The new edition is thoroughly updated to address emerging technologies -- with recent examples, new scenarios, and information on best practices -- while maintaining its focus on fundamentals. With topics that range from aesthetics to mechanics, "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" explains how to create interfaces that users can understand right away. Inside, you'll find: An overview of information architecture for both newcomers and experienced practitioners The fundamental components of an architecture, illustrating the interconnected nature of these systems. Updated, with updates for tagging, folksonomies, social classification, and guided navigation Tools, techniques, and methods that take you from research to strategy and design to implementation. This edition discusses blueprints, wireframes and the role of diagrams in the design phase A series of short essays that provide practical tips and philosophical advice for those who work on information architecture The business context of practicing and promoting information architecture, including recent lessons on how to handle enterprise architecture Case studies on the evolution of two large and very different information architectures, illustrating best practices along the way

How do you documentthe rich interfaces of web applications? How do you design for multiple platforms and mobile devices? With emphasis on goals and approaches over tactics or technologies, this enormously popular book gives you knowledge about information architecture with a framework that allows you to learn new approaches -- and unlearn outmoded ones.

The first three chapters of the book explore what information architecture is and what it is needed. Chapters 4 - 9, the "Basic Principles of Information Architecture" have the most substance. Several chapters bear reading several times, including:

Chapter 5: Organization Systems, Chapter 7: Navigation Systems, Chapter 8: Search Systems and Chapter 9: Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata

The sections on Process and Methodologyactice, and Organizational fit are all good for people learning about IA, but may be too basic for anyone that does a lot of work or reading in the field. The Education Chapter is already out of date, which is to be expected.

IA for the World Wide Web is a great book, worth reading and worth hanging onto for reference or to use to explain the IA to others.


Sensible, Scalable, Essential, Valuable   October 25, 2005
 25 out of 31 found this review helpful


I read "Ambient Findability" first, and then bought this book. Both are excellent. This one is more focused on carefully orchestrating an approach to an enterprise architecture that makes content usable to end-users in context.

As the world gets ready to move toward exobyte scales of information sharing, at machine speed, this book becomes very relevant. While the authors are careful to point out the fallacies in cost calculations for informaiton access design flaws, I for one find the factors compelling--the cost of finding information, of not finding information, the value of rapid access, visualization and integration, the value of ease of use. I find the rough figure of $100 per employee per year to be a conservative estimate of opportunity costs--I think it is close to $1000 and in some instances $10,000.

Over-all I found this to be a superb reference for self-study, one that breaks down complex issues like different kinds of navigation systems, and one that also shows the value of offering end-users multiple means of access, both search and browsing.

Chapter 19 was especially valuable to me, since I am not even close to being a technical person or even a librarian--the itemization of the functions associated with information architecture and implementation, and why they might benefit from centralization, was a very helpful vehicle for getting a sense of the challenge when thinking of the scale of say Google, where thousands of hits are returned and thousands of relevant documents are NOT found. Google is great, but in this context, Google is in the second or third grade, at best.

I like this book, which does not claim to make anyone an information architect, because it helped me see, in a logical easy to read manner, just how *much* is involved in making tons of information accessible and usaable in time lapses and at costs that both people and organizations can afford.


The best book about Web design strategy on the market!   October 16, 2002
 22 out of 23 found this review helpful

With the second edition, Morville and Rosenfeld have met a pretty significant challenge: surpassing their first book. The new edition is chock full of great new chapters on topics both technical and creative.

By covering subjects like thesauri, CVs, and metadata, while at the same time tackling headfirst "big picture" ideas of information architecture, the two authors are to be commended for writing a book that is at once instructive to advanced practioners yet still recommendable to strategists, designers, programmers, and others who might have only a vague notion of information architecture. And the chapter on business strategy is as good an introduction as I've read in any business book.

This book is the closest anyone has come to a single book addressing all of the complexity and challenges of organizing, structuring, and managing large scale Web sites, and does so with clear, easy-to-read prose eshewing jargon and consultant-speak. Quite an accomplishment, indeed!


Unfortunately the second edition is worse than the first   September 1, 2003
 18 out of 33 found this review helpful

I think the authors have fellen for too much of their own hype.

The first edition (which essentially forms the first half of the second edition) comes over as a book written by two shy and studious librarians, trying to apply their scholarly approach to the strange new world of the web. They are careful and tentative in their suggestions, and reserved in their presentation. The book is a bit at odds with most web design tomes, but interesting and thought-provoking, none the less.

The second edition reads like a desparate attempt to "puff up" a bunch of practices and approaches that they have been using over the last few years, but have forgotten why they chose to do them in the first place. It's assertive, strident and often superficial.

I'm not surprised their consultancy operation went out of business. The two shy librarians, seduced by the bright lights of the dot-com boom, have been left in the gutter with nothing but an expensive suit and a hangover.

The classic Greek Tragedy. Pride comes before the fall.

I got dispirited, and had to take a break. My solution was to re-read my copy of Krug's "Don't Make Me Think!", still my top recommendation of all the web design books I've read; concise, practical, enjoyable. That cheered me up :)


The book that explains Information Architecture   February 20, 2003
 14 out of 15 found this review helpful

If I were to teach a class in Information Architecture on a remote pacific island, and I could only bring one book - this would be THE BOOK.
This is the book which brings students of IA further than any other single book. It is the book that covers the most ground. It is the book You would have killed for when You started as an IA. But it is not really a "how-to" book. It is much more of an "understand the business" book.

The second edition is different from the first edition. It has improved in so many ways. We're talking solid 460 pages packed with practical advice, knowledge supported by experience, and great examples. The Library and Information Science bias that made the first edition a little single sided is not present in this second edition which encompasses the entire field and deals with most aspects of Information Architecture - from presenting search results to making elevator pitches in the world of business strategy.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is not one of those books that are backed by a lot of scientific evidence. The advice given in this book is backed by the authority and experience of two of the most widely recognized people in the field. If that counts for You, then this book is for You.

The cover says "designing large scale web sites". This is true. It is not a book about building community sites, and it is not about small e-business sites. This is a book about the big picture on the big projects, but it actually has a lot of relevant input for the building of smaller sites as well.