Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites

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This is a great book to introduce business people to information architecture, for architects to reinforce their skills, and for web designers to principles to apply to site design. The second edition has more information and is more in depth than the first, and is well worth purchasing.

The first three chapters of the book explore what information architecture is and what it is needed. Chapters 4 - 9, the "Basic Principles of Information Architecture" have the most substance. Several chapters bear reading several times, including:

Chapter 5: Organization Systems, Chapter 7: Navigation Systems, Chapter 8: Search Systems and Chapter 9: Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata

The sections on Process and Methodologyactice, and Organizational fit are all good for people learning about IA, but may be too basic for anyone that does a lot of work or reading in the field. The Education Chapter is already out of date, which is to be expected.

IA for the World Wide Web is a great book, worth reading and worth hanging onto for reference or to use to explain the IA to others.

I had been looking around for a book like this for some time now: one that guides me through the crucial conceptual design phase of web site development. Most books on web site design are really about user interface design. This book offers a top-down planning approach to getting from the recognition of a need for a web site through to the final working design. It plugs up a lot of the gaping holes that topic-specific design texts leave open.

The over-riding concern and emphasis in the first section of the book is on how to organize the information on the web site in such a way that the target audience can readily get at it. To this end, the authors focus on three 'systems' that need to be developed, implemented and coordinated on a web site: a navigation system, a labeling system and a searching system. Once these systems are thought through and designed then the rest of the work becomes a matter of filling in the information content, functionalities and the bells and whistles.

Clear, concise and even a bit humorous, this book will definitely give you a peace of mind if you find yourself a bit overwhelmed at times when deciding on just how you will approach building a web site.

The basics of information architecture must be understood by anyone designing a web site. Granted, some people intuitively know these basics, but for the rest of the world, this book will introduce you. Coming to IA from the highly organized world of library science, the authors know the ins and outs of making information available in an easy to use organizational system. Obviously, anyone going into IA should read this book; it's considered a standard. It's not a bad idea to loan it to your content developers and coders, too, though. If they know a little better where you're coming from when you suggest ways to organize information and pages, they may be more receptive to your suggestions. The only drawback is that the sites used for examples are a bit dated now, and there are some innovative things being done currently with navigation that aren't covered here as a result. Get this book now, and if they come out in a year or two with a revised edition, take a look at the new examples.

With the second edition, Morville and Rosenfeld have met a pretty significant challenge: surpassing their first book. The new edition is chock full of great new chapters on topics both technical and creative.

By covering subjects like thesauri, CVs, and metadata, while at the same time tackling headfirst "big picture" ideas of information architecture, the two authors are to be commended for writing a book that is at once instructive to advanced practioners yet still recommendable to strategists, designers, programmers, and others who might have only a vague notion of information architecture. And the chapter on business strategy is as good an introduction as I've read in any business book.

This book is the closest anyone has come to a single book addressing all of the complexity and challenges of organizing, structuring, and managing large scale Web sites, and does so with clear, easy-to-read prose eshewing jargon and consultant-speak. Quite an accomplishment, indeed!

I read "Ambient Findability" first, and then bought this book. Both are excellent. This one is more focused on carefully orchestrating an approach to an enterprise architecture that makes content usable to end-users in context.

As the world gets ready to move toward exobyte scales of information sharing, at machine speed, this book becomes very relevant. While the authors are careful to point out the fallacies in cost calculations for informaiton access design flaws, I for one find the factors compelling--the cost of finding information, of not finding information, the value of rapid access, visualization and integration, the value of ease of use. I find the rough figure of $100 per employee per year to be a conservative estimate of opportunity costs--I think it is close to $1000 and in some instances $10,000.

Over-all I found this to be a superb reference for self-study, one that breaks down complex issues like different kinds of navigation systems, and one that also shows the value of offering end-users multiple means of access, both search and browsing.

Chapter 19 was especially valuable to me, since I am not even close to being a technical person or even a librarian--the itemization of the functions associated with information architecture and implementation, and why they might benefit from centralization, was a very helpful vehicle for getting a sense of the challenge when thinking of the scale of say Google, where thousands of hits are returned and thousands of relevant documents are NOT found. Google is great, but in this context, Google is in the second or third grade, at best.

I like this book, which does not claim to make anyone an information architect, because it helped me see, in a logical easy to read manner, just how *much* is involved in making tons of information accessible and usaable in time lapses and at costs that both people and organizations can afford.

A book on web design written by librarians. Skeptical? So was I. But darned if they don't hit the ol' web design nail right on the ol' head. (Okay, they're not really librarians - but both authors come from a Library Science background.) When I started on my Interaction Design masters degree, there wasn't anything written sepcifically about it. So my education was based on other fields - architecture, rhetoric, psychology, graphic design. Now we're starting to see some good Interaction Design books coming from experts in those other fields.

The strength of this book is its emphasis on defining a navigable structure for a site. It covers structure, navigation, searching/browsing, and this is the first book I've seen that spends a whole chapter on button and link labelling systems. It's added labelling to my ID vocabulary.

I do agree with another reviewer who wanted more in-depth examples, but with enough web experience it's easy to come up with examples on our own. So I gave the book the fifth star.

This and Jennifer Fleming's Web Navigation (both O'Reilly books) are must-haves for web designers.

This book can easily be divided into 2 sections. The first is an overview of how and why information is organized. The second is how to apply that information when planning and designing a large website. To the author's credit, they took a potentially dull topic and actually made it interesting. I would have appreciated less background and theory and more practical advise on how to plan a website though. There are some gems in this book, but you really have to dig to find them. Since there is really no "hands on" advise this is a good book to read while traveling. If your designing a large enterprise website you would be wise to read at least the second half of this book...especially if you are in management.

I think the authors have fellen for too much of their own hype.

The first edition (which essentially forms the first half of the second edition) comes over as a book written by two shy and studious librarians, trying to apply their scholarly approach to the strange new world of the web. They are careful and tentative in their suggestions, and reserved in their presentation. The book is a bit at odds with most web design tomes, but interesting and thought-provoking, none the less.

The second edition reads like a desparate attempt to "puff up" a bunch of practices and approaches that they have been using over the last few years, but have forgotten why they chose to do them in the first place. It's assertive, strident and often superficial.

I'm not surprised their consultancy operation went out of business. The two shy librarians, seduced by the bright lights of the dot-com boom, have been left in the gutter with nothing but an expensive suit and a hangover.

The classic Greek Tragedy. Pride comes before the fall.

I got dispirited, and had to take a break. My solution was to re-read my copy of Krug's "Don't Make Me Think!", still my top recommendation of all the web design books I've read; concise, practical, enjoyable. That cheered me up :)

I'm the kind of reader that enjoys straight to the point books. As interesting as this book was, I found it rambled and went too deep into how to sell IA to administration, or learn about IA in schools, or what steps should one take to become an information architect, etc. I found it presented ideas, often left the reader at the end of each section with "it depends" or "you'll see what works best for you". Which is fine, but isn't really helpful.

About 100 pages too long, this book should have been boiled down significantly, and cut out all the chapters about promotion of the IA field. The title of the book is "Designing large-scale web sites" not convincing your boss to invest in IA.

Ok, but not worth the money.

Today many Website design technologies and rigid content requirements have made Web development a more demanding task. Although there are many fine Website design books around to assist Webmasters, a return to the basics of design layout is in serious order.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web offers readers the guidance they need to design Websites that are easy to manage, navigate, and expand as mission requirements change. Rather than discussing strict HTML and Web graphics design, the authors focus upon the actual mapping out of Websites to insure that they are properly structured and will deliver content in an efficient and orderly manner.

Rosenfeld and Morville outline the main job tasks of the information architect and the disciplinary background they should possess or cultivate. They cite backgrounds in library science, journalism, engineering, marketing, graphics design, and computer science as essential disciplines to be embraced. When brought together and put into practice they will perform important roles in developing an eye and mindset for successful Web development.

The authors discuss important Website design considerations such as the productive use of screen real estate, navigational bars, frames, pull-down menus, and other features that can be employed to effectively deliver Website content. Although this line of instruction is not the main emphasis of the book, the brief addressing of these features assist readers to gain added perspective of the overall strategy of delivering, you guessed it, Web content!

