Web Site Searching and the User Experience
BayCHI, January 1999
Avi Rappoport, Search Tools Consulting

Search and Information Architecture

• Information Architecture defines site structure

  • Organize the site

    • Top-Down: site purpose and contents

    • Bottom-up: examining data to find patterns

  • Make categories and data zones, sub-sites within the larger site

• Navigation

  • What site am I on?

  • Where am I on this site?

  • What's related to this page?

• Consistency pays

  • Results list shows titles, meta descriptions, URLs

  • Found pages - similar page design, navigation, etc.

• Defining Vocabulary

  • Main concept terms - "hard drive" instead of "disk" or "storage medium"

  • Provide lists to content creators

  • Include synonyms in meta keywords for search purposes

• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites

  by Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, O'Reilly, 1998

Table of Contents | Previous Page | Next Page