Towards A Cross-context IA

Luca Rosati & Andrea

towards a cross-context Resmini

IA

from digital to physical spaces (and
back)
Europe's Third Information Architecture
Summit
Barcelona, September 21-22 2007
Paper available at http://lucarosati.it/download/from-digital-to-physical.pdf

towards a cross-context IA

Foreword
Information architecture is not just for the
Web: information architecture has a larger
impact on many offline activities and affects
our daily experience in many different ways
Its contribution becomes crucial where
complexity, unfamiliarity and information
overload stand in the way of the user

(Image: Jim Benson, http://ourfounder.typepad.com/leblog/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


A Unified Model of IA
We would like to outline a unified model of
information architecture able to traverse the
diverse contexts we encounter daily, from
digital to physical spaces, providing a
conceptual framework for the design of
cognitive and informational continuity
between environments
Within this model we propose to apply
organizational and interactional models
typically used on the Web to the design of
physical objects and spaces

(Image: Paul Walsh, http://segala.com/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


From Digital to Physical Space
We believe this evolution of information
architecture is a strategic part of the general
evolution of design, from the design of
objects to that of processes
By enabling coherent bridge-experiences,
information architecture can provide better
and more satisfying Human Information
Interaction (HII) in both worlds, online and
offline

(Image: Clipart ETC, http://etc.usf.edu/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Laws of Findability
In this presentation, we will briefly outline
some of the laws, principles or rules we
believe define the boundaries of a successful
cross-context model, focusing on
 Coherence

 Flexibility

 Correlation

and following a path of scents, suggestions,
occasional detours, and case-studies

(Image: Patrick Lambe's Map of Findability, greenchameleon.com) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


coherence
(Borges, Foucault, Lakoff and classification)

Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


The Animal Menagerie
 Seals (gray, tiny and white)
 Elephant (small, tiny)
 Sheep
 Dogs (German shepherd, Scottish collie)
 Rabbit
 Penguin
 Platypus
 Skunk (one stripe)
 Donkey
How do we classify these?

(Image: some sort of seal, courtesy of O'Reilly) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Karl von Linné Says (1)
 Karl von Linné (1707-1778)
 Born Linnaeus, then ennobled, Swedish
botanist and scholar
 Envised the classification scheme for all
living beings
 In Linnean Taxonomy, all of these anymals
belong to Eukaryota (Domain), Animalia
(Kingdom), Chordata (Phylum), Vertebrata
(Subphylum), Mammalia (Class), except for
the penguin, whose Class is Aves (birds)

(Karl, relaxing after some taxonomy work) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Karl von Linné Says (2)
 Linnean Taxonomy is an example of
classical, Aristotelian classification where:
carnivor
a  category is an abstract container
caniformi
a
 things are in the same category if and only
phocida if they have common properties
e canida
e
halichoeru
 category has clear boundaries
s cani
halichoerus s
 category is defined by common properties
grypus of the members
canis
familiaris  category is cataloger-independent
 no members have any special status
 all levels in a hierarchy are equivalent

(Image: animal pictures courtesy of O'Reilly). Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Gaia Says
 Gaia, 7-year-old
 Italian, 3rd grader
 Owner of a large collection of plushes (well,
make that rather large)
 Wildly loves animals
 What does she say? First let's have a closer
look at the animals

(Hey! Isn't that tower leaning? Now wait a sec) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


The Animal Managerie Redoux

Mmmmh, plushes...



Looks Like Gaia Has a Point!
 The seal, the small elephant and the donkey
are friends
 The dogs stay by themselves since they are
predators and eat the others animals. We
need to sedate them at times
 The rabbit and the sheep spend time
together when the rabbit is not hiding in his
hole because they come from the same place
(a farm, possibly)
 The penguin and the skunk go together
because they are both black. Plus, the
penguin is teaching the skunk to swim
 The platypus and the tiny elephant are the
same age and play together. So do the two
other tiny seals, since they are the same size
(Gaia in mum's shoes, self portrait) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Quick Recap
(Gaia,
carnivor prototypical)
a
donke
caniformi y
a small
phocida elephant
e se
canida al
halichoeru
s e
halichoerus pengui
grypus n
cani shee skun
s p k
rabb
it
canis
familiaris

on
predate
platypu
border s
collie
other
german
elephant
(Karl, shepherd

classical) courtesy of O'Reilly and Gaia)
(Image: animals Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


A Classification for Drugs
 National legislations often have ideological
roots: alcohol and tobacco for instance are
socially accepted drugs in many countries
 Dangerousness is a sum of factors:
privileging one over the other, for example
chemical composition, leads to skewed
classifications
 Currently drugs are classified as Class A:
cocaine / crack, heroin, ecstasy, LDS, magic
mushrooms, crystal meth; Class A/B:
amphetamines; Class C: cannabis, ketamine
 Nutt and his group used a 3-way system
which compounds toxicity, dependency,
effects on social life and compared it to the
Misuse of Drugs Act
(Image: http://oskool.com/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Comparing Classifications
Misuse of Drugs Act The Lancet Group

 based on the drug's chemical  based on a pool of parameters (social
formula: its essence harm, physical harm; dependence)
 alcohol and tobacco are absent  5th and 9th place respectively
 Aristotelically coherent but  Aristotelically incoherent but coherent
incoherent in respect to its in respect to its social context
social context



A Different Graph
 Color classes A, B, C refer to
the Misuse of Drugs Act
 Unclassified drugs are listed in
gray
 The graph shows the new
classification emerging from
Nutt's study, with some
surprises



Coherence
Coherence in classification is deeply tied to
context, culture and prototypical mapping