Readers are instructed to perform thorough research to determine answers to questions such as: What are the goals? What can your clients afford? Who are the intended audiences? Why will people visit a site? What types of content should and should not be part of the site? Answers to these and other questions should be determining factors throughout the entire Web development process.

Readers will find the discussions involving brainstorming extremely helpful. This activity should be of major concern during the Web development process. The use of boards, flipcharts, mockups, design sketches, developing prototypes, metaphor exploration, creating scenarios, and structured blueprints can greatly enhance the entire development process.

Reading this book will be for many a refreshing and stimulating experience. Readers will gain valuable behind-the-scenes insight necessary to successfully design Websites that not only look good but perform well to achieve intended goals. Good HTML, programming language scripts, and flashy Web graphics are not enough. Pick up some solid visionary thinking skills. Highly recommended!

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What this book does is show you how librarians fit into 21st century. The book does very good promotion of IA itself, and shows why it's important.

The first half of the book is somewhat theoretical and hard to read. However, it's really worth reading. It will explain some concepts (thesaurus, categorization,...) librarians have used for a very long time, and how to easily used them while designing web sites.

The second part is where the book gets more practical and actually shows how to use IA in practice, which was, at least for me, the more interesting part. If you are in any way connected to web development, you should read this book.

The entire book is exactly what it says it is - "Designing large-scale web sites". Although some concepts can be applied to smaller sites, you will hardly find resources to make use of some of the things authors talk about.

There are many books on usability out there, but this one is dedicated to findability. If these terms are new to you, I recommend you read Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" and Jakob Nielsen's "Prioritizing Web Usability" before reading this book. It might make it easier to read, and the book will definitely make more sense to you.

I picked up this book because of two reasons: it's an O'Reilly book (which I think are some of the best written books on computing), and because it was thin enough to look inviting!

After reading the first two chapters I was convinced that the authors were on the right track. with web development in its infancy there are no standards for development of web sites that one can go by. This book, while in no way attempting to set or define any standards, attempts to list the principles and approach that an information architect should be taking when starting out on a web design project.

I found the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters to be the very best. These chapters touch upon Navigation, Labelling, and Searching systems. The chapter on navigation systems was a relevation. Many a time navigations systems make absolutely no sense on even some of the more reputed web sites.

The chapter on Navigation systems is followed by the one on Labeling Systems. The relevation that emerges from this chapter is 'Know your target audience, and be consistent!'.

If I like this book, why don't I give this book 5 stars? Because I feel that because the authors do such a great job of explaing what 'Information Architecture' I was very disappointed by the lack of detailed examples in the book. There is one chapter at the end that deals with a real world example, but that is not enough. Something like the entire layout of a real world web site (or a hypothetical example even) that set out that web site's labelling system, the navigation system, the Searching system, etc.. would have made this book worth its weight in cybergold!

Hence the 4 stars. But still a must read, must have.

a DEFINATE ASSET for ANY role in website development- from the project managers, designers, to even developers- it would even be a good book for clients who want results or are working closely with the agency developing content for their site. i am going to ask my boss to buy this book for everyone at work! this book reinforces many basic website organization "rules" while offering many that i never thought of- all to help me have a fresh approach to organizing websites and interfaces each time i begin a new project at work. it teaches you what to look for to constantly learn while working and visiting other sites. i've been to one of louis' seminars and would also reccommend you to go to one!

Overall, this was a good book with good content. At times, the author is a bit too wordy, and some sections are difficult to comprehend if you are not a library sciences professional. I would recommend reading this book if you are an interactive professional, but realize that you must weed through excessive detail to find some really good information.

If I were to teach a class in Information Architecture on a remote pacific island, and I could only bring one book - this would be THE BOOK.
This is the book which brings students of IA further than any other single book. It is the book that covers the most ground. It is the book You would have killed for when You started as an IA. But it is not really a "how-to" book. It is much more of an "understand the business" book.

The second edition is different from the first edition. It has improved in so many ways. We're talking solid 460 pages packed with practical advice, knowledge supported by experience, and great examples. The Library and Information Science bias that made the first edition a little single sided is not present in this second edition which encompasses the entire field and deals with most aspects of Information Architecture - from presenting search results to making elevator pitches in the world of business strategy.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is not one of those books that are backed by a lot of scientific evidence. The advice given in this book is backed by the authority and experience of two of the most widely recognized people in the field. If that counts for You, then this book is for You.

The cover says "designing large scale web sites". This is true. It is not a book about building community sites, and it is not about small e-business sites. This is a book about the big picture on the big projects, but it actually has a lot of relevant input for the building of smaller sites as well.

This is a classic book to have on the importance of planning, and the art of researching towards easier implementation. It gives excellent review on the various tasks a large-scale project should work through.
This book is mostly targetted for IA wanna-be. Web developers and project managers will benefit only from 7-8 chapters.

I think the authors had focused too much on why IA is important, rather then how to implement it correctly. A large percentage of the ink was wasted on what is IA and how you should sell it. I would love to see another case study or two.

All in all, this is a nice book to have. The chapters I liked most was on the labels, grouping, controlled vocabularies and case studies.

This is another example of a book I wished I'd known about a year or so ago. I'm an amateur web designer and up until just recently maintained web sites for three different volunteer groups. Now one of them has decided to get another person to run the site. If I'd known about the concepts presented in this book, I might still be running it! The book discusses how to organize the content on a wbe site and covers a lot of areas the average site designer might not consider on first glance. There's nothing more frustrating than being in the "middle" of a site and "getting lost" with no way out other than to start over. While this is an extreme example, too many sites suffer from navigational problems.

This book offers choices on how to organize the information on your site, various ways to design it, the types of systems you can use to search for specific data on the site, researching and planning it (with a great outline on what you should include in your research), and the business of creating and maintaining your design. The book's authors stress the importance of keeping everyone in the process involved in it at all times, as well as pointing out that just because you finally finished it does not mean your job is over! There's always the job of keeping the site as current as possible.

Anyone responsible for maintaining a site (even if it's just your own) should take a look through this book.

In an e-world crowded by a cobweb of sites, one could surely do with some information architecture. This book is the first step toward understanding the importance of IA in the success of a site.

The most endearing part about the book is the fact that the authors have not overlooked the practical difficulties. It's easy to preach theory, it's darned difficult to put it in practice. Thanks to their many years of experience, the authors hand out quite a few useful tips to iron out those real-world wrinkles. In Chapter 3 (Organizing Information), for instance, the authors deal with tackling internal politics of the organization so that the site doesn't reflect "the strong undercurrent of politics."

The authors have kept a very wide spectrum of readers in mind. In their words, "...we wrote this book to be accessible to anyone who has used the World Wide Web more than once or twice." That's the reason why anybody who has anything to do with the Web will find this book helpful. And that's also the reason why those who dream in pixels and drop-down boxes may not get satiated. But then, a good starter is as important as the main course. I'm sure Rosenfeld and Morville are putting together a delectable fare for the main course. I'm waiting. And drooling...

Although this book does provide a nice overview of the field of IA, it provided me with very little useful information in regards to advanced IA techniques and practices. The few bits of useful information that I found we're sandwiched between pages upon pages of common sense, no-brainer techniques.

If your a beginner in the fields, or an outsider hoping to learn about IA, perhaps you might benefit from this book. If you've been in the industry for awhile, I'd suggest getting your IA info from a better source. Information Architecture: Blueprints For The Web is a good one. So are Defensive Design for The Web, and Getting Real, by 37 Signals.

What is information architecture? Actually that is a question that I never really knew until I came across this book. Information architecture (as defined by the author) is the structural design of shared information environments. It is the combination of organization, labeling, search and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. IT is also the art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability.

Does that definition make it any clearer? Maybe a little, but basically it means how to properly design the architecture of medium to large websites (kind of).

Unless you're a senior developer of a large company that has a large website, or are in the process of doing so, you probably never had the first hand experience of how to set the foundation of properly displaying large amounts of data to customers.

