Re: Navigation (again)

> We are thinking of implementing a navigation scheme based on the
information
> architecture of the site - each content element has a metadata property
that
> lets the user define it's nav title and whether or not the item should
appears
> in navigation, and the navigation is automatically/dynamically created
based
> on folder structure, file contents and metadata.  I've done this in the
past
> and it seemed to work pretty well when there was a close relationship
between
> IA and UI.
>
> There are some cases where the navigation shouldn't match the folder
structure
> at all.  This is more like the general case of "how do I let users declare
> navigation" when the navigation does not match the IA.
>
> What are people using successfully to let non-technical users define
> navigation?  or what existing URLs describe this subject?

I assume you're referring to CMS users rather than end-users?

"Information architecture" is a strange term. Its strongest connotation is
of the design of permanent structures such as buildings. What I like about
this term is that it encourages people to think in terms of designing sites
carefully. But it's rather at odds with the most characteristic feature of
electronic information systems, i.e. their flexibility. You can design a
building so that it meets the needs of different people, certainly; and you
can design one whose appearance varies from different angles or in different
conditions - but you can't build one whose very structure is different
depending on who's looking at it, or from one day to the next.

We distinguish between

- content structure
- presentation structure.

Content structure describes the internal taxonomy of the content, i.e. how
it's organised into folders containing "chunks" of content. This is entirely
at the discretion of the content management team. It's very similar to
organising files on your desktop. No end-user should necessarily ever be
aware of this structure.

Presentation structure describes the outwardly visible structure of the
content as an arbitrary number of different hierarchies of sections and
pages. Each page may contain (be linked to, either statically or
dynamically) any number of content objects. This structuring of the raw data
is the key design activity.

In the most basic CMS these are synonymous and are a single structure.

I think you're using the terms IA and UI to correspond to content structure
and presentation structure respectively. I'd argue that information
architecture really includes consideration of different perspectives on the
information, as embodied in the presentation structure, and that the
internal taxonomy is relatively unimportant.

In our CMS both structures are defined separately using an explorer-style
interface. There are tools for assigning content objects to pages. The
security and personalisation system, and the passage of time, determine
which presentation hierarchy/-ies are visible to a given user, and which
subset of eligible content objects is shown on any given page.

Adopting a system where there is a complete separation of these things
undoubtedly creates work up front. People often can't see the benefit of
this until they find themselves achieving things which would be impossible
with a system where the two are synonymous.

Nick de Voil
Director
De Voil Consulting
+44 (0)7811 325879