[Sigia-l] information architecture in practice

[Andi Baur]

Hi,

Once again I was reading around in Wodtke's "Information Architecture -
Blueprints for the Web" and once again I asked myself, how all the described

things are applied in daily work. I mean there is a description of
taxonomies and controlled vocabularies, but all on paper.How do I apply this
the best way? For example, I would try to put the things in a relational
atabase. E.g. on page 138 in Wodtke's book, I would create columns for
preferred term, variants, parent, children. And then use sql? Is that a good
way? I mean, in all IA books everything is described so well (labelling,
wording, usage of meta data  etc) and I really understand what they are
writing and why information architecture matters, but my question is - and
maybe some kind of stupid or naive question -, how to get all this stuff
into the computer, i.d. not to use the tools to create a wire frame,
visualize a hypertext structure or all the other tools mentioned on the ia
wiki. On the one hand I can build pages with jsp and ejbs. I know xml, sql,
and so on. And on the other hand I really try to place emphasis on
usability, information architecture, visual design, accessibility and so
forth. But I don't know exactly how to combine both things.
I'm just a student and so I don't have real practical experience, but really
try to become both a good programmer and a good information architect.

Maybe someone has good hints for me, I would be very thankful.

Best regards,

Andi