Andrea Richeson

Rosenfeld. Information Architecture, Chapter 6: Labeling Systems

• Be consistent (predictable/easy to learn) in terms of: Style – Presentation – Syntax – Granularity – Comprehensiveness – Audience
• Labels should represent their content. Group related content together.
• Don’t use jargon. Be user-specific.

Maglio, P. P., & Matlock, T. (1998). Metaphors We Surf the Web By.

• We should exploit the connection between physical space and navigation tools
• Distance in the information space might reasonably be used to convey semantic relatedness.
• Useful interfaces will target people’s natural spacial understanding of information use and allow people the flexibility to create an appropriate metaphorical understanding of the domain.
• Dieberger’s 1997 city metaphor. Balances spatially real interface elements with magic features that break the spatial metaphor. Magic windows, for instance provide shortcuts between distal points in the information city..semantic relatedness need not be determined by spatial proximity. Both connections can be understood as trajectories providing a consistent basis for the mappings.

Bailey, S. “Web eArchitect: Love Your Labels”
Problems with labels:

• Vague/misleading: “Tour” links to “Site Map”
• Label and content title inconsistent: “The Classroom” points to “Course Information”
• Whimsical but ineffective labels:  “First Things First” points to a collection of newspaper links.
• Picking good labels:
  • Use the language of your audience. “Cancer” maybe not “Oncology”
  • Rely on conventions that work: look at sites that are easy to use, look at their labels & vocabularies

Nielsen, J. “Microcontent: How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines”. 1998.

• Remember that online headlines are often displayed out of context and that reading online is more difficult that reading on paper. Headlines need to stand on their own.
• Be concise, clear, and not “clever”
• First word should be content-rich and not repeated throughout other headlines

Morville, P. “Building a Synonymous Search Index”

• Varient terms (synonyms, abbreviations, acronyms, alternate spellings) mapped to single preferred term.
• Hierarchical and associative relationships are mapped (broader, narrower, related, variants). Increases learning/marketing (see also..)

Rosenfeld, L. “Organizing Your Site from A to Z”. 

• Supplemental Navigation System (SNS) — supplement the main organization system: site search, site map, table of contents
• Site indexes flatten the hierarchy. Good for returning customers. Support customers who know what they are looking for (like site search)
  • Steps to take in creating index: know your users; flatten hierarchy then mine the site for important content; Cull the list and group like terms under umbrella term; Rotate terms (Map, New Orleans, New Orleans Map)

Garrett, J. “A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design”.

• Limit the detail
• Make it whiteboard compatible (easy to draw)
• Tool-independent (don’t need special software)
• Small and self-contained (simple vocabulary — easy to learn)

Warner, Amy. “A Taxonomy Primer”.

• Building controlled vocabularies for navigation labels and site search
• To build your vocabulary: Buy/borrow, revise, or build from scratch
• Levels of control, from simple to complex:
  1. Control synonyms/equivalent terms (to control natural language/keyword searches
  2. Create hierarchies/taxonomies
  3. Determine associative, related term relationships