The beginning of the book the author explains the importance of Information Architects and how one can gain the experience to be one since there is really no degree or certification at this point in time. The author explains the backgrounds one may need to have to gain the necessary knowledge: journalism, library science, product management, technical writing, etc. To be an "AI", does not mean you have a computer background, it means that you have an understanding of how to use information to convey the meaning they are trying to get across to the customer. Indexing data, organizing data, structuring data are some of the tasks that are needed. It seems to me that it is one of the "unknown solders" disciplines in web development, but it is necessary for a successful site design.

The book also discusses the niches of AI that are popping up recently such as:

Metadata Specialist
Content Manager
Director, User Experience
Search Schema Content Editor

The first part of the book focuses on the anatomy of information architecture. The author goes through many web page examples of showing how to visual information architecture. Showing each sites home page and going through categories such as navigation systems, search systems and labeling systems shows you how important small bits of information can convey a particular question to the user.

The questions could be:

How do I get around the site?
What's important and unique about this organization?
What's available on this site?
How can I contact a human?
What's there address?

Later in the book the author describes different browser aids, search aids, content and tasks and invisible components that an AI can use to help the user get the information they need.

Examples would be:

Browser aids:
Sitemaps, site guides, site wizards, contextual navigation systems, local navigation

Search aids:
Search interface, query language, query builders, search zones, search results

Content and tasks:
Headings, embedded links, lists, sequential aids, identifiers

"Invisible" components:
Retrieval algorithms, categorizing data, specific vocabularies

All of these are discussed throughout the book in an easy-to-read manner so that when you design or re-design a site you can keep these in mind if you can't afford to hire an AI yourself.

A really interesting book that makes you re-think the design of your site!

Overall, this book is good beginning read in the field of information architecture. For anyone interested in the topic, my recommendation would be to do additional reading. The authors provide an excellent bibliography at the end of the book which could serve as an excellent point of departure for the student of IA.

As far as the readibility of the book is concerned, it is easy to read although the authors bear responsibility for poor grammar and sentence structure in certain parts of the book. It is my opinion that this doesn't make the book less valuable as a resource.

A couple of other points about the book that bear mention. The authors used the example of the Henry Ford Health System Web site throughout the book. This is a great example. There are a few other examples used in the book However, I think the authors could have provided even more examples. My recommendation for the authors would be to provide the public with a second, more detailed edition. Remember this book was published in early 1998. We've come a long way since then and the web is replete with examples of good architecture.

Overall: Thumbs Up!

There are more advanced books for explaining information architecture to someone looking to actually design information systems for the web, but there are few better books for explaining to a manager the value of IA for an organization. The first half of the book seeks to explain the difference good and bad design can have on a user's experience in finding information. Although the examples are at times more cerebral (compared to Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability, who picks websites and suggests how navigation and organization could be changed for a better user experience) the book's value comes from effectively communicating the design vocabulary necessary for an information designer to communicate his or her vision to management.

This book may be OK if you've just been put in charge of an intranet and have never used the web before. If you have spent more than a week surfing the internet in your life, you will feel, as I did, that this book states and restates the blindingly obvious ad nauseum. I actually failed to finish this book, I found it so terribly dry and unenlightening. Another thing that really bugs me about it is that the authors pose question after question, but never really supply an answer. Sometimes they make tentative suggestions that this-may-work-then, but never many good examples. They also reference screenshots of one little area of a given website, but this doesn't work because (if you believe the basic premise of the book) a website is a coherent item, not a distinct set of pages. Therefore highlighting specific elements of a website out of context is meaningless. Better spend your time surfing the web and thinking for yourself why some sites work and some don't.

There's a reason all the famous web-design folks recommend this book. It's still about the only book that addresses the design of _information_, and it still does the job very well.

O'Reilly has become justifiably famous with its user-friendly technical volumes, but this one is a bit of a departure. There isn't anything in here about how to code anything; there are no handy lists of functions or commands for easy reference. What there is is a thorough, focused but wide-ranging discussion of the issues facing someone who wants to make electronic information usable and accessible via a website.

(That includes database design, by the way. There isn't all that much detail and it's in the context of making websites searchable, but there's good discussion of e.g. controlled-vocabulary terms and how users actually look for information.)

The overall approach is refreshingly big-picture: the authors emphasize, for example, navigation _systems_ and labelling _systems_ (rather than just "labels"), and they devote an entire chapter to "conceptual design." No wonder, three and a half years after its initial publication, it's still the standard reference work in a field that usually puts books out of date overnight.

And no wonder Jakob Nielsen thinks well enough of it to write the foreword. If you know who Nielsen is, you probably already have this book; but since none of the information on this page credits his contribution, it can't hurt to let readers know.

Ostensibly devoted to websites but generally applicable to any context in which electronic information has to be organized, this book should be somewhere on the shelf of every IT professional. If you like Steve Krug's _Don't Make Me Think!_ (as I do), you'll like this one too -- maybe better. (Krug's book is a good one to show your boss; this is a good one to read whether your boss sees it or not.)

This is a good primer on Information Architecture. But I get the feeling that these guys decided just to knock off after 150 pages. That was easier than contending with the knotty implications of all the conflicting structural imperatives that IAs deal with day in and day out.

Given that the authors work at nothing but Information Architecture, I sincerely hope that they have a far greater depth of knowledge than this book conveys.

Mostly, the message that rings through this brochure is: "Principle x is highly valuable sometimes, but it all depends on how it interacts with principles y and z, and you'll just have to figure out what's the most important as you go along."

Well, duh. Those compromises between design principles are the hard part of the job, and the authors don't provide a solid practical or theoretical framework for working through the compromise process.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large Scale Web Sites, 2nd Edition, (the Polar Bear book) was written by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville and this second edition came out in August of 2002. It is a book about web site development from two pioneers in the field of information architecture whose backgrounds are in the fields of library studies and information systems. Both are published authors and experienced in web site development.

Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Morville use architecture as a base of understanding for readers to comprehend the essential elements of developing a web site project focusing on the design of the organization and managing the information effectively within a web site in order for users (consumers) to find and manage the information more effectively and efficiently.

The authors talk about broad concepts and principles of web site design which allow readers to think about applying these concepts creatively to their own site development. The authors target some specific areas of web site development. For example, the authors want readers to think about the goals and intended audience of the potential web site, the content that will be placed in the site, and also the structure of the site. All of these elements could be considered universal to web development. Yet, the authors explain in such a way that allows readers (or designers) to apply these concepts individually to their own area of development. Other topics covered include user interaction, and navigation and search systems that allow users to access, retrieve, and manage information from the web site more appropriately.

This book, although extremely technical in some chapters, explains the importance of web site development comparing it to architecture, specifically information architecture, emphasizing the importance of successful information retrieval from a collaborative view point.

Overall, I consider this book to be a highly valuable reference material on any web designers desk. However, frankly, some chapters were just way over my head. The material was very technical in some chapters and spoke to business professionals in other chapters, doing exactly what it was intended to do. I welcome the opportunity to review it more throughly from a course development stand point and I consider it to be a very well written and researched and very valuable book on web development

This is a good book for beginners but I was sorely dissapointed. A better title would be: "Information Architecture - An Introduction"

Having purchased this book based on the O'Reilly name, I was saddened to find that it did not contain the "meat" or technical breadth I have come to rely on with other O'Reilly titles.

However, I have given my copy to a number of people as an introduction to the topic. I think it does an excellent job of laying out the issues in a manner almost anyone can understand.

This book presents a thorough introduction to the concept of information architecture for Websites. Written by librarians who specialize in information retrieval, this book explains why some sites are easy to navigate and others are impossible. It explains the steps necessary to plan the architecture of a Website, especially a large Website that will be created by a team of people rather than an individual. The authors suggest techniques for making clear to clients the importance of information architecture before work on the site actually begins. The book covers navigation systems and labeling systems (choosing useful names for links). It also contains a very thought-provoking chapter on search systems and factors that a Web manager should consider before choosing or building a search engine for a site. I would recommend this book to anyone in charge of planning or maintaining Websites, especially large Websites.

I don't know if it was just me but I didn't get the point of the book. The authors mainly introduced a bunch of concepts but they didn't do anything with them. It also seemed like the book was used for telling us why IAs are so great. I agree but I didn't buy the book for that. Disappointing since I was looking forward to reading the book.

