Course content

Key topics

• Types of information structures (sequential, matrices, hierarchical trees, hypertext, deep versus shallow);
• Categorization;
• Labeling;
• Navigation;
• Search.

Potential additional topics: The codex book and its global and local access structures as a forerunner of the web; Social navigation, collaborative filtering, and tagging; Prototyping techniques.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

The student, upon completion of this course, will know:

• How collections of information are organized (categorized and labeled) and accessed (through navigation and search) to satisfy the needs of the users.

Skills

The student, upon completion of this course, will be able to:

• Create new information architectures from scratch.
• Evaluate the architecture of existing collections of information, document their organization, identify issues, and suggest improvements;
• Carry out informed analysis and research on the tools, methods, and concepts of information architecture, and present those findings to others.

Overall competence

The student, upon completion of this course, will know how to:

• Contribute to the development of sound and user-friendly information architectures for commercial and public web sites, based on a familiarity with commonly used approaches and strategies.
• Discuss and reflect on the practices and the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that are current in information architecture.

Learning methods and activities

Teaching methods and activities

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Group work
• Lab work
• Assignments
• Essay

Compulsory requirements: Oral presentations of written work in seminar meetings (students unable to attend in person may deliver a recorded presentation).

This course is offered to exchange students. Language of instruction is English

Compulsory assignments

• Coursework Requirements

Specific conditions

Recommended previous knowledge

Ability to read and write scientific essays.

Course materials

Required reading

Rosenfeld, Louis, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango (2015). Information architecture for the Web and beyond. Fourth edition. O'Reilly. ISBN: 9781491911686

Supplementary reading

Hearst, Marti A. (2009). Search user interfaces. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521113793. (Available for free online at https://searchuserinterfaces.com)

Garrett, Jesse James (2003). The elements of user experience: User-centered design for the web. New York / Berkeley: American Institute of Graphic Arts / New Riders.

Porter, Joshua (2008). Designing for the social web. Berkeley: New Riders.

Resmini, Andrea and Luca Rosati (2011). Pervasive information architecture: designing cross-channel user experiences. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.

Hunter, Eric J. (2009). Classification made simple: An introduction to knowledge organisation and information retrieval. Third edition. Farnham: Ashgate.

Levene, Mark (2010). An introduction to search engines and web navigation. Second edition. Wiley.

Russell-Rose, Tony and Tyler Tate (2012). Designing the search experience: The information architecture of discovery. Elsevier / Morgan Kaufman.

König, R. and Rasch, M. (editors) (2014). Society of the Query Reader: Reflections on Web Search. INC Reader #9. Amsterdam. Institute of Network Cultures. (Available for free online at http://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SotQreader_def_scribd.pdf)

Credit reductions