Information Architecture, 4th Edition

Chapter 1. The Problems That Information Architecture Addresses

And it really doesn’t matter If I’m wrong, I’m right Where I belong I’m right Where I belong

“Fixing a Hole,” Lennon–McCartney

In this chapter, we’ll cover:

• How information broke free from its containers

• The challenges of information overload and contextual proliferation

• How information architecture can help people deal with these challenges

Marla was in the mood for The Beatles. She walked over to the shelf where she kept her LP records and looked through her collection. Fortunately, Marla was very organized: her record collection was neatly sorted alphabetically by the artist’s name. Alice Cooper, Aretha Franklin, Badfinger... and there, next to her Beach Boys albums, were The Beatles. She pulled the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band vinyl disc out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable, and relaxed as the music started.

For most of our history, the information we have interacted with has existed in a one-to-one relationship with the artifacts that contain it. Marla had only one Sgt. Pepper’s album, and if she wanted to listen to it, she needed to know exactly where it was on the shelf. If she was traveling and didn’t bring her record with her, she couldn’t listen to it. Because the information (the music) was physically embedded in containers (vinyl discs), and she only had one copy of each, she had to define “one right way” to organize her records. Should they be ordered alphabetically based on ...