Research AIMS and BACKGROUND

E1 Project Title

Information Architecture: A study of Information Architecture in the era of digital media such as web and mobile environment.

E2 Aims and Background

The project aims to investigate the aspects of Information Architecture (IA) applied in generating rich user experience (UX) in the digital world. Specifically, it aims to study the role of IA in shaping UX in the world of digital media such as the web and the mobile environments. Since long information architects (IAs) have been identified as the “foot soldiers of customer experience” working to fill the existing gaps, where necessary, or working as the “holistic problem solvers”. But what is the real nature of the work of IAs? This project would be an attempt to dispel the unrealistic assumption about the nature of the work of IA and develop a holistic approach in defining online IA.

Traditionally construction of a structure and organization of information to facilitate user’s movement and get comfort or find information in space is characterized as architectural planning. So, the research questions include who is an IA? How do they get there? What do they do? And what is their relevance in the digital world? Thus, an objective of the research is to examine how traditional architecture influences IA to categorize content in the context of the virtual world of online digital media. Additionally the project aims to analyze how IA in the digital world achieves a delicate and adequate balance between information design (ID) and UX (interaction).

Another objective of the project is to investigate the tasks of information architecture defining UX or clarifying usability engineering. A research question would include how does IA fit into the digital world? Earlier, in SIG-IA and CHI web mailing lists the power of web technologies capable of generating rich user experience was maligned. Furthermore studies showed that librarians and information scientists organize and categorize content; however, their role in creation of a favorable user experience is limited. Moreover traditional human computer interaction or usability engineers focused on designing user-centered predictable task-driven systems. But in the digital world IA is considered revolutionary because not only does it comprise the task of interface design and navigation scheme but also it comprise the task of anticipating the variance between expected and actual user behavior. In other words the research objective would be to look at the relationship between information architecture and usability.

Communication networks have transformed mobile phones from being basic into smart phones, blackberries, I-phones and Palm Pre, a new smart phone launched by Sprint Nextel Corp, cable of offering web based services or mobile internet through WiFi and 3G in web 2+ environments. Statistics show that globally over 30% of users browse the internet on mobile devices and more than 19 million Australians use mobile phones to communicate. Several organizations such as ABC (Australia), Digital Fairfax, Telstra, MIG, VentureOne, Ideal Interfaces, BBC and others generate and distribute content for mobile users. Experts believe that organizing, structuring and categorizing content, so that users can easily find information is good IA in the online digital world, however, very little is known about IA in the context of the mobile environment. The technology, contexts and needs of the mobile users, who belong to the wireless world, vary from those of the web users (netizens), who belong to the wired world. Are there any significant differences between the IA in these media or are they the same? So, a third objective of the research is to study and analyze how IA is adapted in the mobile world.

The project examines the role of IA to determine a positive user interaction, whether IA in the digital environment stems from any traditional form of architecture and how it fits in the digital, web or mobile, environment? What are the applications and tools used by IAs to accomplish their tasks and how does usability relate to IA? Last but not least the project would examine the adaptation of IA in the mobile world.