Presentation from the ASIST Data workshop 2007

1. ASIS&T IA Summit Pre-Conference
Designing with structured data
Margaret Hanley
23rd March 2007
ASIS&T, 1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510
Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA
Phone (301) 495-0900 Email: asis@asis.org

2. Introductions
Margaret Hanley
• Independent IA consultant
• Worked as an IA for the last 12 years
• Worked on three continents – Australia,
USA and UK
• Been both a consultant and internal staff
to companies like Sensis (Yellow Pages in
Australia), Argus Associates (US), Ingenta
(UK), BBC (UK) and DNA Consulting (UK)

11. Information architecture – the
future

13. What do there examples have in
common?

14. Data at the core of the applications
realised:
In interfaces
As APIs
Mash-ups

15. Progression
We are moving from architecting for one site
to...
A web of data
A web of data sources, services for
exploring and manipulating data and ways
that users can connect them together*
* Tom Coates My 'Future of Web Apps' slides
Posted February 13, 2006 1:10 AM.
http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2006/02/my_future_of_web_apps_slides/

16. By understanding the data as IAs we have:
• the ability to use data in our sites
– Understanding the data well enough to be
able to use it
– Think about different interfaces that allow
people to manipulate it
• The opportunity to create the data in our
organisations
– To set it free
– Extend the brand
– Re-use across an organisation

17. Information architecture – the
future

18. Information architecture – the
future
User actions
•Add Photo
•Send to group
•Add to set
•Blog this Tags
•Snow
•London
•Broadcasting_House
•Tom
•Gavin
•2004

19. Information architecture – the
future

20. Information architecture – the
future
Creating the data to start with
• We are used to creating a feed for one
purpose (filling in a sales order)
• Do we architect the content from the
beginning without knowing what interface
that will be created from it?

21. Information architecture – the
future
Additional skills – combining data with
presentation
• How does the API work?
• How will a layer of data over the top be
represented in the interface?
• Can we design the layers of interface and
data – pretending we are the end-users
who build on top of content?
• What guidelines will we give them?

22. Information architecture – the
future
• Focusing not on a progression of pages,
but interaction between data and the user
in the application
• Showing states and feedback within the
application

23. Information architecture – the
future
• Identifying that user involvement and
participation “in” the site is as important as
the authoritative content
• This could range from
– Tagging
– Creating the content itself
– Creating a social network

24. Why we should care
• We can create more engaging interfaces
• We can create more complex applications
• Rather than content sites, we are
presenting sites to interact with; this is a
combination of interface design and data
design
• It takes CMS implementations to the next
level, rather than designing pages we are
designing objects as Karen described
earlier today

25. Two components
• Data that is well structured and described
• Interfaces that are clear and have controls
for interaction

26. Data
Data that is:
• Well structured
• Available to users either as human or
machine readable formats
• Can be used on a web page for display or
combined to create a new interface or data

27. Data
• Is not necessarily complex info like GPS
• Needs the hook – the ability to map to
something else either by explicit user
action or by the properties of the content
• Example – Flickr photos and maps
– Explicit action of the user to place it on the
map and therefore tag it with location
– Property would be the putting into your
camera the place when you were taking the
photo

28. Interfaces
Two types
1. Mash-up interface (Map my run)
– Clarity of interface
– Usually a base interface that allows the data to be
layered and manipulated
– Controls for the user
2. Original interface (YouTube)
– Designing the interface of your components for
mash-up or manipulation
– Ease of use
– Creating an interface that continues the brand, even
though a mash-up

31. New types of interaction
• Animating – generating movement in the
representation
• Annotating – augmenting a representation by
placing notes or marks on it
• Chunking – Grouping a number of similar or
related, but disjointed, visual elements into a
single visual structure
• Composing - putting together separate visual
elements to create a new representation. Similar
to chunking. Composing focuses on the
representation as a whole, chunking on creating
the sub-components
• Karl Fast, IA Summit presentation 2005
http://www.iasummit.org/2005/finalpapers/148_Presentation.pdf

32. New types of interaction
• Cutting – Removing unwanted or
unnecessary portion of a representation
• Filtering – Showing, hiding or transforming
a select subset of the visual elements of a
representation according to certain
characteristics or criteria
• Fragmenting – Breaking a representation
into it’s component or elemental parts. The
reverse of composing or chunking

33. New types of interaction
• Probing – Focusing on or drilling into some
aspect, property or component of a
representation for further analysis and
information
• Rearranging – Changing the spatial and /or
direction of elements within a representation
• Repicturing – Displaying a representation in an
alternative manner so it can be viewed from
different perspectives

34. New types of interaction
• Scoping – Changing the degree to which a
representation is visually
constructed/deconstructed by adjusting its
field of view
• Searching – Seeking out the existence of
or position of specific features, elements
or structures within a representation

35. Annotating

36. Composing

37. Composing

38. Filtering

39. Filtering

40. PIPs
• Programme information pages – a page
for every programme episode, broadcast
on BBC
• Cross-divisional project
– Radio and Music interactive and New Media
Central
– Now being used to supply information to the
iPlayer

44. Programme hierarchy
• Brand • Blackadder • Friends
• Group • Blackadder • Tenth series
goes forth
• Episode • Episode 6 - • Episode 3: The
Goodbyeee One with
Ross's Tan
• Broadcast
• 31/03/2007 • 23/03/2007
instance

45. Standards and data sources
• Standards
– TV Anytime – standard developed by broadcasters
– SMEF – BBC standard data model
• Classification
– BBC I & A post-coordinated classification system
– TV Anytime – faceted classification (genre, format,
small subject list)
– SID – ad hoc taxonomies; two level deep
– Web site – combination of subject, format and genre

46. PIPs
• Creating the data – I sat down with
database architect and he and I came up
with PIP XML
• The core aspect to PIP XML was the
factual information about a programme;
the programme hierarchy, short and long
descriptions, genres
• Non-core information was added as
content objects by the CMS

47. PIPs
• What came first- the interface or the data?
• We had a really strong idea about how we
could use the programme information,
even if we didn’t have the interfaces
developed - schedules, pages, snippets
• So it was a bit of both ☺

48. Information architecture – the
future

49. Exercise
• We have about ½ hour to start to create
an interface using data.
• Please get into groups of about 5-6 to do
this exercise.
• Your exercise sheet has the instructions.