“The animals are divided into: a. belonging to the
Emperor, b. embalmed, c. trained, d. suckling
pigs, e. mermaids, f. fabulous, g. stray dogs, h.
included in this classification, i. trembling like
crazy, j. innumerable, k. drawn with a very fine
camelhair brush, l. et cetera, m. just broke the
vase, n. from a distance look like flies”
(Jorge Luis Borges , The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent
Knowledge, in The Analytical Language of John Wilkins, 1960)

(Image: chinese dragons, www.orientaloutpost.com) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


flexibility
(to each their own mapping)



Binding Two Worlds
 The map of the library from The Name
of the Rose
 The real world is mapped, via a clever
mnemonic system, onto the physical
space of the library
 There is a certain degree of
correspondence: to go from Yspania to
Anglia you have to travel through
Gallia and Germania
 Books are classified geographically
 But another cognitive model is often
superimposed which amends errors:
this is not the world as it is, but the
world as it should have been

(Image: U. Eco, The Name of the Rose. Gruppo Bompiani) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


A New Kind of Supermarket
asdsa

 by applying web guidelines to physical
spaces
 by tracking our interaction stories with
items and spaces
 to allow re-finding, customization,
suggestions/correlations

(Image: TVScoop, http://www.tvscoop.tv/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Rethinking Retail

(Mapping the web page on the
supermarket)

(The ICA web page, http://www.ica.se/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


A Map of Correspondences

(Detailed sample correspondence
map)



Tracking Paths
Flexibile navigation can be provided by
accurate wayfinding and signage and
combined with tracking technologies:
 Icons for departments, letters for aisles,
numbers for racks and shelves
 Colors for shortcuts and navigational
themes (using ceiling or floor signage)
 Personal paths (customer card or reader
registering shopping patterns via RFID or
similar technologies)
 Smart labels



Flexibility
Goals, cognitive and cultural models strongly
impact behavior: different individuals search
differently, and single individuals modify
their patterns according to context, time, and
goals
To work effectively, then, a classification
system has to be able to adapt to these ever
changing information seeking strategies

“Traditional classification and new social
systems aren't competing for supremacy: rather,
they complement and improve each other”
(Jim Kalbach, Navigating the long tail, talk at EuroIA 2007)

(Paths in a radial retail space model) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


correlation
(circularity and the paradox of choice)



(You read the Bible? There's a passage I got memorized.
Ezekiel 25:17 [...] I been sayin' that shit for years. And if
you ever heard it, it meant your ass.)

(Image: Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Stories along a Circular Path
Pulp fiction is a wonderful example of non-
linear storytelling. The storyline moves in
circles and the beginning and the end of the
movie are tied together in a Möbius band
The narrative moves freely back and forth in
time and space and the movie ends up looking
like a tightly integrated series of different
episodes which continuously reference one
another and other movies
These correlations which link elements
belonging to different physical and digital
collections constitute what we call information
circularity, something we think fuels positive
feedback loop which favors berrypicking and
information scent

(Image M.C. Escher, Moebius Band II, http://www.mcescher.com/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


If You Like x You May Also Like y
Correlations can then be used to improve the IA
of retail space and its wayfinding and
classification systems, using technologies such
as RFID, to propose:
 Theme paths, such as regional recipes,
organic products
 Personal paths, based on previous data
 Coupling paths: if you like a we suggest b,
that you may find there
 Recommended or best selling products, to
further reduce the burden of choice



Building Orthogonal Paths
Moreover, findability can be improved by
mixing alternative classification models to
produce multiple seek paths. These could be:
 faceted classification
 social classification (top views, other
users also bought, reviews)
 collaborative tagging
 customization based on navigation
 network paradigms (topic maps)

(Correlation creates paths orthogonal to the aisle / rack model) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Reducing The Paradox of Choice
 Contextualization and customization help
reduce the paradox of choice as well
 Following the long tail model, it's not about
having fewer choices, but about showing
these choices
 at the right moment
 in the right way
 in the right context

(Reducing the paradox of choice in a supermarket's electronic scale) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Correlation
RFID, touchscreen technology, mobile
phones, PDAs, are increasing the amount of
data our enhanced selves constantly produce,
receive, process and transmit
These could be used to improve the relational
dimension of IA in physical spaces, allowing
related-items links among products and
alternative ways of navigation which free
themselves of the shelf
“I've often imaged gazes surviving the act of seeing
as if they were poles, measured distances, lances in
battle”
(Valerio Magrelli, Nearsights, 1991)



conclusions
(Building bridge experiences)



Design the Process
Information architecture should inform and
structure a company's Internet and Intranet
presence, its documents and its physical spaces
as an integrated, tightly related whole which
spans across environments.
We need a traversal integrated information
architecture model that moves away from
industrial design, where we shape physical or
digital objects, into the new territories of
process design, where we shape the very
processes in which objects, information,
context and users talk to each other and
constantly produce new meanings

(Image Fractal Tree, http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Design for the Cognitive Shift
We have to design for a cognitive shift which
effectively reshapes the user experience and
moves
 From artifacts to processes
 From interfaces to human-information
interaction
 From objects to users
 From a static, isolated view of products and
information to a dynamic, fluid view of space-
time data-rich items in a synchronic society
 From end-users to wranglers, who play, as
much as the designers, an important active
role in the building of objects / information
and have with them a continuous change-
inducing interchange
 From today to tomorrow

(Image Bruce Sterling, Spime Meme Map) Luca Rosati & Andrea Resmini :: EuroIA 2007, Barcelona


Thank You!

(Bringing it all back home, with a twist. Coherent, flexible, related)


Towards A Cross-context IA

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