the relationship between CM and IA(information arc hitecture)

Discussion:

Austin, Darrel

2003-12-24 14:58:15 UTC

Now CM and IA are hot topics.But the relationship between CM and IA
has not discuss a lot.
I only see three articles about this topic.I want to know more about
it.Can you give your opinion?

Drew Volpe

2003-12-24 15:57:37 UTC

Permalink

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: RE: [cms-list] the relationship between CM and IA(information arc

hitecture)

I don't think the relationship between CM and IA should really be that
close. CM is specific to the content, IA is specific to the presentation.
You may very well have multiple IA layouts for the same content, depending
on how/where you are delivering your content to.
In my limited experience with CMSs, one drawback to some of them is that
they tend tie the content into a very specific web-based IA. It makes the
assumption that any content you enter into the system will likely be
delivered to one specific web site. At that point, any relationship

between

the CM and IA just tends to get in the way.

I would agree with this, but I think it's changing and won't be the
case in a few years. People are realizing that their website is a subset
of their larger content management problem. The web is one of many
delivery methods and by combining all content together it's much easier to
reuse content and, in general, manage everything.

I think there were be a shift to CMSs which hold the content alone
without any presentation (in XML) and which then publish content into
a variety of formats, including HTML but also things like .chm and pdf.
It just doesn't make any sense to have web content stored off in a separate,

disparate respository, and CMS designers are realizing this and moving that
way.

dv
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Malathi Jivan

2003-12-24 16:07:21 UTC

Permalink

Forgive this newbie question but what is IA? What's a good resource for more
info on it? (I could do a search but thought it better to find a reliable
resource rather than wade through the tons of stuff:))

Thanks,
M

-----Original Message-----
From: cms-list-admin-/***@public.gmane.org [mailto:cms-list-***@cms-list.org] On
Behalf Of Austin, Darrel
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 6:58 AM
To: cms-list-/***@public.gmane.org
Subject: RE: [cms-list] the relationship between CM and IA(information
architecture)

Now CM and IA are hot topics.But the relationship between CM and IA
has not discuss a lot.
I only see three articles about this topic.I want to know more about
it.Can you give your opinion?

Bob Doyle

2003-12-31 01:19:33 UTC

Permalink

Hi Malathi,

Some IA sites:

http://www.iawiki.net
http://www.aifia.org
http://www.iaslash.org
http://www.asis.org
http://www.boxesandarrows.com

Some books:

Information Architecture (Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville)
Information Architecture (Christina Wodtke)
Practical Information Architecture (Eric Weiss)

I will add these references as Resources to our new CMS community site,
http://www.cmswiki.com.

Please check it out and the new site with discussion threads like this
one gleaned from cms-list.org - http://www.cms-forum.org

Post by Malathi Jivan
Forgive this newbie question but what is IA? What's a good resource for more
info on it? (I could do a search but thought it better to find a reliable
resource rather than wade through the tons of stuff:))

--
Bob Doyle, Editor In Chief
CMS Review
http://www.cmsreview.com
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-876-5678

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Bauer, Lydia

2003-12-24 16:34:01 UTC

Permalink

I disagree - IA has a major role in CMS. Content representation and organization is an integral part of IA, and is also a great need in your CMS (what metadata needs to be captured? How will it be laid out? How will you find your content to maximize re-use? How will you categorize your content so: it can be associated with specific parts of your web site; be found; aid in hyperlinking between related content, etc.

AIFIA (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture) recently partnered with CMSWatch (http://aifia.org/news/000269.php); and will be sponsoring a pre-conference at ASIST's IA summit on content management for IAs.
I haven't looked for general articles on the relationship, but you might find something of interest at aifia.org or iaslash.org or asis.org or boxesandarrows.com.

Lydia

-----Original Message-----
From: cms-list-admin-/***@public.gmane.org [mailto:cms-list-***@cms-list.org]On Behalf Of Austin, Darrel
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: cms-list-/***@public.gmane.org
Subject: RE: [cms-list] the relationship between CM and IA(information architecture)

Now CM and IA are hot topics.But the relationship between CM and IA
has not discuss a lot.
I only see three articles about this topic.I want to know more about
it.Can you give your opinion?

Srinivas_Kothuri

2003-12-24 17:12:47 UTC

Permalink

http://www.cm-strategies.com/pdfs/rosenfeld.pdf this is a very interesting
pdf i came across...

-Sri

-----Original Message-----
From: Bauer, Lydia
To: Austin, Darrel; cms-list-/***@public.gmane.org
Sent: 12/24/2003 10:34 AM
Subject: RE: [cms-list] the relationship between CM and IA(information
architecture)

I disagree - IA has a major role in CMS. Content representation and
organization is an integral part of IA, and is also a great need in your
CMS (what metadata needs to be captured? How will it be laid out? How
will you find your content to maximize re-use? How will you categorize
your content so: it can be associated with specific parts of your web
site; be found; aid in hyperlinking between related content, etc.

AIFIA (Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture) recently
partnered with CMSWatch (http://aifia.org/news/000269.php); and will be
sponsoring a pre-conference at ASIST's IA summit on content management
for IAs.
I haven't looked for general articles on the relationship, but you might
find something of interest at aifia.org or iaslash.org or asis.org or
boxesandarrows.com.