The other reviews of this book left me wondering what to expect - useful info or lightweight nonsense - which would it be? Well, it's the former (mostly). There *are* problems here - it's a tad out of date, there's rather too much low-end padding and there's little in the way of practical advice. That said, when the authors do occasionally risk dumbing up their arguments the results are worthwhile - I certainly learnt a thing or two. Read this in conjunction with Jakob Nielsen's Web Useability, Donald Normans' The Design of Everyday Things and the useit web site for extra impact. But I still think the killer IA book has yet to be written.

This is the book you need for designing large-scale web sites, where a well-planned information architecture is absolutely essential. In building effective large-scale websites, as in programming large computer applications, much work has to be done in the preliminary design stage. The early design effort of the information architecture is valuable not only in the building of the successful large web site, but for the future maintainability and revision of this web site.

This classic primer is written by pioneers in information architecture and shows information architects, designers, and web site developers how to build large-scale web sites that are easy to navigate and appealing to users. To accommodate the many web site display options available today, the book also addresses how to design for multiple platforms and for mobile devices.

The authors first lay the background for introducing and defining information architecture and for presenting the basic requirements to be good information architects. Information is defined as different than data, different than knowledge and information-seeking behaviors are looked into before delving further into the study of information architecture.

The components of information architecture are then defined as organization systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, and searching systems. Organization systems define how we categorize information; labeling systems define how we represent information; navigation systems define how we browse or move through information; and searching systems tell us how we search information. The study of these components in designing the information architecture of our web site comprises a major part of this book.
Conclusion: In designing large-scale web sites, there are a lot of complex relationships between the information involved, the expected users of the web site, the objects involved, the storage of the objects, the search or browse methods involved, and yet many more subjects. This comprehensive book purports to address all (or most all) of the elements and components of information architecture that need to be addressed in designing a large-scale website so that when the web site is completed, it is an appealing and easy to use and navigate web site that users will enjoy, complete their tasks successfully, find their desired information, and return to the site again and again.

This 3rd edition is only 44 pages longer than the second edition, versus the doubling in size that occurred between the first and second editions. I found part one on the introduction to Information Architecture a nice tutorial for the uninitiated. It basically explains what IA is and is not and talks about user needs and behaviors and various models. Part two is great for those interested in concrete methodology. Particularly good were the chapters on navigation systems and on search systems. There's some very practical information on thesauri and metadata included in chapter nine. Likewise, part three was very practical information for practitioners. It covers the phases of research, strategy, design, and documentation in detail with many practical pointers. Parts four and five, on the practice of IA and the use of IA in the organization is not very helpful for professionals - they already have the education, got their foot in the door, know IA's role in the organization, and know how to make the case for IA to management. The one exception to this assessment of sections four and five was the chapter on enterprise IA. I found it full of interesting information. The final section, on case studies, contained two very interesting examples of how IA fits into real organizations versus the fluffier content of the previous two sections. Overall, I would recommend the book in its latest version to IA practitioners, since it takes what could be a very dry subject and makes it interesting and very comprehensible. Just realize that parts of it seem to be written to web designers thinking about transitioning to IA and to students rather than IA's that are already in the trenches. A good companion book for this book is "Ambient Findability". The following is the table of contents:

Part I. Introducing Information Architecture
1. Defining Information Architecture
A Definition; Tablets, Scrolls, Books, and Libraries; Explaining IA to Others; What Isn't Information Architecture?; Why Information Architecture Matters; Bringing Our Work to Life;
2. Practicing Information Architecture
Do We Need Information Architects?; Who's Qualified to Practice Information Architecture?; Information Architecture Specialists; Practicing Information Architecture in the Real World; What Lies Ahead;
3. User Needs and Behaviors
The "Too-Simple" Information Model; Information Needs; Information-Seeking Behaviors; Learning About Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behaviors;

Part II. Basic Principles of Information Architecture
4. The Anatomy of an Information Architecture
Visualizing Information Architecture; Information Architecture Components;
5. Organization Systems
Challenges of Organizing Information; Organizing Web Sites and Intranets; Organization Schemes; Organization Structures; Social Classification; Creating Cohesive Organization Systems;
6. Labeling Systems
Why You Should Care About Labeling; Varieties of Labels; Designing Labels;
7. Navigation Systems
Types of Navigation Systems; Gray Matters; Browser Navigation Features; Building Context; Improving Flexibility; Embedded Navigation Systems; Supplemental Navigation Systems; Advanced Navigation Approaches;
8. Search Systems
Does Your Site Need Search?; Search System Anatomy; Search Is Not an IT Thing; Choosing What to Search; Search Algorithms; Query Builders; Presenting Results; Designing the Search Interface; Where to Learn More;
9. Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata
Metadata; Controlled Vocabularies; Technical Lingo; A Thesaurus in Action; Types of Thesauri; Thesaurus Standards; Semantic Relationships; Preferred Terms; Polyhierarchy; Faceted Classification;

Part III. Process and Methodology
10. Research
Process Overview; A Research Framework; Context; Content; Users; Participant Definition and Recruiting; User Research Sessions; In Defense of Research;
11. Strategy
What Is an Information Architecture Strategy?; Strategies Under Attack; From Research to Strategy; Developing the Strategy; Work Products and Deliverables; The Strategy Report; The Project Plan; Presentations;
12. Design and Documentation
Guidelines for Diagramming an Information Architecture; Communicating Visually; Blueprints; Wireframes; Content Mapping and Inventory; Content Models; Controlled Vocabularies; Design Collaboration; Putting It All Together: Information Architecture Style Guides;

Part IV. Information Architecture in Practice
13. Education
Transition in Education; A World of Choice; But Do I Need a Degree?; The State of the Field;
14. Ethics
Ethical Considerations; Shaping the Future;
15. Building an Information Architecture Team
Destructive Acts of Creation; Fast and Slow Layers; Project Versus Program; Buy or Rent; Do We Really Need to Hire Professionals?; The Dream Team;
16. Tools and Software
A Time of Change; Categories in Chaos; Questions to Ask;

Part V. Information Architecture in the Organization
17. Making the Case for Information Architecture
You Must Sell; The Two Kinds of People in the World; Running the Numbers; Talking to the Reactionaries; Other Case-Making Techniques; The Information Architecture Value Checklist; A Final Note;
18. Business Strategy
The Origins of Strategy; Defining Business Strategy; Strategic Fit; Exposing Gaps in Business Strategy; One Best Way; Many Good Ways; Understanding Our Elephant; Competitive Advantage;The End of the Beginning
19. Information Architecture for the Enterprise
Information Architecture, Meet the Enterprise ;What's the Goal of EIA?; Designing an Enterprise Information Architecture; EIA Strategy and Operations; Doing the Work and Paying the Bills; Timing Is Everything: A Phased Rollout; A Framework for Moving Forward;

Part VI. Case Studies
20. MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet
Challenges for the User; Challenges for the Information Architect; We Like Taxonomies, Whatever They Are ;Benefits to Users; What's Next; MSWeb's Achievement;
21. evolt: An Online Community
evolt in a Nutshell; Architecting an Online Community; The Participation Economy; How Information Architecture Fits In; The "Un-Information Architecture";

I used this book to get started in the design of a coporate accounting portal in a fortune-500 company. Prior to reading, I was too focused on what my page would look like and found that afterwards, my site was much better geared to the customer-base it was intended to serve. This is an important read for web-page designers that still think of site development in terms of the number of web-pages.

The title of this book is a bit misleading, I thought it should be the caption at the top of the front cover, "Designing Large Scale Web Sites." While the authors do a good job at covering a large amount of material, I was disappointed that most of the material was a cross between design information and usability. A lot of the information is available in other places, but if you haven't done much reading on various design or usability aspects, this book does a good job of bringing together basic information from a number of different disciplines into one place.
The organization of the material was well thought out, topics were divided into logical sections, and built upon previous chapters when appropriate.
If you haven't done any work on a large scale project before, or aren't familiar with usability, or have some areas that you need to know more about, this is an excellent book to look at. Otherwise, you may find a large portion of this book covering familiar territory, and that much of what is talked about is already company policy or common sense.

