I’m headed for Ann Arbor, MI, this weekend, to attend one of the 14 locations hosting an event for World IA Day. The event, organized by the Information Architecture Institute [disclosure: I'm on the board of directors], is a fabulous, world-wide opportunity for people to celebrate and learn more about the field of information architecture.

What is information architecture?
Information architecture is a discipline and practice that focuses on making information usable. Information architects organize information and figure out how to best share it to help others find and use the information they need. Day to day, that means we do things like create wireframes, website navigation, develop metadata and taxonomy, and evaluate user’s needs and their responses to our work.

Let me know if you’ll be in Ann Arbor for World IA Day, as well. If you can’t make it in person to any of the events on Saturday, watch #wiad on Twitter to follow along!

The Information Architecture Institute this week announced the addition of two members to its board of directors. One of which is our very own founder and principal strategist, Laura Creekmore!

A global organization with more than 2,000 members worldwide, the IA Institute focuses on education, advocacy, service and social networking to demonstrate the value of information architecture to both individuals and organizations.

“I am deeply honored to have been selected, and I’m excited to get to work,” Creekmore said. “The IA Institute is a great resource for our discipline, and I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the board, staff and members.”

Congratulations, Laura! We wish you the best with your term on the board!

You’ll sometimes hear navigation, taxonomy and even metadata used interchangeably, but to the information architect, these three different concepts work together to make your content work for you.

The navigation is what we all see on your website — the tabs across the top or down the side that direct users to sections of the site. We’ll quickly point out that we’ve never seen an org chart that made a useful navigation, no matter how many times we’ve seen it tried. Your customers don’t call your stuff the same thing you call it, and if you want to be successful, you’ll use the terms they prefer on your website. Need help figuring out what they think? We can help with that.

The taxonomy is often a hierarchy, as well, but it’s the hierarchy where you store your information. It’s not always the same as what you show your customers in the navigation. Usually, it’s more complex and multi-faceted. For a starting point, think of your taxonomy as a directory of every single kind of information on your website. Rarely is your navigation so complex, but you need a way to categorize everything so you can find it and render it correctly to your customer. Your taxonomy is the framework on the back end. Your taxonomy may be a place where you use your own terms, instead of your customer’s terms.

Metadata is a catalog of the information about each content item. Metadata is information about information, right? So it’s the information about each piece of content. For an image, the metadata might include width, height, orientation and file type. For an event, it might include start and end times and dates. For a news article, it might include the city and state, or the topic, or the section of the site. Perhaps you’d mark an age range or location that indicates the intended audience.

Metadata is also a place where we get into data interoperability. There are a number of standard metadata schemes, and if you want your content to be re-used and syndicated, you need to ensure you’re using universal standards for your metadata, at a minimum.

Because so much of this is on the back end, it’s frequently neglected. If your content isn’t working hard enough for you, this may be a place to evaluate carefully. Learn how Creek Content can help improve your information architecture for better business strategy.

I just came today from the orientation for my master’s in information sciences program at the University of Tennessee. It’s a top-20 program in a field that for decades has trained our nation’s librarians. Today, graduates also go into information management fields.

Since our work often involves information architecture, I’ve been thinking about getting an IS degree for a while now. It nicely meets the intersection of content and technology where we work.

I’m not changing my work schedule, and fortunately, the program is designed for working professionals, so my classes take place at night and on the weekends.

I’m pretty excited because one of my first two classes deals with metadata — one of my favorite topics! More on this as my program continues –

[And for those who are wondering, yes, it was hard for a Vanderbilt graduate to apply to UT, one of our big athletic rivals. However, the quality of the program -- and the fact that it's entirely available via distance education -- really made my choice easy. Now if I can just convince my Vandy-grad dad that good things can come from UT....]