Information Architecture Research (September 7, 2004)

http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000030.php

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What do we really know about information architecture? Do we know
what works? Can we defend our designs? Are we improving?

In preparing for my upcoming seminars, I revisited the role of
research in the design process, and surveyed the literature most
relevant to the practice of information architecture.

It was hard work. When it comes to information architecture
research, the knowledge environment is highly fragmented. But I was
able to extract a few gems and gain some new insights.

So, for all those information architects who didn't spend their
summer in a research library, here's a brief summary.

Research in Context

Before we dig into the research itself, it's worth considering the
myriad inputs that shape design. They include:

* Goals and Scope. The stated project goals and scope which may be
conveyed in an RFP or as functional specifications.

* Constraints. The budget, schedule, project team, and technology
infrastructure.

* Discovery. Project-specific research to learn about your unique
blend of users, content, and context.

* Competitive Analysis. Reviewing what everyone else is doing and
borrowing from the best.

* Expertise and Experience. What you already know, including
explicit and tacit knowledge.

* Guidelines. Published heuristics and guidelines derived from
research and/or practice.

* Published Research. Results of academic or corporate research in
human-computer interaction, library and information science,
cognitive psychology, etc.

* Usability Testing. Iterative project-specific testing of prior
designs and new prototypes.

The information architect must somehow process each of these inputs
and reconcile the differences. That's the hard part.

What happens when one input contradicts another? Do we trust a
guru's guidelines, a researcher's results, or our own gut instinct?
How do we evaluate benefit to the user against cost of development?

Any literature review should be mindful of the critical role of
judgment in determining which research applies in which context.

So, caveats aside, here's a radically incomplete and idiosyncratic
list of freely accessible research papers worth review before you
plunge into your next information architecture project.

Information Seeking Behavior
Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men by Edward C. Tolman (1948).

The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online
Search Interface by Marcia J. Bates (1989).

Metaphors We Surf the Web By by Paul Maglio and Teenie Matlock
(1998).

Information Foraging by Peter Pirolli and Stuart K. Card (1999).

What Do Web Users Do? An Empirical Analysis of Web Use by Andy
Cockburn and Bruce McKenzie (2000).

Cognitive Navigation: Toward a Biological Basis for Instructional
Design by Steven Tripp (2001).

Toward an Integrated Model of Information Seeking and Searching by
Marcia J. Bates (2002).

ScentTrails: Integrating Browsing and Searching on the Web by Chris
Olson and Ed H. Chi (2003).

The Use of Proximal Information Scent to Forage for Distal Content
on the World Wide Web by Peter Pirolli (2004).

From Information Retrieval to Information Interaction by Gary
Marchionini (2004).

A Multi-Dimensional Approach to the Study of Human-Information
Interaction: A Case Study of Collaborative Information Retrieval by
R. Fidel, A.M. Pejtersen, B. Cleal, and H. Bruce (2004).

Structure and Organization

Depth vs. Breadth in the Arrangement of Web Links by Panayiotis
Zaphiris and Lianaeli Mtei (1997).

Web Page Design: Implications of Memory, Structure and Scent for
Information Retrieval by Kevin Larson and Mary Czerwinski (1998).

Age Related Differences and the Depth vs. Breadth Tradeoff in
Hierarchical Online Information Systems by Panayiotis Zaphiris, Sri
Hastuti Kurniawan, and R. Darin Ellis (2002).

An Update on Breadth vs. Depth by Kath Straub and Susan Weinschenk
(2003).

Navigation

Reproduced and Emergent Genres of Communication on the World-Wide
Web by Kevin Crowston and Marie Williams (1996).

It's the Journey and the Destination: Shape and the Emergent
Property of Genre in Evaluating Digital Documents by Andrew Dillon
and Misha Vaughan (1997).

Website Structural Navigation by Noah Lazar and Michael Eisenbrey
(2000).

Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site
Navigation Menus by James Kalbach and Tim Bosenick (2003).

Breadcrumb Navigation: An Exploratory Study of Usage by Bonnie Lida,
Spring Hull, and Katie Pilcher (2003).

Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage by Bonnie Lida
Rogers and Barbara Chaparro (2003).

Faceted Metadata for Image Search and Browsing by Ping Yee, Kirsten
Swearingen, Kevin Li, and Marti Hearst (2003).

Can Document-Genre Metadata Improve Information Access to Large
Digital Collections? by Kevin Crowston and Barbara H. Kwasnik (2003).

Cascading versus Indexed Menu Design by Michael Bernard and Chris
Hamblin (2003).

Search

Stuff I've Seen: A System for Personal Information Retrieval and Re-
Use by Susan Dumais, Edward Cutrell, JJ Cadiz, Gavin Jancke, Raman
Sarin, Daniel C. Robbins (2003).

Milestones in Time: The Value of Landmarks in Retrieving Information
from Personal Stores by Merrie Ringel, Edward Cutrell, Susan Dumais,
and Eric Horvitz (2003).

Bringing Order to the Web: Optimizing Search by Showing Results in
Context by S. T. Dumais, E. Cutrell and H. Chen (2001).

From E-Sex to E-Commerce: Web Search Changes by Amanda Spink,
Bernard Jansen, Dietmar Wolfram, and Tefko Saracevic (2002).

Using Categories to Improve Search by Edward Cutrell and Susan
Dumais (2003).

What I've Missed

I'm sure that I've committed many egregious sins of omission, so
please share your favorite research articles and sources.

After all, we know from the research that collaborative information
retrieval is a pretty good strategy. Let's share what we find, so we
can focus on the hard part of figuring out how to integrate what we
learn from research into the practice of information architecture.