This book is now in it's second edition, and the update is well worth the $20 investment. The authors give the best all around introduction to the subject that I have seen. What I like about their approach is that they don't claim to have all the answers and they seem to understand that this is a field that is in evolotion. What's great about the book is that it's in plain English and is aimed at programmers and graphic designers who don't have a degree in library science. What I enjoyed most about the book is that there is quite a bit of good common sense. Not only would I recommend this book to someone starting in the field, but I would also say that if you are an old timer it's a worthwhile read to get a better taste of what best industry practices are these days. While the book has some illustrated examples, it manages not to be a pretty picture book which tells you what you already know.

I was disappointed in this book, particularly because it has the O'Reilly imprint. It's too vague to be of much use, I thought. Not bad, but not very helpful, either.

I have never written reviews but I was so inspired by my distaste for this book that I could not resist. The content in this book might be helpful but the mediocre writing skills of the authors made it impossible to read. The grammar was of a sub-high school level and yielded confusing sentences. The writing style was also very unprofessional thus undermining the credibility of the authors. This one really made the O'Reilly reptutation drop a notch for me. What a catastrophe!

This book is a great resource for IA. Struggling with what type of navigation to use and why? This book is an easy read that helps you get good IA done. It also explains the in's and out's of IA.

A must read for anyone involved with Web design and management. Rosenfeld provides an excellent foundation that includes a definition of information architecture, and an equally compelling explanation of the grey area that exists between it and other practices (design, usability, development, etc.)

Sections that describe the artifacts of information architecture include wireframing, sitemaps (chapter 12) as well as those principles that impact site and third-party search, like controlled vocabularies, metadata and labeling systems (chapters 6-9).

For those involved in enterprise-wide projects, Rosenfeld includes excellent discussions of how IA fits into business strategy and concludes with 2 helpful case studies.

One of the benefits of the recent slow down in web activities is people with something to share, have the time to share it.

Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville have used the time to complete the second edition of what will become known as The Bible of Information Architecture. Using concise and clear language, they provide a thorough review of the emerging art and science of information architecture.

This edition has updated chapters on organization, labeling, navigation and searching. There is a new chapter on thesauri, controlled vocabularies and metadata.

In a world where web designers, developers and managers struggle to provide users, who are busier, more demanding and less forgiving, vast amounts of up-to-the-moment information; this book is a must.

As readers of this book, we can only hope the recovery from the recent slow down is vigorous enough to allow us to put into practice the nuggets contained in this insightful and thought provoking book.

Rosenfeld and Morville's book makes, perhaps, its greatest contribution by presenting its potentially intimidating subject in a way that makes it accessible to virtually any reader. This is no small task and speaks as much about the authors' gift for writing as it does about their technical knowledge. In my office, this book has become foundational reading and I recommend it highly to colleagues or anyone interested in the presentation of information through the web.

This book should be essential reading for any person involved in not only large scale site design, but small as well. The concepts they discuss are geared towards companies with 80,000+ pages, but I found myself taking notes on what to improve next time I design a 10+ page site. Don't get this book if you're looking for ideas for the "look" of the site. It doesn't offer any. Instead if gives you ideas on how to increase its functionality, efficiency, and ease of usage -- concepts many of us ignore in our excitement for spinning logos and flaming navbars. Some concepts they discussed were "common sense", but many of them were not, especially when discussing how to organize everyone from the marketing dept. to the artists of a company web site and pre-launch discussion of a site before the designing begins. You'll want this one on the shelf for that next major project.

I'm a developer building a company-internal website and I'm struggling to organize all the information it will contain. I bought this book hoping to ease that struggle. What I found is for a technical person like me, this book was so useless that it has compelled me to write my first Amazon review in years.

I planned to read it cover to cover. After 50 pages I realized that I haven't really read anything at all yet. So far it's been ridiculously verbose, rambling, and content-free. So I gave up and started skimming.

I couldn't find much better in the remaining pages. Page after page of touchy-feely gobbledygook that has not helped me organize information at all.

There are more useless diagrams in this book than I've ever seen before. For example, the term "synonym ring" is defined as a group of words with the same meaning. Does it really take a diagram with a bunch of arrows in a circle to explain that? (Figure 9-2)

To explain the concept of equivalence we have another diagram: "A=B" inside a circle. (Figure 9-21) Does such a diagram really enhance anybody's understanding of the concept of equivalence? Why does this diagram even exist in the first place?

Maybe some business or consultant type might get something out of this book. For a developer, run away. Fast.

In "Part I - Intro to IA," obviously the basics are covered, like what exactly is IA? What does an Information Architect do? After reading this title, I would define an Information Architect as a glorified content manager. Someone that occupies the realm between UI designer and DB engineer.

Google is pretty good at finding information for us on the vast Internet, but there is a long way to go. I believe these authors make a valid point that IA will become increasingly relevant. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that in the future you will actually be able to obtain a BS in IA. Nonetheless, IA is around us everyday when we use technology no matter what we want call it.

The elements that make up IA are covered in "Part II - Basic Principles of IA." The basis of IA is the interaction or retrieval of information in terms of organization systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, search systems, thesauri, controlled vocabularies, and metadata. What this basically means is, how do we categorize our data so that it makes sense, is easy to navigate and search, and is relevant or adaptable according to our users' vocabularies.

"Part III - Process and Methodology" helps one plan a path to your IA goals. For instance, developing a research management team to discuss such goals, your target audiences, functionality/deficiencies of your current IA system, and integrating other software, such as your customer management system (CMS).

My favorite topic here is the detailed discussion of "building vocabularies." This is something everybody needs to constantly perfect. An example of this is, two people can search for the same thing using two different criteria. How can can we build a vocabulary system that recognizes that?

Many research tools are discussed. My favorite technique, and it's so simple, is card sorting. Get some blank cards (20-25) and write on them the headings from categories, subcategories, and content within your site. Ask a user to sort this stack of cards into piles that make sense to him and have him label those cards using post-it notes. Make sure to tell them to think-out-loud and be sure to take notes. This will give you an idea of how one would "travel" through your site, what is relevant, and what should not be on your homepage, etc.

The authors take the reader through the process of the IA development cycle, from concept, to getting managers to buy-in, to the implementation and administration of the system; very thorough.

The hands-on aspects of IA are explained in "Part IV - IA in Practice." One thing I found insightful was how one could pursue an official education in the area of IA, albeit there is no such degree. To gain a competitive advantage, the authors suggest obtaining a degree in Library and Information Science (LIS) or Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

At the end of chapter 15, there is a list of position titles making up an ideal IA team.
This list may prove helpful for potential readers to get a better understanding of what IA is comprised of.

1) Strategy Architect - responsible for overall design goals and integration

2) Thesaurus Designer - develops classification schemes, controlled vocabularies, and thesauri

3) Controlled Vocabulary Manager - manages the evolution of controlled vocabularies and coordinates the indexing specialists team

4) Indexing Specialist - tags content and services with controlled vocabulary metadata

5) Interaction Designer - creates navigation schemes and page layouts with a focus on user interaction

6) IA Software Analyst - links the IA and IT teams, focusing on ways to leverage software to create, manage, and drive the user experience

7) IA Usability Engineer - focuses on intersection of usability and IA by conducting studies that isolate IA elements, such as category labels or metadata.

8) Cartographer - converts patterns in content, structure, and usage into maps, guides, indexes, and other useful navigational tools.

9) Search Analyst - leads the design, improvement, and ongoing analysis of search system.


"PART V - IA in the Organization" was a little dry for my tastes and irrelevant to me. May be very helpful for someone in a large bureaucratic organization that wants to implement their IA concepts.

The moral of the story is that "site builders" must employ multiple info retrieval methods and tightly integrate them. Everyone searches, browses, scans, and finds info differently; accommodate them.

This book is very comprehensive and even deals with the politics of IA. To me, the book gets a little long at times, but if your life evolves around information somehow, this is an essential read.

