To put it in layman's terms, IA is used to classify and make sense of all the information that we see published in websites, journals, magazines and pretty much anything with words and images that is displayed on a screen or a paper! This information has to be organized and classified in a way that is logical and easy to digest, and IA is the term for all the best practices that can help make that a reality. It is the structural design of information or content.

The term 'Information Architecture' itself was coined by Richard Saul Wurman, an architect turned designer who believed that architects could also use their skills in two dimensional work, such as the architecture of information. Wurman's taxonomy could not come at a better time, as the world of information was expanding exponentially and the Internet era was just around the corner. The University of Texas' School of Information Science has published an interesting introduction on IA that states the following:

"Wurman views architecture as the science and art of creating an “instruction for organized space.” He sees the problems of gathering, organizing, and presenting information as closely analogous to the problems an architect faces in designing a building that will serve the needs of its occupants. The architect must

• ascertain those needs (i.e., must gather information about the needs),
• organize the needs into a coherent pattern that clarifies their nature and interactions, and
• design a building that will — by means of its rooms, fixtures, machines, and layout, i.e., flow of people and materials — meet the occupants’ needs."

Wurman popularized IA further by releasing a book, 'Information Architects' in 1996, and this coincided with the period when Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld released another popular book, 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web'. With the democratization of the World Wide Web, IA became an integral part of the designer's toolbox. It is becoming more relevant everyday, as we have internet in our pockets and are able to access it almost everywhere, at least in urban settings. The evolution of IoT (the Internet of Things), can only accelerate the relevance of Information Architecture.

With all the new Smart Devices that are integrated into our daily life, IA will evolve to include the parameters of interaction and engagement, which are two essential components of human computer interaction in current devices. It has to evolve from its current nature, which is about classifying words and images. It has to consider the growing complexity of the world, which now involves a staggering amount of information that is perhaps far too much to digest on a daily basis. How many times have you found yourself on a news website and getting distracted from the content that you actually find useful or relevant to you?

"This brings me to my final point. Our companies, communities, and societies are struggling to manage complexity. Unfortunately, when faced with too much information, people often panic. They cling to old ways, engage in divisive politics, and rely on the sure-to-fail quick fix. To break this cycle, we need to encourage systems thinking. That’s why I’m writing a new book,Intertwingled, to help more people see how everything is connected from code to culture." — An excerpt from a great little interview with Peter Morville.

The Easy!

Case Study 1: Hemingway, an online proofreader app that helps make your writing clear and concise.

The single greatest thing about Hemingway is that it's all in one page. And it's so easy, so nimble — anyone who has a basic knowledge a browser and a word processing software before will feel right at home straight away. It is familiar, has an extremely quick and distraction free user flow, and works in real-time. There are no big headings, or advertisements, and their self promotion stuff is all neatly cornered in the far left. The legend on the right gives the user an instant idea on how the app works. This app gets straight to business very quickly and gets the task done, as it should be. This application is functional, reliable and usable.

Case Study 2: Spotify's desktop application, a popular choice for listening to music online on our desktops.

Spotify borrows some of the features of older music players, such as a dark interface with white/grey text (remember WinAmp?), plus the familiarity of a rather conventional layout, which works great as we want to get into the flow of listening to music as quickly as possible. Even though it's an online application, search is real-time and feels as quick or even quicker than searching an offline desktop application. The search results are drop-down, categorized and scrollable. The entire application is context sensitive, tied to your preferences, playlists and even the time of the day, making it very intelligent in suggesting something based on your mood. The app gets to know the user the more they use it, and adapts to the user's needs. The icing on top of the cake is that it is aesthetically beautiful and has fluid interactions that appear invisible but do evoke a sense of delight. This design is functional, reliable, usable and creative. The only feature I'd add on top is the ability to customize your 'browse' page further.

Case Study 3: Hyperlapse, an application created by Instagram to record time lapse images that move through space, also known as a hyperlapse.

What you see in the screenshots above is the total number of interactions available inside Hyperlapse. The genius of 'Hyperlapse' is that you can move through the entire application's flow in just three or four interactions. The process of capturing a good hyperlapse with a relatively high-end camera is actually fairly complicated. The amazing part about what Instagram has done here is that they have taken that rather intimidating process and ported it so simply into the mobile platform, making it accessible to millions of users, who don't have to know anything new to capture a Hyperlapse. All the work is done for them and they can focus on the capturing, the creative part of it. This design is functional, reliable, usable, proficient and creative.

The Uneasy :(

Case Study 1: Ken Rockwell's Reviews

Ken Rockwell is a legendary name amongst the online photography community for the nature of his extremely informative reviews and slightly controversial/paradoxical opinions on cameras and photography in general. What's great about his site is that the content of his reviews is simply amazing, and all the links work great and he actually has a backlog of articles and resources dating back to the 90’s, which is impressive given the astounding lack of information architecture in the website. He has to be a genius to maintain the sheer number of articles on this website without any sort of organization whatsoever. This site is functional and reliable, but a headache to navigate and therefore it fails in usability. Its barebones aesthetic doesn't award it any points in that segment either.

Case Study 2: VSCO Cam, an iPhone application that helps take pictures and edit them for aesthetic effects.

So VSCO, as we can see, didn't turn out too well. It's a pity as the app actually works really well in terms of functionality and reliability, but is extremely poor in terms of usability. There is no flow to the user's actions. The terribly organized interface and bad choice of symbols take the user out of the experience. This app needs a lot of work to help its great core functionality shine.

That's it for now!