Information Architecture

This page is the place to discuss the way we structure the information on the site. Information Architecture is primarily about the logical structure of the information rather than the look and feel, although there is inevitably some overlap.

Artefacts

The main artefacts we need to produce are a ?SiteMap (see http://IAwiki.net/SiteMap) and a series of ?WireFrames (see http://IAwiki.net/WireFrames). We might also want to produce some ?UserScenarios (see http://IAwiki.net/ScenarioDevelopment).

The ?SiteMap should be our initial focus because it will have the biggest impact and because we have most flexibility there - I think we should be able to implement much of this using wiki categories, variant ?WireFrames may require deeper wiki hackery.

Areas of concern

The primary areas of concern are: #Organisation, #Labelling, #Navigation, #Search, #Design.

Organisation

Different areas of the site should be organised in different ways appropriate to their content.

Alphabetical

Usually confined to an index.

Chronological

Useful for minutes of meetings, events, etc. To ensure correct sort order dates should be in ISO 8601 format, i.e. YYYY-MM-DD.

Geographical

Useful for information such as locations of nodes, coverage, etc.

Topic

Useful for a wide range of technical and non-technical information (e.g. hardware recommendations, co-op policies).

Task

Good for FAQs and HOWTOs (e.g. setting up an access point).

Audience

Potentially useful for high level entry points to the site (e.g. help for ERN users) or for dividing technical information into (e.g. beginner or expert).

Labelling

Labelling should be as consistent as possible across the site e.g. don't, in general, mix 'topical' and 'task' oriented labels within a single menu. Labels occur in a number of places:

• Contextual links, in the body of a page
• Headings
• Navigation choices
• Index terms

Navigation

The three main types of navigation are:

• Global
• Local
• Contextual

Typically arranged as follows:

+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Global nav - e.g. login, search, etc. + breadcrumb trail |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------+
|           |                                              |
| Local nav |                                              |
|           |                                              |
| often     |      Contextual nav                          |
| heir-     |                                              |
| archical  |      links embedded in page content          |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
|           |                                              |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------+

These can be augmented with 'social navigation' e.g. top 5 or bottom 5 most popular pages, people came to this page from..., trackback links, etc.

Other constructs to consider are 'site map', 'page index' and 'guides', i.e. structured walkthroughs of a particular task (wizard style).

Search

Search issues include:

• ?SearchZones, i.e. which areas of the site are indexed and searchable independently
• ?ContentComponents, i.e. which parts of the page are indexed
• Result listings, how should they be ordered?
  • by relevance
  • by popularity
  • by date
  • alphabetically

Design

Design Spec for BW

What is it going to be used for? Most importantly:

• Poster
• Website
• Letterheads
• Business Cards
• Login screen and desktop background

Less importantly:

Compliment slips, invoices, icons (computer desktop icons), leaflets, T-shirts, pens, antennas, giveaway computers, stickers and mugs

Who is the design aimed towards

We identified the following groups: funders, potential network members, current network users, telephone support users, partner organisations, NGO's, Regional Development Agencies, policy makers and the general public.

How do we want to be perceived

This question caused the most consternation as there where two main groups of ways we would like to be perceived based on two seperate markets we are involved in. Firstly we would like to seen as:

• Competent
• Reliable
• Confident

for our professional relationships and

• Inclusive
• Fluffy
• Approachable

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive in terms of our designs we hope. Other general perceptions are:

• Innovative
• Communication based (our raison d'etre)
• Multi-cultural
• Open source advocates and users

What we don't want

Antennas, aggressive looking, themes suggesting radiation, phallic looking, owls (owls?!)

Must urgent things to produce

• Logo (colour)
• Colour set
• Business cards
• Open source fonts

We would like to use open source fonts, here is a list:

• http://linuxlibertine.sourceforge.net/
• http://copacetix.com/fonts.php
• http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ (Bitstream Vera)

You could drop this requirement as the amount of fonts is too limited and use freely available fonts (we must be able to use them in our work free of charge). (http://www.goodfonts.org/)