Lydia

-----Original Message-----
From: cms-list-admin-/***@public.gmane.org [mailto:cms-list-***@cms-list.org]On
Behalf Of Austin, Darrel
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: cms-list-/***@public.gmane.org
Subject: RE: [cms-list] the relationship between CM and IA(information
architecture)

Now CM and IA are hot topics.But the relationship between CM and IA
has not discuss a lot.
I only see three articles about this topic.I want to know more about
it.Can you give your opinion?

Note that this *is* just my opinion...

I don't think the relationship between CM and IA should really be that
close. CM is specific to the content, IA is specific to the
presentation.
You may very well have multiple IA layouts for the same content,
depending
on how/where you are delivering your content to.

In my limited experience with CMSs, one drawback to some of them is that
they tend tie the content into a very specific web-based IA. It makes
the
assumption that any content you enter into the system will likely be
delivered to one specific web site. At that point, any relationship
between
the CM and IA just tends to get in the way.

I'd like to hear others' opinions on this as well...

-Darrel
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Schneider, Bill

2003-12-24 19:29:03 UTC

Permalink

I disagree. I think that the opinion you put forth perfectly describes UI - user interface - but not IA - information architecture.

So we can all use the same language, or at least so every knows what I mean when I say UI and IA, my definition is that UI talks about the look and feel, the "skin", while IA talks about how information is organized, metatagged, searched for, and located.

I think that there are and have been problems with CMS's making assumptions about the delivery architecutre - is it going to the web, or print, or wireless, etc.- and in making those assumptions, force you down a road and/or make you program around them.

That said, I think that CMS's have not made assumptions with IA. You can pretty much set up any IA you want and as long as you (the business user) and the end user can perform the four actions above, you are golden. But since a WCM CMS forces output architecture assumptions compared to an IDM CMS, some IA choices may have been forced to create a kludged solution to a created purely by the CMS itself.

Merry Christmas.
Bill

I don't think the relationship between CM and IA should really be that
close. CM is specific to the content, IA is specific to the presentation.
You may very well have multiple IA layouts for the same content, depending
on how/where you are delivering your content to.

In my limited experience with CMSs, one drawback to some of them is that
they tend tie the content into a very specific web-based IA. It makes the
assumption that any content you enter into the system will likely be
delivered to one specific web site. At that point, any relationship between
the CM and IA just tends to get in the way.

I'd like to hear others' opinions on this as well...

-Darrel
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http://cms-list.org/
please trim your posts.

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Austin, Darrel

2003-12-24 19:33:47 UTC

Permalink

Post by Schneider, Bill
I disagree. I think that the opinion you put forth perfectly
describes UI - user interface - but not IA - information
architecture.

I agree with your disagreement. ;o)

Obviously, part of this debate hinges on how broadly/explicitly we defind
Information Architecture. The PDF Sri links to is a nice overview of the of
the broad definition and how IA is a part of all parts of a web development
project.

Post by Schneider, Bill
So we can all use the same language, or at least so every knows what
I mean when I say UI and IA, my definition is that UI talks about the
look and feel, the "skin", while IA talks about how information is
organized, metatagged, searched for, and located.

Right. UI and CM are pretty much separated, using IA as the overlapping
'middle-man'.

That said, I don't think IA is really part of the CMS product. It's part of
the CM planning and, eventually, how the CMS is set up, but I'm not sure
what IA specific features a CMS really needs other than the ability to
categorize content in a variety of ways including metadata storage.

Which, I think, is what you are saying here...

Post by Schneider, Bill
That said, I think that CMS's have not made assumptions with IA. You
can pretty much set up any IA you want and as long as you (the
business user) and the end user can perform the four actions above,
you are golden. But since a WCM CMS forces output architecture
assumptions compared to an IDM CMS, some IA choices may have been
forced to create a kludged solution to a created purely by the CMS
itself.

-Darrel
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please trim your posts.

James Robertson

2004-01-12 11:26:48 UTC

Permalink

Now CM and IA are hot topics.But the relationship between CM and IA
has not discuss a lot.
I only see three articles about this topic.I want to know more about
it.Can you give your opinion?

Jumping in a bit late, having just got back from
holidays...

Information architecture plays a very important role in
evaluating, selecting and implementing a content management
system, in a number of practical ways:

* You will want to structure your site based on the results
of your usability and information architecture activities
(in other words, the structure that is best suited to the users).

CMSs have different capabilities regarding the management
of site structures, so the IA of the site becomes a key
selection criteria. The new design of the site should therefore
be determined *before* selecting a product, and samples of
the IA should be included in the tender documentation.

* It is often hard to find information on large sites,
and it is the role of the CMS to support an effective
information architecture, including:

- site structure
- navigation
- metadata

* The CMS should (but typically doesn't) provide a range
of effective tools for managing the IA aspects of a
site.

eg. a facility to view the index terms across the
entire site, allowing consistency to be checked,
and global changes to be made.

* The really advanced ideas are that you should build the
information architecture (using approaches such
as topic maps, etc), and the rest of the site
is then mapped around that.

See the following articles:
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/building_a_metadatabased_website.php
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/itms.html
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/sitemaps_and_site_indexes_what_they_are_and_why_you_should_have_them.php

* At the end of the day, it is the redesigning and
restructuring of a site that delivers the greatest
business benefits, not the implementation of a CMS.

Anyway, apologies for such a long post.

Regards,
James
-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd

Knowledge Management / Content Management / Intranets

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr-***@public.gmane.org

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