The Document Triangle: A Guest Lecture

Nov. 14, 2003 Information architecture: Structure, content, and form 1

InfoDesign: To surf the community Peter J. Bogaardsinfodesign.bogieland.com

Information architecture:Structure, content, and form

Peter J. Bogaards (BogieLand.com)Information designer & information architect“Sharing knowledge is better than having it.”

Media Studies - University of AmsterdamNovember 14, 2003

Introduction

• Background in instructional design (UvA 1987)• Design of (tech) facilities to enhance human

learning processes• Interface, interaction, and information designer

(Informaat)• WWW: Electronic documentation and user interface

design merger• Information designer and information architect

(Razorfish EU)• InfoDesign blog (1997): infodesign.bogieland.com -

>230,000 visits• BogieLand (2003): Information design &

information architecture company

Questions to answer

• What is user experience, (information) design / architecture?• What is a document?• What are dimensions of a document? The document triangle.• What do you get when you abstract these dimensions?• What is the impact of computation and connectivity on these

dimensions?

User experience

google

IcebergA

Iceberg UX

What is user experience?The elements of user experienceJ.J. Garrett 2002

Information design

What is information design?

• Understanding, useful, making sense (‘complexity’)• User-centered design: Thinking ‘outside in’ versus ‘inside out’• To design is to decide: To provide a design rationale (reasoning on

decisions)• Reference to context, constraints, goals, and requirements• Products: Conventional (signage/wayfinding) and information artifacts

(paper/digital e.g. CUI/GUI, sites, handhelds, and documentation)• History: Minard (1861), Zwaga, Tufte, Jacobson, IDJ/IIID, and STC ID

SIG (>3000 members)• Relation with graphic design, document design, interaction design,

technical writing, interface design, sound design, and informationarchitecture...

Information design history

Information architecture

What is information architecture?

• Concept of ‘space’: (atoms) buildings (e.g. house,office, factory, museum) and (bits) sites (e.g. intranet,blog, company site, search engine, auction site)

• Naming, labeling, organizing, and structuring ofinformation

• Navigation (3 Qs: source point/location, targetpoint/location, and path to follow) and browse/search(findability)

• Strong position in design and development for WWW• Information architecture history: Wurman 1976

(Information architects), LIS (Rosenfeld/Morville),ASIS&T IA Summit, AIfIA

The Winchester mystery house

Courtesy of Alan Cooper

The document

The document concept

• Obvious and non-obvious ones• Monolithic documents• ‘Paper’ versus electronic documents• Conceptual, logical and physical layers of documents• Fixed document (PDFs) / assembled ‘on-the-fly’ (e.g. search results)• Bottom-up (blog posts) / top-down (enterprise IA/digital libs)• Technology: DOM, .doc, .txt, .htm, .exe, .etc

The document triangle

Structure

structures

The structure dimension

• Creating a conSTRUCtion• To identify the wholes and parts - (de)composition -

category criteria and mistakes – hierarchy -identification of objects and its composites

• A noun and verb: To structure - to create structure -to bring more structure to its structure

• Similarities and (quantity/quality) differences• Relationship(s) between objects - dependencies• R.S. Wurman: LATCH-principle• Cognition (‘conSTRUCtionism’), granularity, and order• Technology: DTD, Schema

Content

content

The content dimension

• The dynamic interests, needs, and wants of the informationconsumer (people) and producer (editor): the prosumer

• Data (‘factoids’) versus instructions/explanations• Domain knowledge (dependent and independent)• Facts -> interpretations -> opinions -> theories• Referential: References to reality (De Saussure)• Technology: (X)HTML, XML, RDF, DC, OIL, ...

From data to wisdom

Courtesy of N. Shedroff

The form dimension

• Formats:– textual (e.g. typography)– visual (diagrams/stills/moving)– auditive (voice, FXs, music)– motion (input/output mechs)

• Visual design -> sensorial design (N. Shedroff)• Meta(media) specific attributes• Form is the manifestation of an underlying 'model'• 'Form follows function'• Technology: DSSSL, CSS, XSL(T), SVG/PNG, ...

Abstraction

abstract

By Pablo Picasso

Meta-level thinking

A thought experiment

• Reflection• Abstraction of the 3 dimensions: meta-level thinking• Meta-structure: knowledge representation, conceptual or knowledge

structures, pattern expressions - control structures (if ... then ... else...)

• Meta-content: meta data (‘data about data’)• Meta-form: Strategic declarations on form

- visual: Robert Horn's ‘Visual Language’- audio: Earcons (sound FXs) / techno?- textual: Hypertext

Computation

computation

Charles Babbage1791-1871

The computation attribute

• Machine-attributes: Features and functions• Manipulation of symbol systems: Algorithms vs.

heuristics• Input/Output - Emergent adaptation• Computing the structure, content, and form of

documents• User modelling• Knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence, the

semantic web initiative

Connectivity

connect

The connectivity attribute

• Information, communication, coordination,collaboration

• n-1, 1-1, 1-n, n-n• Hardly any space and time constraints• Trends: p2p, wireless, mobile, ubicomp• Impact on people, groups, organizations, states• Exchange of information• Online webservices

Conceptual model of thinking

Wrap-up

• Objective ID/A: To find, use, and understand information• What’s the document and the process?• What’s its structure and how to structure?• What’s its contents and how does it serve human needs?• What’s are the representational forms in use and how do they make

optimal use of the media specific attributes?• What are structure, content, and form in conceptual terms?• How to integrate computation and connectivity in the document

dimensions?

questions

infodesign.bogieland.com

The Document Triangle: A Guest Lecture

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