Content Organization
Communication 337
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Organizational Systems
• Organizational Schemes
- defines shared characteristics of content
items & influences their logical groupings
• Organizational Structures
- defines types of relationships between
content items & groups
– Rosenfeld & Morville, p. 26
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Organizational Schemes
Exact versus Ambiguous
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Exact
• Divide information into mutually exclusive
and easily defined categories
• Examples:
- Alphabetical
- Chronological
- Geographical
• User already knows what to look for
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Alphabetic Scheme
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Chronological Scheme
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Geographic Scheme
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Ambiguous
• Divide information into categories that defy
exact categorization
• Examples:
- Topical
- Task-Oriented
- Audience-Specific
- Hybrid
• Best for browsing and associations
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Topical Scheme
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Task-Oriented Scheme
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Audience-Specific Scheme
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Hybrid Scheme
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Organizational
Structures
The primary ways users can navigate a site
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Major Organizational
Structures
•
•
•
•
Hierarchy
Database-oriented
Hypertext
Linear
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Shallow and Broad
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Narrow and Deep
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Hierarchical Scheme
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
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Database-Oriented Scheme
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Hypertext Scheme
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Linear Structure
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Information Architects
• Clarify the mission and vision
• Determine the content and functionality
• Define the organization, navigation, labeling,
and searching systems
• Develop strategies for accommodating
change and growth
– Rosenfeld & Morville, p. 11
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Mental Models
• How a user thinks about and approaches
their tasks and goals
• The goal of IA is to match the user’s mental
models to the information structure
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Information Architecture
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Miller’s Magical Number Seven
The so-called “Rule of Five” is really based on
George Miller’s 1956 paper “The Magical
Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on Our Capacity for Processing
Information”
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