Product Description

Today's web sites have moved far beyond "brochureware". They are larger and more complex, have great strategic value to their sponsors, and their users are busier and less forgiving. Designers, information architects, and web site managers are required to juggle vast amounts of information, frequent changes, new technologies, and sometimes even multiple objectives, making some web sites look like a fast-growing but poorly planned city-roads everywhere, but impossible to navigate. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition, shows you how to blend aesthetics and mechanics for distinctive, cohesive web sites that work. Most books on web development concentrate on either the graphics or the technical issues of a site. This book focuses on the framework that holds the two together. By applying the principles outlined in this completely updated classic, you'll build web sites and intranets that are easier to navigate and appealing to your users, as well as scalable and simple to maintain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #323118 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-15
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 486 pages

Amazon.com Review
In Chapter 6 of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the authors discuss the details of good search-engine design. In a bitingly humorous segment, they analyze a Web site's search-page results: "Let's say you're interested in knowing what the New Jersey sales tax is.... So you go to the State of New Jersey web site and search on sales tax. The 20 results are scored at either 84% or 82% relevant. Why does each document receive only one of two scores?... And what the heck makes a document 2% more relevant than another?"

With a swift and convincing stroke, the authors of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web tear down many entrenched ideas about Web design. Flashy animations are cool, they agree, as long as they don't aggravate the viewer. Nifty clickable icons are nice, but are their meanings universal? Is the search engine providing results that are useful and relevant? This book acts as a mirror and with careful questioning causes the reader to think through all the elements and decisions required for well-crafted Web design. --Jennifer Buckendorff

From Library Journal
Saul Wurman first used the term Information Architecture in his book of the same name. His book was mostly lots of really pretty pictures of media and webs compiled from a graphic design perspective; they were beautiful but never really dealt with the information end of things. Rosenfeld and Morville get it right. They show how to design manageable sites right the first time, sites built for growth. They discuss ideas of organization, navigation, labeling, searching, research, and conceptual design. This is almost common sense, which is often overlooked in the rush for cascading style sheets and XML. Essential reading for librarians and information managers who deal with the World Wide Web in any parts of their jobs.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Full of essential information, this is a book that should be required reading for anyone working with any web technologies." PC Plus, Jan 2003

Customer Reviews

At last! A concise, practical guide to web site design!
I had been looking around for a book like this for some time now: one that guides me through the crucial conceptual design phase of web site development. Most books on web site design are really about user interface design. This book offers a top-down planning approach to getting from the recognition of a need for a web site through to the final working design. It plugs up a lot of the gaping holes that topic-specific design texts leave open.

The over-riding concern and emphasis in the first section of the book is on how to organize the information on the web site in such a way that the target audience can readily get at it. To this end, the authors focus on three 'systems' that need to be developed, implemented and coordinated on a web site: a navigation system, a labeling system and a searching system. Once these systems are thought through and designed then the rest of the work becomes a matter of filling in the information content, functionalities and the bells and whistles.

Clear, concise and even a bit humorous, this book will definitely give you a peace of mind if you find yourself a bit overwhelmed at times when deciding on just how you will approach building a web site.

Great 2nd Edition Update
This is a great book to introduce business people to information architecture, for architects to reinforce their skills, and for web designers to principles to apply to site design. The second edition has more information and is more in depth than the first, and is well worth purchasing.

The first three chapters of the book explore what information architecture is and what it is needed. Chapters 4 - 9, the "Basic Principles of Information Architecture" have the most substance. Several chapters bear reading several times, including:

Chapter 5: Organization Systems, Chapter 7: Navigation Systems, Chapter 8: Search Systems and Chapter 9: Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata

The sections on Process and Methodologyactice, and Organizational fit are all good for people learning about IA, but may be too basic for anyone that does a lot of work or reading in the field. The Education Chapter is already out of date, which is to be expected.

IA for the World Wide Web is a great book, worth reading and worth hanging onto for reference or to use to explain the IA to others.

The best book about Web design strategy on the market!
With the second edition, Morville and Rosenfeld have met a pretty significant challenge: surpassing their first book. The new edition is chock full of great new chapters on topics both technical and creative.

By covering subjects like thesauri, CVs, and metadata, while at the same time tackling headfirst "big picture" ideas of information architecture, the two authors are to be commended for writing a book that is at once instructive to advanced practioners yet still recommendable to strategists, designers, programmers, and others who might have only a vague notion of information architecture. And the chapter on business strategy is as good an introduction as I've read in any business book.

This book is the closest anyone has come to a single book addressing all of the complexity and challenges of organizing, structuring, and managing large scale Web sites, and does so with clear, easy-to-read prose eshewing jargon and consultant-speak. Quite an accomplishment, indeed!