites integrate global and local
navigation into a coexistent unified system. A user who selects business sees
different nevi anion options than a reader who selects sports, but both sets of
options area presented within the same navigation framework. These local
navigation systems and the content to which they provide access are often so
different that these local areas are referred to as sub sites or sites within sites. Sub
sites exist because (1) areas of content and functionality really do merit a unique
navigation approach (2) due to decentralized nature of large organization different
groups of people are often responsible for different content areas and each group
may decide to handle navigation differently.

 Contextual Navigation system: Some relationships don't fit neatly into the
structured categories of global and local navigation. This demands the creation of
contextual navigation links specific to a particular page, document or object. E.g.
Words or phrases within sentences are represented as embedded or inline
hypertext links. On an e-commerce site, these “See Also” links can point users to
related products and services. In this way contextual navigation supports
associative learning. Users learn by exploring the relationship you define between
items. They might learn about useful products they didn't know about.
 Supplemental/ Remote Navigation System :- These navigation systems are
external to the basic hierarchy of a website and provide complementary ways of
finding content and completing tasks. These navigation systems provide users
with and emergency backup. Some of the examples of Remote navigation
Systems are
Sitemaps: In a book/ magazine, the table of contents presents the top few levels
of the information hierarchy. It shows the organization structure for the printed
work and supports random as well as linear access to the content through the use
of chapter and page numbers. In context of websites a sitemap provides a board
view of the content in the website and facilities random access to segmented
portions of that content. A sitemap can employ graphical or text based links to
provide the user with direct access to pages of the site. A sitemap is the most
natural for websites that lend themselves to hierarchical organization. But for a
small website with only two or three hierarchical levels a sitemap may be
unnecessary.
Searching systems
 Need of searching systems
1)As the amount of information on the website increases it become difficult
to find the required information. If the navigation systems are not properly
designed and maintained then to find the required information searching
systems are required.
2)If your site has enough contents and users come to your site to look for
information then site need searching systems.
3)Search system should be there on your site if it contains highly dynamic
contents e.g. web based newspaper.
4)A search system could help by automatically indexing the contents of a site
once or many times per day. Automating this process ensures that users
have quality access to your website's contents.
 Searching your website
1.Assuming you have decided to implement a Searching system for your website.
It’s important to understand how users really search before designing it.
2. Users have different kinds of information need: Information scientists and
librarians have been studying user’s information finding habits decades. Many
studies indicated that users of information systems are not members of a singe
minded monolithic audience who want the same kind of information delivered
information the same ways. Some want just a little while other wants detailed
assessment of everything there is to know about .the topic. Some want only the
accurate, highest quality information; while others do not care much about the
reliability of source. Some will wait for results while others need the
information yesterday. Some are just plan happy to get any information at all,
regardless of how much relevant stuff are really missing. Users needs and
expectation vary widely and so the information systems that them must
recognize, distinguish and accommodate these different needs.
3.To illustrate let's look at one of these factors in greater detail: The variability
information users searching expectations.
 Known item searching
Some users information needs are clearly defined and have a single correct
answer. When you check the newspaper to see how your stock information
amalgamated shoelace and aglet is 'doing (especially since the hostile Microsoft
takeover attempts), you know exactly what you want that the information exists
and where it can be found.
 Existence searching
However some users know what they want but do not know how to describe it or
weather the answer exists at all e.g., you must want to buy shares information
Moldovan high start-ups and that carries no load. You are convinced that this
sector is up and coming, but do fidelity and Merrill lynch know this as well'. You
might check their Webster, call a broker or two, or ask your in the know aunt.
Rather then a clear question for which a right answer exists, you have an abstract
idea on concept, and you don’t know whether matching information exists. The
success of yours search depends as much upon the abilities of the brokers, the
websites, and your aunt to understand your idea and its contexts as whether the
information (information in this case a particular mutual fund) exists.
 Exploratory searching
Some users know how to phrase their question, but don't know exactly what they are
hoping to find and are really just exploring and trying to learn more. lf you ever
considered changing careers you know what we mean you are not sure that you definitely
what to switch to chinchilla farming, but you have heard it is the place to be, so you
might informally ask a friend of a friend who an uncle in the business. Or you call the
public library to see if there's a book on the subject, or you write to the chinchilla
professionals association requesting more information. In any case, you are not sure
exactly what you will uncover, but you are re willing to take the time to learn more. Like
existence searching, you have so much a question seeking answer as much as an idea that
you want to learn more about.
