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 The Education Chapter is already out of date, which is to be expected.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 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.

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 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 :)

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'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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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";

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.

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.

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.

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 "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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!