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...
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...