 Comprehensive Searching (Research)
Some users want everything available on a given topic. Scientific researchers, patent
lawyers, doctoral students trying to find unique and original dissertation topics, and fans
of any sort fit in to this category. For example if you idolize that late great music duo
Milli Vanilli, you'll want to see everything that has anything to do with them Single and
records, bootlegs, concert tour plasters, music videos, fan club information,
paraphernalia, interviews, books, scholarly articles, and records burning schedules. Even
casual mentions of the band, such as someone's incoherent ramblings information a web
page or Usenet newsgroup, are fair game if you're seeking all there is to know about
Milli Vanilla so you might turn to all sorts of information sources for help friends, the
library, books stores, music stores, radio call in shows and so on There are many other
 Designing the search interface
 Concept of Searching system
There are two models of searching systems:
1)In the first and older model user express their information need as query that they ente
in a search interface. They may do so using a specialized search language.
2)In the second model users express the information need information the natural
language like English.
After this step Queries are matched against an index that represent the site's content and
set of matching documents is identified.
 Designing the Search Interface

1)With so much variation among users to account for, there can be no single ideal search
interface. Following factors affect choice of search interface:
2)The levels of searching expertise users have: Are they comfortable with Boolean
operators. Or do they prefer natural language? Do they need simple or high powered
interface? What about a help page?
3)The kind of information the user wants: Do they want just a taste or are they doing
comprehensive research? Should the results be brief, or should they provide extensive
detail for each document?
 Support Different Modes of Searching
Use the same interface to allow users to search the product catalog, or the staff
directory, or other content areas. Are non-English speakers important to your site?
Then provide them with search interfaces in their native languages. Including
language specific directions, search commands and operators, and help information.
Does your site need to satisfy users with different levels of sophistication with online
searching? Then consider making available both a basic search interface and an
advanced one.
 Simple / Basic search interface
A simple search interface was required; because at limes users wouldn't need all the
firepower of an advanced search interface. Especially when conducting simple known
item searches. A simple search box is ideal for the novice or for a user with a pretty
good sense of what he or she is looking for. Mammal filtering options are provided
including searching for keywords within little and abstract fields, searching within the
author field or searching within the publication number field. These filtering options
provide the user with more power by allowing more specific searching. But because
the labels keyword, Author, And publication Number are fairly self explanatory. They
don't force the user to think too much about these options.
 Advanced search Interface
We needed interface that would accommodate this important expert audience who
were used to complex Boolean and proximity operators and who where already very
 Fielded Searching
Author, keyword, Title, Subject and ten other fields are reachable. A researcher
could, for example find a dissertation related to his or her area of interest by
searching the subject field, and learn who that doctoral student's advisor was by
reading the abstract. To find other related dissertations, the researcher could then
search the advisor field to learn about other doctoral students who shared the same
advisor.
 Familiar Query Language
Because many different query language conventions are supported by traditional on
line products, users may be used to an established convention. The effort to support
these users is made by allowing variant terms. For the field Degree Date the user
can enter either ‘‘ddt’’, ''da'', ''date'', ''Yr '' or year.
 Longer Queries
More complex queries often require more space than the single line entry box found
in the simple search interface. The more complex interface supports a much longer
query.
 Reusable Result Sets
Many traditional online information products allow searchers to build sets of results
that can be reused. In this example, we've ended together the two sets that we've
already found and could in turn combine this result with other sets during the
iterative process of searching.

Indexing the right stuff
Searching only works well when the stuff that's being searched is the same as the stuff that users want. This means you
may not want to index the entire site. We will explain:
 Indexing the entire site.
Search engines are frequently used to index an entire site without regarded for the content and how it might vary. Every
word of every page, whether it contain real content or help information, advertisement, navigation, menus and so on.
However, searching barks much batter when the information space is defined narrowly and contains homogeneous
contents. By doing so, the site's architects are ignoring two very important things: that the information in their site isn't
all the same. And that it makes good sense to respect the lines already drawn between different types of content. For
example, it's cleared that German and English content are vastly different and that there audience’s overlap very little
(if at all) so why not create separately searchable indices along those divisions?
 Search zone: Selectively Indexing the right content
Search zone are subset of website that have been indexed separately from the rest of the site contents. When you search a
search zone, you have through interaction with the site already identified yourself as a member of a particular audience
or as someone searching for a particular type of information. The search zones in a site match those specific needs and
results are improved retrieval performance. The user is simply less likely to retrieve irrelevant information. Also note
the full site search option: sometimes it does make sense to maintain an index of the entire site, especially for user who
are unsure where to look, who are doing a comprehensive leave no stones unturned search, or who just haven't had any
luck searching the more narrowly defined indices.
 How is search zone indexing set up? It depends on the search engine software used Most support the creation of search
zone, but some provides interfaces that make this process easier, while other require you to manually provide a list of
pages to index. You can create search zones in many ways.