This book was a bit too abstract for me -- a software developer -- but it may appeal to professional information architects and librarians. There is a lot about labeling and classification, and even on less technical subjects such as business strategies and internal politics and marketing. I had expected more on usability-related issues, but as the author states this is a separate field... The last chapter with case studies was nevertheless quite insightful, and there are a lot of pointers to interesting resources throughout the book.

This is an excellent book about how to organize the tremendous amounts of information that organizations have on the web. Whether you are creating a large dot com site, or a small intranet with multiple departments, this book will be extremely useful.

Naturally, every web site is different. And if you do not understand the business model and goals of the organization, the web site design will suffer. Designing a web site (or a series of web sites) is a difficult task, and you need to ask a lot of people some difficult questions about their web strategy.

This book does a good job of guiding people through this process, and the inevitable political pitfalls... From convincing the web group that the current design does not server their audience well, to what kinds of questions to ask the stakeholders and decision makers, to getting feedback from the end users.

It also gives a pretty good overview of search engines, taxonomies, thesauri, navigation, proper language and labels, metadata, content management, and other tools that help you keep a web site organized and current.

I have two main complaints. First, it didn't spend enough time on usability, so you will need another book along those lines (like Don't Make Me Think).

Second, it didn't cover the dangers that a rigid thesaurus has on Google rank, and general Search Engine Optimization. So you'll need another book on that. Unfortunately, I've never read a on SEO that was any good, so I cannot recommend one.

So, you know how to create web pages, maybe even an entire web site. But do you really know how? Do you understand how to create a site that is massively scalable from a content and navigational perspective? This book will show you how. If you read any book about site design, this should be the first, the foundation. Already a classic.

The good stuff was spelling some things out to explain to people what Information Architecture is. Explaining which professions bring different dishes to the information table. The bad parts. 1. Interesting Reading in some places, boring in others. A better book to pick out what you need, rather than read cover to cover. 2.As a degreed librarian, I must take issue with their treatment of librarians. The authors feel anyone can do what we do. NOT SO! Useful to have at your side if you are a starting Information Architect. Authors could have been a touch more sensitive.

This book is amazing. Each chapter succinctly describes the key attributes of good "Information Architecture" - what it is and what it is not. It does involve navigation but not the content. It does involve labeling but not very much creative design.

Especially useful for consultants - sample questions and worksheets to give clients to help you get a better understanding of what they want and help them understand your role?

They show you examples of sites that have bad navigation, labeling etc. and examples of good sites too.

It contains a lot of useful usability information - why frames are bad etc.

Also at this price every web programmer/designer should have a copy.

This book contains some great information for the initial architecture of a site, however, if you are not a librarian by trade the overwhelming references to this profession become extremely annoying.

The basic info also seems to ramble on and get restated rather than expounded upon. Overall the book does hit on some interesting point, but the lessons could have been condensed and more case studies could have been added.

I am in the middle of reading through this book for the second time, trying to find something that isn't common knowledge. If you are completely new to web navigation design you might benefit from this book, but the authors do not present a coherent methodology. In fact, I have found navigation design information on the web to be vastly superior to the authors' ideas. Information Architecture is an incredibly misleading title, the guts of the book deal only in mainstream navigation ideas. The authors simply summarize information that is readily available and completely avoid any innovative ideas or future directions of web site design. Bottom line, don't waste $20 on this book.

As project manager, I was in a bind when our contract information architect failed to understand the complexities of our matrixed business model and client base. Rosenfeld's book helped me design a IA for our 700 page HTML site that has since been described as simple, intuitive, a no-brainer. What great compliments!

The book describes basic theories of IA in general (i.e. book indexes and tables of contents, libraries, etc.) and the pros and cons of different organization, labeling, and navigation systems. Then Rosenfeld advises on presenting IA to management, etc., managing expectations (yours and others), and gives detailed examples of IA strategies online.

In general, this book contains some useful yet common sense information. This book is more about how to become a talker than a worker. I read through and found the first half confirmed my experience and the second half is a bust. If you want to become an office politician, this is a must have.

I usually love O'Reilly - I've never bought a book of theirs that I didn't find occasion to go back to for some reason at some point before this book. Most O'Reilly books have info that you can reference when your actually working on a project - this book doesn't even prepare you for discussing the task intellegently. Granted, if this were not an O'Reilly book I would have given it 2 stars, but I have higher expectations from O'Reilly.

An example of what I found incredibly frustrating about the book follows. I expected the section called "Designing Elegant Navigation Systems" (the last section in the chapter "Designing Navigation Systems") to contain advice about what to include in the navigation system and suggestions for designing navigation systems. I got one page of babeling that included sentances like "Based on the hierarchy, you will be able to select key pages (or types of pages) that shoudl be accessible from every other page on the web site." At no point to they suggest what sorts of pages should be accessible. They don't mention the ones that should be obvious: feedback, home, and search; nor do they discuss if or when it's desirable to have one link from each major subsection in the global navigation.

The whole book was disapointing to me, I don't really feel that I learned much of anything on the subject. I knew nothing of the field to start with, so I feel I should have come away from any well written book on the subject with some comprehension of the field.

There are not that many titles covering information architecture. This is surprising if one considers how many web sites are poorly organised and constructed.

The book is mainly about the organisation of information. Graphic artists and programmers will be disappointed, but people who are interested in designing usable websites for real people, should find this book valuable.

The book is presented as an introduction. To get deeper into any of the subjects covered, the reader will have to follow it up with other resources.

Louis and Peter defined what it means to be an information architect. And this book makes it very clear that good Web sites must be architected, not simply designed and not simply coded. It is a shame, really, that the term "designer" has been appended to the word "Web" to mean anyone who has ever written any HTML. Hogwash. The creation of great Web pages is not random and is not done by one person. This book lays out the role of the person, called the information architect, who determines the structure of a site and how the visitor to the site will reach the bits they want. Once the IA is done, visual designers, developers, and other team members can implement this architecture. The two of them, through their former company Argus Associates, and through the Argus Center for Information Architecture, have forced the Web disciplines to evolve and to confront what lack of good architecture and design creates.

For myself, this book really helped me find the best way(s) to group and lable content - - something that when dealing with a 'catch all' intranet can get out of hand.

For my boss & co-workers, this book provided me with a better way to present information architecture to them. These are people who think that IA is just something that anyone can go out there and do, whether they have internet developement experience or not. They believe that IA is not really important.

After reading some of this book and taking notes, I was able to present my ideas and the book's ideas in a way that made it clear to my boss and co-workers that IA isn't something that can be skimmed over.

I haven't finished the book yet but already I feel I've gained a bunch of insight and new ideas on how to work the information architecture angle of a site, and from there, work to build a better site.

For a book on Information architecture to be useful it can either present new ideas or it can present old ideas in a systematic manner.

I am sorry to say, but this book does not neither. No new information is presented and no attempt is made to systematize the knowledge. The book is best characterized as a monologue, with lots of repetitions and banalities, and no adequate final summary.

It is, perhaps, of some value for the complete novice on web design, to show that web design can be dealt with rationally, but then again, the chances that novice designers have to deal with large websites is extremely low.

There is therefore no reason to buy this book.

I give it two stars because it is well written and not incoherent. But why it was written, I don't know.

This is a perfectly good resource, if you're looking for the theoretical underpinnings of how IA should work. I was, however, looking for more specifically technical information, along the lines of algorithms and integration techniques. For this I ended up going with Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications, which is more geared in that direction. Again, if IA is your whole intention, then this is a great resource, but if you're looking for technical detail, look elsewhere.

Alright the sections on building thesauri and search engines was pretty weeny. Who cares? That's what Google is for. Put Google in your site and that's the end of that discussion. Everything else was super useful though. I use the knowledge I got from this book on a daily basis, while I manage my 20,000 page website.

I found the first nine chapters of this book to be EXTREMELY useful - well worth the price of the book alone. However, the second half of the book was much more abstract and much less useful to me ... to be honest, these chapters bored the heck out of me.

I know this book is considered the "bible" for most information architects as well as many Web designers, so it's intimidating to say anything negative about it. Maybe I just didn't "get" the second half of the book and need to read those chapters again.

Like I said, though, the first nine chapters offer a ton of useful, practical insights - a must-read for any Web professional.

