Information Architecture

Key topics

• Types of information structures (sequential, matrices, hierarchical trees, hypertext, deep versus shallow);
• Categorization;
• Labeling;
• Navigation;
• Search.

Potential additional topics: The codex book and its global and local access structures as a forerunner of the web; Social navigation, collaborative filtering, and tagging; Prototyping techniques.

Knowledge

The student, upon completion of this course, will know:

• How collections of information are organized (categorized and labeled) and accessed (through navigation and search) to satisfy the needs of the users.

Skills

The student, upon completion of this course, will be able to:

• Create new information architectures from scratch.
• Evaluate the architecture of existing collections of information, document their organization, identify issues, and suggest improvements;
• Carry out informed analysis and research on the tools, methods, and concepts of information architecture, and present those findings to others.

Overall competence

The student, upon completion of this course, will know how to:

• Contribute to the development of sound and user-friendly information architectures for commercial and public web sites, based on a familiarity with commonly used approaches and strategies.
• Discuss and reflect on the practices and the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that are current in information architecture.

Teaching methods and activities

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Group work
• Lab work
• Assignments
• Essay

Compulsory requirements: Oral presentations of written work in seminar meetings (students unable to attend in person may deliver a recorded presentation).