Design for Knowledge

Data, Information, Knowledge

We design for movement

From data

To information

To Knowledge

The Goal

• To go from fact

Estimated portion of all U.S. nuclear waste that Nevada's Yucca Mountain dumpsite will hold when it is full in 2046

: 3/5

The Goal

• To meaning

Estimated portion of all U.S. nuclear waste that Nevada's Yucca Mountain dumpsite will hold when it is full in 2046

: 3/5

Richter-scale magnitude of an earthquake last June twelve miles from the Yucca site :

4.4

Missing information is expensive

Recently in the news, government’s information management problems

Missing information

“Like all primary care physicians, Dr. Bob Goldszer must stay on top of approximately 10,000 different diseases and syndromes, 3,000 medications, 1,100 laboratory tests, and many of the 400,000 articles added each year to the biomedical literature. That's no easy task. And it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. The Institute of

Medicine's 1999 report, To Err Is Human, suggests that more than a million injuries and 90,000 deaths are attributable to medical errors annually. Something like 5% of hospital patients have adverse reactions to drugs, another study reports, and of those, 43% are serious, life threatening, or fatal. Many knowledge workers have problems similar to Dr. Goldszer's (though they're usually less life threatening). No matter what the field, many people simply can't keep up with all they need to know.”

--Harvard Business Review, Jul 1, 2002

Missing information

Lost sales–

Expensive support—

Duplicated effort--

Lost trust–

Lost lives?

Classification and Consequences

• A physician who doesn’t see a new cure

• A poor student who can’t find financial aid

• A store where a product isn’t found

From fact to meaning

The right information at the right time in the right way

– Find information– Understand information– Use information

Special skills

• Information Architecture for Findability

• Information Design for Understandability

• Interaction Design for Usability

Information Architects specialize

• In Information Architecture– duh!

Information Architects

• What is IA?• AIfIA definition

1. The structural design of shared information environments.

2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability.

3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.

Findability

In the physical world

• Things that have fixed locations– We find with

maps and signs-- wayfinding

• Things that don’t– We find with

organization and wayfinding

In the digital world

• Nothing is fixed

• Wayfinding and organization is the two keys to findability

• Role of IA is to shape the digital space to enable findability.

Make things findable

• Organization– Build on Metadata– Browse systems– Search systems

• Wayfinding– Labels– Visual cues

Make things appear

• Serendipity systems– See also– Related– Popularity relationships– Also built on metadata

Metadata

• Where it all begins

• Data about data

• Building blocks of organization systems

Metadata types

• Intrinsic

• Administrative

• Descriptive

Metadata types

• Intrinsic– File size, file type

• Administrative– # copies,

photographer

• Descriptive– Dog, Christmas

Metadata

Dog, puppy, canine, golden lab, Golden Labrador Retriever, Santa hat, St. Nicholas, Christmas, X-mas, Noel, photograph, Noel's dog, cute, sentimental, cuddly

Controlled Vocabularies

• Dog, puppy, canine– all synonyms

• Grouping them by equivalence

• Controlled vocabulary

Controlled vocabularies

• Levels of control

Simple Complex

SynonymRings

AuthorityFiles

ThesauriClassificationSchemes

Equivalence Hierarchical Associative

(Vocabularies)

(Relationships)

Controlled vocabularies

• Relationships

A=B AB

A BEquivalenceChristmas=Xmas

HierarchalWinter Holidays > Christmas

Associative Christmas | Hanukkah

Synonym rings

• Simplest type

• Helps with search, indexing

• Simplifies maintenance

Christmas, xmas, x-mas, Cristmas, Noel, Nöel, Navidad

Authority File

• Addition of preferred terms and variants

• Preferred terms– Protects brand– Sensitivities– Educates

Christmas | Xmas, X-mas, Nöel,

Classification schemes

• Includes non-equivalent relationships• Sibling:

Gap.com directories» Men» Women» Maternity» Body» Boys» Girls» Baby boy» Baby girl

Classification schemes

Parent / Child

(amazon.com)

Classification Schemes

Other RelationshipsAlphabetical (administrative metadata)

Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Moore, Alan

Chronological (administrative metadata)

New for You > New Releases > Books

Topic (descriptive metadata)

Comics > Graphic Novels > Horror

Amazon uses all of these, and more….

Thesauri

• Cadillac of Controlled Vocabularies

• Includes associative relationshipsPreferred term

Variants Siblings Parent Associated

Christmas X-mas, Nöel

Hanukah, Kwanzaa

Winter holidays

Santa Claus

Associations

Associations

• Amazon uses buying patterns to determine associations

Associations

Associations

Other pieces

• Interaction design– Tools that don’t work– Tools that are undesirable to use

• Information design– Data misinterpreted– Information not noticed

Lie with statistics

• Is this book doing badly, or well?

Design for knowledge

• Information must be findable by seekers

• Information must be found when relevant

• Information must be presented in a meaningful way

• Everyone must be an information architect.

Design for knowledge

“Now when Dr. Goldszer orders medicine or a lab test, the order-entry system automatically checks his decision against a massive clinical database as well as the patient's own medical record. Knowledge workers in other fields could likewise benefit from a just-in-time knowledge-management system tailored to deliver the right supporting information for the

job at hand.”

Thanks

Christina Wodtke

www.eleganthack.comwww.blueprintsfortheweb.comwww.boxesandarrows.comwww.aifia.com

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