This book is perfect for those involved in research, strategy, design and implementation of corporate portals, intranets, CM/DM, and metadata projects. An exciting time in this field; Rosenfeld and Morville have performed a service for practitioners by packaging their knowledge, experience and perspective into this well-written book. The authors help one to realize how recently the role of information architect has become a professional role. For IA's, this book will help you effectively articulate your perspective throughout the organization; it's worth the price for that advantage alone.

I'm quarter way through this book. Some things have been pleasing, like reading that they find flashing gifs everywhere annoying, and I use these to show my clients that my original gut-feeling was right (they had a few and I said 'lose them'). But really its like applied common sense. Of course people like the powerful facilities at hand etc. I found most of what I'm reading covered on two twenty minute chats with Drue Miller on webmonkey radio

Good 'information design' is one of the things most absent in web sites to this day. People who think this book states the obvious are correct. Sometimes the most obvious answers are the ones most easily missed; thus, that old cliche of "it was under my nose all along" holds true. For those of you who still don't get it...look under your nose.

I know that the Lynch and Horton (Web Style Guide) book is slightly different in it's thrust, but I think it's better at the overall delivery of information architecture and web design theory and practice. It's highly professional and stands out from all the fluff-guides to web design. Then again, Rosenfeld and Morville do take a unique library science perspective that is one of a kind (if not a bit chatty). Guess it's good to own both books.

I found this book to be a fairly good introduction to the concepts needed for designing a web site. The discussions about navigation, labelling and searching systems may be common knowledge but they are not easily available in a concise and readable form. This book serves to put together the available information in a coherent and well-thought out format.

I also liked the chapters on the process of creating an architecture for a website and then designing and developing it.

The topic of the Polar Bear is very defined and focused, and the book reflects this. It's a bit dry - reads much like stereo instructions - but for someone who is dedicated to exploring content and information architecture in depth, there's simply no better reference.

I wouldn't call this a good primer, but I'd definitely recommend it for more advanced reading, and definitely as a reference book.

Very good book that has some really good sections on IA documentation, planning navigation, and good tools for putting things to gether. All chapters have plenty examples of web sites so you can visualize what is being taught. This book was used in an IA class I took recently.

This book really opened my eyes, as I haven't really thought about Information Architecture as a discipline, which is probably a natural thing for me, as I am a programmer. What I found intriguing about this book is the "take a step back" approach by the authors to analyze a business's overall strategy for user experience. This forces the product owner to ask: how should users find things on this site? What kind of things would I want to find as a user? How can the site's navigation be improved to promote easier searching? The answers to these types of questions and help your Information Architect begin to formulate on overall architecture strategy.

After a good introduction to what IA is, the authors take the reader through the basic principles of this discipline. In this section, the authors discuss organization and labeling of systems, navigation, and searching. In the third section of the book, the authors go into the practice of actually implementing the principles in the previous section. Finally, the authors examine case studies from two different sites, where they examine how IA fit into the overall goal of the application.

I felt this book gave me a basic understanding of what Information Architecture is, and what types of things to look out for in developing an IA strategy. I would recommend this book if you have large amounts of data you want web users to have access to.

Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld's INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB, 3RD EDITION provides a newly updated edition to cover emerging technologies for both newcomers and web designers alike. Here are the basic tools, techniques and insights which cover implementation, blueprints and design, backed by short essays exploring the evolving world of information architecture. It's an excellent choice for any web workers who would keep up with web evolution and how it changes.

When I realized the 3rd edition was only 40+ pages longer than the 2nd edition I was a bit nervous, wondering how all the new advances in the field would be covered in such a small space. I was pleasantly surprised! Peter and Lou definitely listened to the IA community when they asked us what we wanted to see in the 3rd edition. This book will be useful for many professionals - IA's, Usability Specialists, Web Developers, etc. I believe it will also be an asset for people outside these fields who are simply interested in improving their personal websites.

Updates to this edition are relevant to the ever changing "Web2.0" nature fo e-commerce and web design. Usability professionals and interaction designers will benefit from the information to PRACTIVELY build better sites with better, scalable site topographies.

I expected more from Peter.

The book shows that many still don't know what an information architecture is and how to use it.

The book gives very detail explanation how a good web page is and presents all material in systemtic ways without include a lot of jargon. The case is usefull and well link with the topics of the book. It is a good reference book for person who would like to develop a website by his own.

This book is an excelent tool if you are creating or redesigning your web site. You will not read only about how a site can get a great apearence, but you wll know how to make it work better.

Ever been to a website that screams for a rework? I have. I have even created a number of websites that, after reading this book, I'm seriously taking another look into. This book explains, in simple terms, how to optimize website navigation and indexing for different audiences. It really makes a developer start to think about how others view their website and that just because they feel it should be presented in one way, that isn't always the best method for designing the information presentation.

Reading textbooks is not how a lot of people learn best. This book contains too few real-life examples and could not hold my attention. The sections of the book I was able to stay awake through were generally common sense topics that people should know if they have been in the web industry for more than 1 month.

The book argues for web masters/designers to think more about the site and less about single pages: Navigation and terminology should be unified throughout the site, before the individual pages are detailed. If you buy this argument, you may like the book, because there are few others which stress that point. However, the advice the authors offer on how to achieve that unification is not that overwhelming - I found most of the book vague and much too long; many arguments are repeated over and over from chapter to chapter. This book makes a good point, but is not really dense with information.

Put simply, this book was my bible when designing my organization's website. It clearly explains the need for serious information analysis before even putting the first tag on your page. It also details the methodology for organizing content, layout, navigation, structure, and planning search protocols. But most importantly it gave me the tools to go into my "web task force meeting" (the bane of any webmaster's existence) with the tools to get everyone on the same page. The resulting website pleased everyone and thanks to this book, allowed me to design an open-ended structure for easy growth and continued web development.

This is an extremely valuable book for anyone who is pondering the question of site design. One of the things I really like about this book is that it takes a theoretical turn--theory that is rooted in practice--but still theory. There are many books out there that cram seven or eight hundred pages of detail down your throat that don't begin to reach the depth of understanding of this book.

After searching high and low for books, web sites, reference materials, you name it, I finally found this one. It is an excellent resource for anyone planning to deploy a web site or redesigning a poorly conceived site.

It is now a permanent part of my web admin collection (right along side my HTML manuals and server documentation).

Lot of text, nicely written, easy read, finished the book in one hour.

Not much useful

Gained almost nothing from the book. where can I get my money back ?

I did not know the astounding amount of intersection between Library Science and Web Site Design until I read this book. If you design big web sites, corporate intranets, or other information sources you owe it to your users to read this book.

The first part of the book starts with a gentle, but cogent introduction to the nascent field of Information Architecture. Part two looks at ways of organizing information for web sites (e.g. taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, thesauri). The next three parts give you ways to implement Information Architecture in a variety of contexts (e.g. corporate, world wide web) with different methodologies and processes. The last part is also very helpful in that gives you two case studies, one being for Microsoft's intranet.

The authors are experienced in the IT world and steeped in knowledge of Library Science. Broaden your horizons in IT by reading this important book.

One thing I found great about this book is the way it backs up its arguments with proper evidence with real-time examples. It would put an explanation (for example about labeling and navigation) then introduce a site and analyze it from that particular perspective.

For someone who wants to know how information architecture works, this is a great book. But be careful. This books focuses heavily on the world wide web part (well it said it would) so make sure you keep that in mind if you were looking for general knowlede about information architecture.

I bought this book shortly before starting my new job as the webmaster for a division of the federal governement. It was invaluable to me in planning our current internet redesign project and helping to explain information architecture to non-web designers/developers. I highly recommend reading this book from cover to cover.

Each time I sit down to redevelop a website I revist this book. It can really help you understand the shortcomings of a site's present information architecture and explain those shortcomings to non-techy clients.

What is great about this book is that there are very few others of its kind (that I have seen). That is why I am giving it 4 stars. However, otherwise I would have given it 3 stars for reasons mentioned before. The authors seem to drop some pearls of wisdom but do not show us the treasure trove. I suppose that is their right as professionals in the field facing potential competition from the readers. And some things in this area cannot be learned by using examples. But still, it seems like a lost chance to be a definitive popular treatment and possibly open up a long set of editions at the university level etc.

