Customer Reviews:
 Lots of evangelism, theory and very little practice May 13, 2007
14 out of 18 found this review helpful
As a, self-taught, one-man-band website owner/designer/coder/developer I was surprised to realise, upon reading the book, that I was not the 'target audience' for it. I think its more for the middle-men and consultants of big organisations who want to plan a project to the nth degree before a big budget is blown on it.
Because of my hands-on experience, I found that this book merely gave me formal names for many of the processes and aspects of Information Architecture (IA) that I had been implementing already. Despite this, however, I learned a lot from this book. It rounded-off aspects of the topic that I had previously overlooked. It filled some holes and inspired me to make many changes to the information structure of my website.
Unfortunately these gems of knowledge were buried within a lot of waffle. Furthermore, the whole of the first section is pure waffle - which is very frustrating for someone who is eager to learn new practices.
THIS IS AN 'OK BOOK' and you can avoid some of the waffle that I suffered by making the following modifications:
(i) Remove Chapter One (you don't need to read these 15 pages that include waffle on "Why Information Architecture Matters" and two & a half pages on "What Isn't Information Archicture" etc.),
(ii) Remove Chapter Two. It, for example, includes a page titled "Do We Need Information Architects?". It then follows on with 4 more,pointless, pages that provide a thorough list of professions and skills that are related IA! This chapter ends with the message "Now it's time to delve into the guts of IA...so, roll up your sleeves and dig in". The next one starts with "...but before we jump into the actual "stuff" of IA..." -AAARGH!
(iii) So rip out chapter 3 or you'll rip out your hair!
(iv) Next, read chapter 9. (It contains key info that is constantly refered-to throughout the earlier chapters).
(v) Then carry on reading from chapter 4 - Where you actually start learning about actual "stuff" of IA.
This book is 'OK'. It would be so much better if they had structured the information within it a bit better and stripped out about two thirds of the content.
 Theory, practice, and a little evangelism too February 19, 2007
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
When I first told people I was reviewing this book, there was often a blank look. When I explained what information architecture was, then there was invariably a look of pity that passed across their faces. It appears that many people haven't a clue what information architecture actually is, and when they find out, wish they still didn't.
Well, this book has shown me the light. And I'm here to share it with you. Hallelujah, and so forth.
Information is all around us, and thankfully for much of it we have had plenty of time to work out a sensible way or organising it. When you look at a map, you understand the conventions, you know north is going to be up, you know there will be a scale, and so on. So much so, that when those conventions aren't there, if, for example, you are looking at a mappa mundi, you are completely thrown.
A bigger example is that of libraries. We are all used to some form of organisation in libraries - we know that related subjects will be near each other, that we can look this up and go straight to the shelf we want.
This is all well and good, and librarians, such as the authors of this book, have had many years to improve this system, to impose some sort of order on the chaos of so much information. The problem comes, however, when we consider the new sources of information that have exploded over the last 20 years or so. These electronic systems, and the greatest of these is of course the internet, provide completely new challenges - challenges we can start to try and tackle using principles and lessons learnt from other methods of organisation that have been developed elsewhere, but which will ultimately need to be solved in ways we cannot yet fully grasp.
This is where this book comes in. This third edition gives a novice like myself a good grounding in the philosophy behind information architecture, and proceeds to show how this can help in the design of large web sites. Coming from both a web development and a project management background, I felt a sense of relief that the vague concepts I was trying to use were at least recognised elsewhere, and had been developed far beyond what I had been able to. I suspect anyone who has had to grapple with how to display information to users will get a similar feeling when reading this book.
However, the philosophy and semantics are only part of this book. More important is the techniques it describes to actually implement information architecture - both the process, and the likely pitfalls that will be faced in a commercial environment. The formalised process is a good guide to anyone working in this area. (Mind, I would say that - I'm a project manager, so I think processes are intrinsically beautiful...)
These sections of the book, in addition to the examples at the end, provide anyone interested in how to use information architecture to improve their website with the tools they need. There is, however, more to this book.
Information architecture is a very young field. Part of this book is a primer for anyone interested in information architecture as a career, or part of a career. It sets out what, in the opinion of these authors, is a set of ground rules for how to be an information architect - the ethics, what to learn, what tools to use. It follows this with a set of short essays on how to actually sell the concept of IA, because a young discipline needs to carve out its niche in the world, bit by bit, organisation by organisation. It needs people to become enthused by this book, or by others, to take part in the work of popularising IA, to take part in the ongoing work of defining what IA actually is - as a new area of work, there are still many competing views on what it actually is, how it should work, and this book provides only one view of that.
But more importantly, this book shows us that there is still a lot of work to be done in creating a shared set of tools and techniques for navigating this new, vast information resource that we have created. This isn't about making sure commercial websites will make more money, though it will do that. It's not about making people feel happier about their user experience, though it will do that too. It's about making sure we are not overwhelmed, swamped by the sheer volume of data out there. It's about making sure we can find the information we need, and only the information we need, when we want it. It is, in essence, an expression of egalitarianism, the same egalitarianism that drove the internet in its earliest days. If we want to make as much information as possible available, it is ultimately worthless if only a small, trained few can actually find what they need. We need to build the systems that will ensure everyone is able to get to where they need to be.
In short, we need to make sure that the new generation, those who have grown up with the internet a ubiquitous reality, use the best techniques we have had for handling previous information systems, and combine them with completely new ones to create a truly accessible web, one that enables users to get to where they want to be.
So yes, read this book. Use the techniques it talks about. It will make your websites better. But more excitingly, it will let you take part in defining what the map and compass of the internet will actually look like.
Thought provoking book January 27, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book has many good areas to stimulate thought on the some of the things you should be considering when building applications. Some areas such as librarian practices will have little use in every day work.Not really a reference book for building usable applications, more of a good night time read. But for those of you who believe that usability is a big issue that many people overlook, you'll find a friend in this book.
 Rather Old, Rather Tired June 12, 2004
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
This was possibly the first book to use the words "information architecture" in its title that most people ever encountered. It's since become one of the defining IA texts. However, it has not aged very well at all. The discipline of IA has evoloved rapidly over the intervening years, and the view this book has of the field is really now only one facet of it - essentially that of libriarianship and information organisation rather than the wider activities of interaction design and "user experience" that IA has now widened into.However, as a good, if rather boring introduction to some concepts that budding information architects will need, it's a marginally worthwhile read. The polar bear on the cover is rather a good choice of animal in this case.
Excellent overview - second edition required! November 4, 2002
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
For someone fairly new to the area, I can't recommend this book enough.
The book is well researched and written in an accessible style - sometimes not an easy thing to do in an area like this.
A couple of minor points:
- The book actually gives some useful pointers for IA for Intranets as well as 'the web' - this should be made more clear
- I don't feel that the book gives adequate information on site maps
- Some of the illustrations look old - this has the result of the book looking like it's out of date - it isn't!These are minor gripes, however, and should not distract you from buying this book.
But please, 4 years on, can we have a second edition??
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