~Information Architecture~

With the emerging mass of user created content on the internet that is driving Web 2.0 – it raises the question of how we’re able to sift through this ocean of data and retrieve what we’re looking for.

 

All user-content hosting sites, would have advanced algorithms that control the process of sorting / organizing / categorizing / tagging (therefore indexing) the data to allow it to be effectively searchable.

There is an official name for the above – Information Architecture – and the term has been around long before Web 2.0 was coined (1999), it was created by Richard Saul Wurman in 1976.

Richard Saul Wurman

A direct quote of his I believe accurately sums up the overall goal of the Information Architecture Framework:

“I thought the explosion of data needed an architecture, needed a series of systems, needed systemic design, a series of performance criteria to measure it.” – Wurman

 

Which leads to what exactly the role is of an Information Architect in the context of website development?

As the helpful picture below assists to explain greatly – I believe it is to ensure that website users are able to easily navigate / search both quickly and efficiently through website information in order to receive desired content.

 

Thank-you very much for reading!