Centering the Information Architecture in the user / Centrando a arquitetura de informação no usuário

AUTOR(ES)

Guilhermo Almeida dos Reis

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The study analyzes information architecture projects methodologies of websites under the focus of User Centered Design approaches of Information Science and Human-Computer Interaction. The adopted methodology included a literature review, to formulate a theoric model to analyze information architecture project methodologies, and two empirical researches. The first one was a quantitative research, based on an on-line questionnaire which aimed at mapping the profile of information architects in Brazilian discussion lists. The second one was a qualitative research, in which the Sense-making approach was applied to map the difficulties, techniques and methodologies found in information architecture projects of websites. As result the revision of literature review a theoric model with five phases was formulated (Research, Conception, Specification, Implementation and Evaluation) in which the approaches of User Centered Design should be applied in the two initial phases, in the first one should be applied the approach of Information Science and in the second one the approach of Human-Computer Interaction. The first research showed a young professional, that lives in the great metropolitan centers, which is often graduated in Human area and developed their knowledge of Information Architecture in an autodidactic way. Almost half of them doesnt follow any methodology in their projects and, most of the ones that follow uses theirs own methodology. The second research showed that seniors information architects adopt a methodology in theirs project and they dedicate more attention to the first three phases of the theoric model (Research, Conception and Specification). The methodologies found in practice dont follow the User Centered Design approach of Information Science, because they rarely make researches with users. The Human-Computer Interaction approach is little following because the clients are not convinced of the importance of usability tests and because information architects dont really know the techniques of usability tests more appropriate to information architecture projects. It were identified three focuses of difficulties faced in the projects: the clients, the own work of Information Architecture and the technology context in that the websites is inserted. It concludes that the methodologies of information architecture projects need to increase in the adoption of User Centered Design, to produce websites that fully satisfy the users, and in ways to evaluate the results of the projects, to verify if its objectives had been reached.

ASSUNTO(S)

human-computer interaction websites - usability interação homem-computador arquitetura de informação sense-making websites - usabilidade design centrado no usuário web design user center design sense-making. websites - design information architecture

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