Information Architecture News & Articles

If you want to successfully implement SharePoint in your organization, then you need to clearly define and manage your information architecture (IA). There are a number of things you need to do to define your SharePoint IA and here are five critical steps to ensure you are on the right track.

Consider this: Microsoft has sold over 125 million licenses of SharePoint. It is a multi-billion dollar business. SharePoint is a platform that everyone seems to have, many actually use and most don’t understand how to implement and manage properly. There is no platform more in need of a proper information architecture than SharePoint. But what exactly does that mean?

As organizations look to further enable their mobile workers in 2012, there are a number of challenges -- whether real or perceived -- that are standing in the way. One of the most fundamental challenges that I have heard time and time again over the past year is the lack of a sound information architecture to meet these demands.

I find Microsoft’s advice regarding how to properly assemble a taxonomy somewhat nonsensical, but it’s because I love the Records and Information Management standard ISO 15489 so much. As you write your SharePoint 2010 Records Governance Plan, I recommend you consider the following.

So you may have experienced the good, the bad and the ugly around SharePoint information architecture (IA). In this post, I’ll address common concerns surrounding SharePoint IA and discuss how a better understanding of IA can help you to improve the effectiveness of your SharePoint environment.

It is so unusual to go to a conference completely devoted to intranets I thought I’d write about it.

Are Intranets really just simpler versions of their big brother the Internet? In this guest article Patrick Walsh of the BBC argues that intranets need to be thought about much differently -- that is, if you want your project to succeed.

Information Architecture (IA) can be confusing and difficult to understand for end-users, but understand it they must. One way to make things less "technical" and more relevant to their daily work experience is to provide an analogy to something everyone knows well, the kitchen.

Why can't we just get Google? That's a common question often heard from all levels within an organization that is trying to improve the search experience on their intranet. In part one, we examined the desire to duplicate the Google search experience in the enterprise (you can read part 1 here). In part 2, we will examine shifting the perspective to the user experience and end with 6 essential activities to the construction of a solid foundation for any enterprise search initiative.

Search is an incredibly interesting problem, one that’s so complex in the background yet so simple on the surface. In this two part article, we examine the desire to duplicate the Google search experience in the enterprise and how we need to change what we expect from enterprise search based on what we’re willing to do to make it work.

If you are one of the many organizations today struggling to not only get control of your information, but also get it to the right people at the right time, EMC (news, site) wants to help you. The enterprise content management vendor has assembled a council of IT leaders that are working to offer best practices and expert guidance on how to use your information to gain competitive advantage.

The movie Glengarry Glen Ross taught us Always Be Closing. In the world of web design, the mantra is Always Be Testing.

Yet, it’s not always clear how to go about testing your site or how to know what exactly you’re testing for. Fortunately, we’re here to provide the who, what and why of usability testing.

As we all drown in today's unparalleled access to mostly disorganized information, the holy grail for many has become to perfect search. O'Reilly Media (news, site) has released a new book to help those following this path.

What is Information Architecture? Why is it important?

The Information Architecture Institute hopes that you can tell them. They have launched a contest called Explain IA, in which users are invited to explain information architecture.

Anyone can enter, but only IA Institute members can vote for the winners.

You can submit your explanation (up to 3) in a format that suits you best. It can be:

• twitter-ese (limited to 140 characters or less)
• through video or audio, or
• using text or photos.

Simply enter the contest at www.flickr.com/groups/explainia/ and submit your response.

Those selected by the IA Institute can win up to US$ 1,000 and a host of other prizes offered by their generous sponsors.

What are you waiting for? The world patiently awaits your explanation, so the rest of us can finally explain just what it is that you do.

I finally got around to reading the preliminary SharePoint 2010 taxonomy and metadata info on MSDN. As most of you know, MOSS 2007 had some serious challenges in this regard (e.g., no hierarchical metadata, no sharing controlled vocabularies across site collections, etc.) -- and they caused information architects like me much consternation.

It would appear that SharePoint 2010 includes many new features under the umbrella of Enterprise Metadata Management, and they seem to have addressed some key issues. Here are the highlights.