[Sigia-l] information architecture in practice

[Alexander Johannesen]

Hi,

> 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?

A *lot* of my work is about taxonomies, thesaurii and Toic Maps, and I
try to avoid the pitfalls of RDBMS (relational databases) and SQL
(database query language) as much as possible. There are other methods
I find a lot simpler. Have a look at this;

<term id="346">
   <label>Forgery</label>
   <use-instead refid="123" />
</term>

<term id="123">
   <label>Fraud</label>
</term>

This is a thesaurus XML. From this point on the XML will probably feel
more workable than RDBMS and SQL for sure. Here's a taxonomy excerp;

   <item name="Arts and Humanities">
	   <item name="Architecture" />
	   <item name="Art" />
	   <item name="Humanities" />
	   <item name="Language" />
	   <item name="Literature" />
	   <item name="Music" />
	   <item name="Philosophy" />
	   <item name="Religion" />
   </item>

That's really all you need for datamodel and dataset. Next is to
choose some good tools for this, and I like XSLT but anything will do,
really. It's all about relations between items, so a good hint at
working with this in XML is to read up on the canonical XML
specification, and pay attention to id and refid attributes. Also, you
can have a look at Topic Maps for a format and datamodel that supports
all this and more (http://shelter.nu/tm.html)

>  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. 

Hard to tell what you're struggeling with, though. Some things are
mental practices, some are drawing, some are discussion, some is
philosophy, some are taxonomy/ontology/thesaurus related, some are
more complex, some less complex. The koan of IA really is "It
depends." And it really does.

> 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.

Given that it isn't an exact science, I think you're doing the right thing. :)

> 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.

Real practical experience is *really* what you need, so you've
answered your own question. It really is a long path of looking for
those things that works and discard what doesn't. Always ask yourself
how you design things usable before you start your implementation. As
long as you think about usability while designing a user interface or
even a data schema, you're doing alright. Key elements are always to
test, test, and then test again. Informal testing through design
phases can get you a looong way; drag in your girlfriend to test, your
grandma, your friend, a collegue, someone you like, someone you
distrust; drag them in to test your designs either in discussion or
actual sitting-down-type testing.

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

Not sure what good hints might be, but ultimately it is more about
experience and a good head than any formal procedure. Hope that helps.


Alex
-- 
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
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