What is information Architecture?

Imagine a national library where a person walks into find a book for reference. But upon reaching, he sees that the entire lot of books is piled up on the floor. He now has to pour through each pile to check where the book he wants is. Chances are that he eventually gets frustrated and walks out grumbling. That is, if he had not given up just upon seeing the pile of books in the first place. Would it have not been easier had each book been arranged in a certain sequence to make the task of selecting a book easier?

The primary task of Information Architecture is to take the information (read it as an overload of information) in our hand and arrange and structure them to make it usable for the users.

What is information Architecture?

A kitchen is a place of everyday use. Most of the activity that happens in the kitchen is complex and between it all a few things are taken for granted because it is never thought about in any other way- the way things are arranged in the kitchen. All the kitchens around the world follow the same pattern (more or less) of arranging the things. All utensils go together, all cutleries go together, all cereals and grains are kept together, all pulses are kept together, all spices are kept together, everything to do with tea time is kept together and all vegetables and fruits are kept together. In fact you get tools that help you with such arrangements- like a spice holder, where you can keep all spices together even if you move them. Even within each arrangement, there will more organizing. In the arrangement of cutleries, the spoons will be kept together and rarely mixed with the forks. In the utensils section, the pans will be kept together and usually not mixed with the bowls. This kind of arrangement is what everyone has been brought up with. This is a hard core mental model that has been formed and we hardly even realize it! Every element in the kitchen has been chunked into different categories based on their nature. Read More