Results tagged “application development” from practical design

Information architecture is the art (or science) of going beyond the data your client presents you with.  As a consultant, a vendor, or an in-house developer (or designer), we have to truly understand the information given to us by our clients.

Good websites can organize information in a way that makes it easier to find what users a re looking for (when they might not know what it is they're looking for).  When I teach design for developers, I spend a lot of time talking about understanding the information in your website.  How do you know what will make your client happy?  Ask questions, many questions, take notes, revisit and revise.

Comprehension goes beyond your statements of fact.  When you comprehend the data you are using, you begin to see the patterns behind the chaos.  Comprehension is the thing that your high school English teacher was looking for to prove that you read the book, not the Cliff's Notes.

Knowledge gives us the facts, comprehension allows you to organize your data, provide tools to compare and contrast it.  Your job is to now impart your new-found knowledge of your client's information to their users (which are oftentimes the clients themselves).

All reporting applications/tools break ground into the realm of comprehension.  What do those sales figures really mean, anyway?  If I compare them to numbers from the last five years, I have a good foundation to view the trends in those years.  I can analyze the facts that correspond to those trends to explain times of growth or contraction.

If I then use my application to display that information, I am providing an essential service for their business.  Instantly displaying analysis that might have taken them weeks to generate in excel.

But, of course, we can take it a step further...

I'd like to begin our look at Bloom's heirarchy with the Cognitive domain because it has the strongest correlation to what we do every day as developers.  Convey information.

Although we may have fancy Flash animations, and slick Flex applications powering our websites and online applications, but in the end, what we really do is disseminate information.  Text.  Facts and figures. 

The foundation of a good application or website is to have the best data.  Collect the most data.  Have the most content.  Attract the brightest minds (or at least the most active in your community).

A good example of a web application with good data (and lots of it) is Craigslist.  Craigslist has provided an excellent service by attracting hordes of people to use it's site for free. This user supported model results in lots of relevant data for users to consume and act upon.

The way it presents the information is simple.  Text and photos.  Just the facts.

Craig's knowledge of stuff for sale is excellent, and he presents that knowledge to us.

This presentation of information speaks to Craigslist's ability to collect, store and present data.  It's really nothing more than a big database interface.  It does not perform complex analysis, it does not market to us, recommend content or toast our bread.  It presents good data in a clear and concise manner (information architecture at work).

When I speak at conferences and user groups, the first thing that I usually hear is..."Sure, that design and architecture stuff is great and all, but I have this amazing application.  Google doesn't have to worry about architecture.  Craigslist doesn't have to worry about design."

Google's algorithms ARE it's architecture.  It's just behind the scenes.

Sadly, although we all may aspire to be the next Google, Microsoft or even Twitter, the chances are we will not have that perfect storm of events. 

Google doesn't have to worry about design because it has the best data.  The information at Google's core is the best in the business.  It's highly accurate, reliable, and it makes people money.  Google got to this position by hiring the highest concentration of PhD's of any private corporation in the world.

So, unless you have deep pockets to hire the next Nobel Prize winner, most of our websites and applications will have stiff competition, and that will take us to our next session on: 

Comprehension:  Patterns in  the noise.