Information Architecture is the art and science of organizing information. Large web sites and Intranets need to practice this discipline or their data will become unmanageable. Well-organized information with good metadata and labels makes a search engine significantly more useful. While search engines provide basic access to badly-organized data, they also expose the architectural problems to user view.

Resources

• Boxes and Arrows
  An online magazine and discussion forum for information architecture, designed for practitioners interested in the important issues of the craft.
  
  
• American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST)
  The leading professional organization for information architecture, information retrieval and everything related to these topics.
  
  
  • ASIST Information Architecture SIG mailing list
    Enlightening online discussion list includes postings from leading researchers and practitioners in information architecture, design, usability, interface and user experience.
    

• InfoDesign
  Links to useful articles, conferences and other resources.
  
• Flamenco Project
  UC Berkeley professor Marti Hearst is investigating how faceted metadata can provide a dynamic information-architecture context for browsing and searching on web sites. For an example, see the Epicurious Kid-Friendly recipes page, where users can drill down according to main ingredient (Beans, Beef, Berries...) or view by a different facet, such as "season / occasion". Usability tests indicate that this approach is much more valuable than a simple text search engine. Additional research continues with and image database and scaling up with very large and complex medical research documents.

• Argus Center for Information Architecture
  publishes articles on the topic as well as interviews and links to resources in the field.

Articles & Books

• Taking a Content Inventory Web Techniques, October 2001 by Janice Crotty Fraser
  Describes a common situation of decentralized and chaotic web sites, and an approach to reviewing the content so that it can be organized. Recommends using surveys, detailed audits and content maps to track this information, with suggestions for metadata to track.
  
  
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, O'Reilly, 1998
  A fantastic book that covers web site architecture and site design as well as search tools. You can buy it online from Amazon or Fatbrain online bookstore, and we'll get an affiliate fee.
  
  

• Squishy's Crash Course in Information Architecture Webmonkey
  Covers the basics, including a lot of guidance in defining the scope and purpose of the site, competitive analysis, planning site content and technical functionality, organizing data, site organization and navigation, and finally layout and design.
  

• Seven Deadly Sins of Information Design Netscape DevEdge Online
  Helpful tips ranging from the universal (forgetting your users, not organizing) to the specific (using title tags incorrectly, inconsistent navigation).
  
  
• Building the Treasure House Creating Knowledge Bases for the World Wide Web InterComm, The Magazine of the Society for Technical Communication, February, 1998, by Jack Massa.
  Issues in generating a set of resources for documentation and customer support using the Web, and including web site search tools.
  
  
• Designing for navigation Web Designers Virtual Library, by David Walker
  a web designer describes the issues in navigation and architecture.
  
  
• Website Navigation Web Designers Virtual Library - nice overview page with useful links.