Humanity seems to have always encoded information for storage and subsequent retrieval. Memory, personified in Ancient Greece as the goddess Mnemosyne the mother of the Muses, was seen as necessary to the existence of all our arts and technologies. It is memory that allows us to both use and promulgate Techneand Praxis. Early methods of disciplining and utilising human (wetware) memory included Ars memoria, a technique to store and access the complex strings of arguments, facts and stylistic flourishes needed by the preliterate Athenian orator.

The development of the technologies of literacy has changed little in regard to the importance of memory -- it has simply shifted the storage of information and other artifacts of our intelligence out of individuals' skulls and into various 'hard-space' repositories. Memory has continued to be central to the development of skills in the real world. We understand new concepts and build new skills most easily if we can base them on others we already know. Effective information storage and retrieval has continued to be a memory-design problem, organising data to build on remembered skills, and to be memorable enough to become un-noticed, 'transparent' and 'natural'.

Accessing individual items in an information store is a navigation problem: Where is it and how do I get to it? What else is available? Just as in navigating around the 'hardspace' world, so navigating around the virtual worlds of information storage is made possible by user memory and the extent to which the interface assists their efforts. The utility of an interface is commensurable with the degree to which it supports user memory, building on existing skills and knowledge and aiding the development of new intellectual and physical models. This is the realm of information design.

Information design is intrinsic to every communicative act. With the increasing deluge of information available to individuals due to the proliferation of communications media, the thoughtful display and organisation of information to facilitate both user retrieval and user understanding, the act of transforming information into knowledge, is crucial. The Internet as a medium encourages the development of large and complex information stores, but has so far developed few native conventions to assist users in navigating to and through them.

Communication media of the past offer models on which to base contemporary and future information design. New media, however, also needs innovative design strategies appropriate to its new possibilities. Whilst some have been suggested by leading design and interactivity commentators, others are arising spontaneously, appearing as practitioners invent new forms of information design to most appropriately convey their intentions.

This site broadly surveys some past and existing solutions for locating and accessing information on the Internet. It contextualises these strategies in relation to the history and theory of electronic and other communications media.

Organisation strategies

Presentation strategies

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This site does not aspire to present a single prescriptive (or proscriptive) recipe for successful web design -- there are plenty of usability and design experts already doing so. Indeed, there is so much site-design advice already available elsewhere that it would be redundant to simply rephrase it. Instead, this site gathers together the most oft-repeated maxims -- and then leaves it up to you to decide what applies to your information design needs.

Generally speaking, the simpler and less content-driven your site is, the more useful you're likely to find the experts' advice. It is a trivial task to teach someone how to produce a useful appropriate corporate brochure but impossible to teach anyone how to write a great novel or game. Whilst the development of style guides for online and other electronic environments seemed pivotal in the mid-90s, the results have, arguably, been counterproductive; stifling innovation and creativity in favour of efficiently giving the audience what it already knows.

This site, therefore, aims to explore some of the issues arising from and feeding into the continuing focus on information architecture and usability. It is intended to both encourage deeper reflection about the ways we conceive, create, organise and display our ideas. In common with most hyper-essays, it is metaphorically 'porous', following no strict linear order of contents and encouraging users to explore topics of interest to them both to more detailed material in the site and to specialist sources elsewhere on the World Wide Web. It does not present a single discursive argument and it is not designed to persuade the user to adopt a particular point of view.

Many will find this an unnecessarily verbose and maddening approach... In the interests of not completely alienating this audience sector, this site is arranged to also cater for those who want the fast fix -- and prefer it in a linear format.

<<The 'Backbone' level of the site gives a brief overview of the major issues dealt with in each section. The links in this column are to this level.

>>The 'Ribs' level (the ones in the column to the right), explores these questions and issues in more depth. Links from this level are multi-various and the user can:

• click through from one rib to the next (although almost any 'rib' can be read as a stand-alone);
• open new windows 'fleshing-out' the central discussion with:
  • large-format versions of illustrations;
  • more information, definitions or discussion regarding specific concepts;
  • in-depth background information in the form of web essays;
  • web works that I've made alone or been centrally involved in creating;
• open new windows to 'foreign bodies';
• external specialist sites, articles and essays offering more information or counter-discussion on specific topics;
• external sites discussed as examples of various design or conceptual approaches to specific problems.

Current received wisdom is to provide a redundancy of navigational devices -- and who am I to buck the system. Home, index and sitemap all provide various forms of overview navigation, whist each core page (backbone and ribs) uses breadcrumbs, contextual navigation, annotated links and click-throughs. Also lots of pop-up new windows. Sorry.

If I've quoted from your work -- and believe me, I've quoted just about everyone who has ever written anything about web navigation -- and haven't credited you, please mail me and let me know.