order and expression

The methodical arrangement of information clarifies what is known about the subject. Such arrangement may draw attention to otherwise unnoticed relationships between items and so generate new knowledge. For example, the matrix display of the elements, the Periodic Table, allowed scientists to see 'gaps' in the Table and thereby predict both that further elements would be discovered and the atomic weights and general properties of those elements.

 

 

 

 

At its most basic, information architecture is the construction of a structure or the organization of information. In a library, for example, information architecture is a combination of the catalog system and the physical design of the building that holds the books. On the Web, information architecture is a combination of organizing a site's content into categories and creating an interface to support those categories.
'10 questions about information architecture' Shel Kimen

 

Information architects define information design

 

Sophisticated use of these strategies, i.e. the coherent synthesis of underlying structure with its arrangement and display, results in self-disclosing interfaces that efficiently communicate their use, meaning and content.

Richard Saul Wurman has indicated that he has found only five ways to meaningfully organise information.

These are known by the mnemonic 'LATCH':

L) by location (i.e. where they are from -- atlases, some museum and art museum displays).

A) by alphabet (or number -- e.g. dictionaries, book indices, library collections)

T) by time (e.g. some museum exhibitions, timelines, narrative, cinema)

C) by category (e.g. department stores, hospitals, zoos, biological classificatory systems)

H) by hierarchy or continuum (e.g. from the largest to smallest, best to worst, most recent to oldest)

Clement Mok supplements these basic taxonomic schema with seven presentational strategies:

• linear
• hierarchical or indexical
• web or rhizomatic
• parallel
• matrix
• overlay
• spatial zoom

These may be read as the expression or presentation of underlying organisational structure. They aid users in apprehending the informational structure.

Wurman and Mok's schema are not to be considered as competing or mutually exclusive, rather they are most effective used in conjunction with each other. Wurman's schemata expresses the core need to catagorise information meaningfully, to find taxonomies that are consistent and culturally logical. These taxonomies embody a culturally specific framework.

Mok's schemata facilitate expressing that framework. Appropriately used together, these schemata can produce self-disclosing interfaces which help users to quickly and economically understand the contents and navigation of a site.

 

To ask which principles of organization are used in articulating the collection is to begin to discern what the collection is about. It is not sufficient to say that the collection is organized according to time, space, or internal qualities of the objects themselves, for each of these parameters is divided in a dialectic of inside and outside, public and private, meaning and exchange value. To arrange the objects according to time is to juxtapose personal time with social time, autobiography with history, and thus to create a fiction of the individual life, a time of the individual subject both transcendent to and parallel to historical time.
Susan Steward, On Longing, p. 154

 

Neither organisational nor arrangement schemas are usually used alone -- a primary organisational schemata will generally be supported and extended by secondary organisational structures. In addition, providing multiple organisational schema for accessing and navigating the same information increases user comfort and efficiency.

For more about Information Visualization, also see:
History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization >>

For more information about information architecture and information design theory:

Nathan Shedroff's site: nathan.com >>

Edward Tufte's site >>

Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles' for a good overview of Tufte's design principles >>