 Examples of four common approaches are:
 By content type
 By audience
 By subject
 By date

 Conceptual design
 Blueprints
What do you mean by blueprint? Blueprints are the architect’s tool of
choice for performing the transformation for chaos in to order. Blueprints
show the relationship between pages and other content components and
can be used to portray organization, navigation and labeling systems. They
are often referred to as sitemaps and do in fact have much information
common with those supplemental navigation systems. Both the diagram
and the navigation system display the shape of the information space
information overview, functioning as a condensed map for site developers
and users, respectively
 High -level Architecture blueprints
High level architecture blueprints are often created by information
architects as pat of a top down information architecture process. The very
act shaping ideas in to the more structure of a blueprint forces you to
become realistic and practical. During the design phase, high level
blueprints are most useful for exploring primary organization schemes and
approaches. High level blueprints map out the organization and labeling of
major areas. Usually beginning with a bird's eye view from the main page
of the website.
 Creating High -Level Architecture Blue prints
These blueprints can be created by hand, but diagramming software such as
Visio or Omni raffle are preferred. These tools not only help to quickly layout
the architecture Blue prints, but can also help with site implementation and
administration.
 Some Important points:
1)Blueprints focus on major areas and structure of site ignoring many
navigation details and page level details.
2)Blueprints are excellent tools for explaining your architectural approaches.
3)Presenting blueprints information person allows you to immediately answer
the questions and address client concerns as well as to explore new ideas while
they are fresh in your mind and the client's.
4)As you create blueprint it is important to avoid getting locked into a
particular type of layout.
5)If a meeting isn't possible, you can accompany blueprints with descriptive
test based documents that anticipate and answer the most likely documents.
 Keeping Blueprints Simple
As a project moves from strategy to design to implementation, blueprints
become more utilitarian. They need be produced and modified quickly and
often draw input front increasing number of perspectives, ranging from visual
designers to editors to programmers. Those team members need to be able to
understand the architecture. So it’s important to develop a simple condensed
vocabulary of objects that can explain in a brief legend.
 Architectural Page Mockups
 Information architecture blueprints are most useful for presenting a bird’s eye view of the web
site. However they to not work well for helping people to envision the contents of any
particular page. They are also not straightforward enough for most graphic designers to work
from. In Fact no single format perfect job of conveying all aspects of information architecture
to all audiences. Because information architectures are multi dimensional, it's important to
show them information multiple ways. For these reasons Architectural page mockup are useful
tools during conceptual design for complimenting the blueprint view of the site mockups are
quick and dirty textual documents that show the content and links of major pages on the
website.
 They enable you to clearly (yet inexpensively) communicate the implications of the architecture
at the page level. They are also extremely useful when used in conjunction with scenarios. They
help people to see the site in action before any code is written. Finally, they can be employed in
some basic usability tests to see if users actually follow the scenarios as you expect. Keep in
mind that you only need to mockup major pages of the web site. These mockups and the
designs that derive from them can serve as templates for design of subsidiary pages.
 The mockups are easier to read than blueprints. By integrating aspects of the organizational
labeling, and navigation systems in to one view they will help your colleagues to understand the
architecture. In laying out the content on a page mockup, you should try to show the logical
visual grouping of content items. Placing a content group at the top of the page or using a larger
font size indicates the relative importance of that content.
 While the graphic designer will make the final and more detailed layout decisions you can
make a good start with these mockups.
 Design Sketches
 Once you've evolved high-level blueprints and architectural page mockups, you're ready
to collaborate with your graphic designer to create deign sketches on paper of major
pages in the web site. In the research phase the design team has begun to develop a
sense of the desired graphic identity or look and feel. The technical team has assessed
the information technology infrastructure of the organization and the platform
limitations of the intended audiences. They understand what's possible with respect to
features such as dynamic content management and interactivity. And of course the
architect has designed the high-level information structure for the site. Design sketches
are a great way to pool the collective knowledge of these three teams in a first attempt at
interface design for the top level pages of the site. This in a wonderful opportunity for
interdisciplinary user interface design using the architectural mocks ups as a guide; the
designer begins sketching pates of the site on sheets of paper. As the designer sketches
each page questions arise that must be discussed. Here is a sample sketching session
dialog:
 Programmer: I like what you're doing with the layout of the main page, but I'd like to do
something more interesting with the navigation system.
 Designer: Can we implement the navigation system using pull down menus? Does that
make sense architecturally?
 Architect: That might work but it would be difficult to show context in the hierarchy.
How about a tear-|way table of contents feature? We've had pretty good reactions to that