I would have liked to see a longer book with more illustrations, particularly sample site structures and page designs. Maybe they will do a second edition based on reader feedback.

The book raises a lot of issues that need to be dealt with in designing a web site. This is not a book on how to create a web page. A lot of the material in the book is common sense, but good as a refresher. The book is well written and easy to read.

In this book I finally found out what I had been doing for a living for the past years. It helped me a lot when convincing new clients of the need for information architecture on the web. I simply let them read the book. Maybe it is a bit heavy on the library science, but the overall story is very comprehensive and clear.

This book provides a deceivingly large introduction to the world of information architecture. It covers a concise methodology for the accessment and implementation of organization systems for the largest of information wharehouses. Furthermore, the logic of the system covered is also applicable to the everyday world of thought that occupies the space between our ears. Easy reading makes this book an information packed rollercoaster that is almost comparable to fiction.

A very good book that covers a lot of important useability ground. If only everyone who designs those big awful corporate websites had read this!

While there is very good material here for designing the structure of a large web site, I had hoped for ideas about an information architecture that spans an organization and makes use of web tools as a communication medium between disparate databases.

Plenty of books explain how to develop web pages, including pages with all kinds of bells, whistles, and gimcracks.

Rosenfeld and Morville explain how to design web *sites* that work. Anyone who thinks they want to design a web site should read this book and really think about its contents; if the principles described herein were applied intelligently, the Web would be a much nicer, more interesting and more useful place.

Rosenfeld and Morville illustrate the varying points of view that a web publication needs in order to serve its audience on all practical levels. I plan to apply this book not only for design but for organizational team building. A staple in any development library.

I have learned a lot about what the title says. Sometimes whe trend to learn and learn tools for the web and don't think about the human way of understanding and retrieving information. I will add new contents to my pupils and surely will make profit of it.

I've just started on chapter 4 and already I've begun to critically examine the web pages of other sites and had wished the designers of those web sites had read this book. If you want your intended web audience to frequent your site, I highly recommend this book and watch your counter take off.

While some people tell you it is essential to get on the web, and naysayers tell you to wait, Rosenfeld and Morville show you when and how to get on the web. Most importantly, they tell you how to do it well, and how to keep your pages usable and maintainable.

This is a great book. It focusses on site, rather than page design, and helps you take the step back and think about how it all fits together. I was unhappy with my site design and navigation elements until I read this book and followed its advice.

I wish the site search tools vendors would learn from this book -- there is so much they could do better, and most of it is described here!

Lots of good information in this book - it covers a huge amount of information related to Information Architecture (as you might expect). Very in-depth, and a great resource. I only give it three stars though because it isn't really a great read. I know, it's a book on IA, what do you expect, right? The book is college textbook size and written in that dry O'Reilly-book style that makes it something you just have to slog through. So maybe I have too high of expectations or too short of an attention span, but it was a big challenge for me to make it through this whole thing. Again, I'm glad I have it on my shelf for reference though.

The third edition keeps the book pretty up-to-date. Other than some random old school Netscape screenshots, all the content is totally applicable in today's world.

IA for the Web is a clear concise application of topology, Taxonomy vand UI design without being too stuck on academic terms. It provides a practical set of knowledhe and skills someone can us immediately

Provides in depth coverage of how to organize and provide access to information for the Web. I like it because it gives you a comprehensive tour of all the major concepts, systems, and strategies used to organize information for your web site.

Because it covers a lot of ground, its not necessarily a how-to guide book, but rather is more of a deep introspective of what information architecture (IA) is, as an academic discipline. In that regard, it is quite insightful and offers many good resources of how the field evolved, and where its at today, and what role it plays in the ever changing business community.

If anything, as a result of reading this book, I found that I now have a deeper appreciation for what it takes to create a systems-wide approach towards the organization of information. In particular, an appreciation for what it takes to design information for users to help them find the information that they need.

This is one of the most complete and thorough resources on the topic of Information Architecture. As relevant today as when it was written. A must read for Web Developers and other folks whose work it is to design, produce and publish web sites.

Morville and Rosenfeld managed to sum up a very complex and difficult topic into about 500 pages of text. The humorous authors took an interesting approach to help readers understand the world of information architecture. Starting with the basics and working their way to the complicated material, Morville and Rosenfeld teach readers how to organize information on the web to make websites readable, searchable, usable and of course informative. They guide readers through a step by step process showing them what to do and why to do it in order to make their website more profitable.

The two authors made learning this complex, ambiguous topic simple by providing readers with plenty of familiar anecdotes, charts, examples and analogies. They draw readers in by talking to them as if they were there in person, and then take their time to explain each subject.

However, the organization of this book made it difficult to read. The sections jumped from definition of concepts, to elements of concepts and then to a step by step guide to information architecture. I often found myself confused and having to look back to remember what they were talking about. This made the how to confusing.

All in all, this book was able to tell me what to do and why I should do it when crafting the information of my website. But I still don't know how...

This book is the "Aha!" for many librarians ready to bring their game to the 21st century. Lou and Peter have created a solid introduction to the practice and profession of information architecture. Along with Dan Brown's book on deliverables (Communicating Design) and Peter Block's book (Flawless Consulting), this is the required reading for my graduate seminar in Information Architecture at UCLA's library school. And we read the entire thing in the first three weeks.

There's a lot more to information architecture (IA) than you might realize until you read this. IA is particularly critical to the design of large web sites which can quickly evolve into incomprehensible mazes for the users & their designers. Designers need a systematic framework for ensuring the site's content & navigation evolves in a manor that is intuitive to the user & manageable for the developers. This sort of framework is described in depth in this classic. Not a quick read, but a necessary read to understand what designers of large web must consider.

Information architecture sounds impressive, but it's a new title for a subject I've been pushing with software developers since before there WAS a world wide web, or at least since before most people knew it existed. It's a matter of usability, and appearance. A website must be both good-looking, and easy-to-use. And this book tells you exactly what that does (and doesn't) mean.

If you design or write websites, please, for the sake of all your visitors, READ THIS BOOK!

This is a good book if you want to get into the field of information architecture. It covers some of the most important issues a information architect faces on a daily basis. Some of the techniques the book talked about will be very helpful for you in a diverse web team. However, this book mostly concentrates on static-content web site. More and more of the websites today are task-driven, and this book doesn't cover much, if any, on this topic. It might have something to do with the time that this book was released, since a couple of years ago, static sites were still the mainstream.

Overall, it is a good book for a beginner. But don't forget to also pick up some books focusing on task-based webstie information architecture.

I have to admit I was nervous about purchasing a Web book that's more than two years old, but the reviews made me decide to try it out anyhow. They were right!

Reading through this book has helped me to better understand why some of my sites have been called "confusing" or "hard to navigate" by visitors. Some of the concepts were simple ones that I had gained a half-understanding of myself while others were entirely new to me.

Although the book describes itself as Architecture for the Web, I've also found it helpful in my day job as a programmer/analyst and a number of my screen designs and process flows have changed based on things I first discovered in this book.

If you've ever wondered why people find the data on your site confusing, I'd strongly recommend reading through this book and comparing your site to their suggestions.

I found the beginning of this book to be very informative and thought provoking. The first two and a half chapters provide a compelling discussion of the need for Information Architects and the roles they should play.

The rest of the book was less interesting review of some basic organizational concepts with outdated examples. I just didn't learn that much in the second half of the book.

This book is all the common knowledge about site design in one place. If everyone followed the sensible approach contained in this book, we'd be a lot better off.

This book is a great primer for anyone new to developing on the web as well as web veterans. It really hits home on a lot of the "real world" snags that you will encounter. I recommend it to anyone in web development, it provides good core methodology for many of the processes you encounter regularly. Some sections are too simplistic and a bit wordy but overall it is a good read.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is an extremely insightful guide into a topic that has to be addressed more seriously as the web grows. Many clear examples are given and I think that following some of their basic rules will produce online projects that are organized clearly and professionally. It definitely is some essential reading...