Blueprints for The Web.

January 28, 2003 | 0 Comments

I’m almost done reading Information Architecture: Blueprints for The Web by Christina Wodtke. In short, it’s a great book. It’s very easy to follow, full of good, solid information and packed with clear ideas as well as some great humor. This is the IA book for those of you who are like me — the folks who are put in a position to practice IA but don’t fit in to the profession, or maybe you are just starting out. Well, it’s the book for more experienced IAs as well.

For example, if you are a true Information Architect and you want some help explaining what it is you do, you might pass this book along or use it to help explain what it is you do all day and why you are such an asset. We all know how important that can be.

I’ll be honest much of what she talks about, in the beginning of the book mostly, is common sense and might be a bit light for many experienced Web professionals. She give a light overview into various related topics like usability, contingency design and accessibility. It’s very easy to get through and I found it a nice little reminder of some important subjects. It goes on to get into deeper IA issues, but not too deep.

It’s quite a bit like Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. I loved that book, it was a quick read and gave me a great intro and overview into Web site usability. Maybe even more useful was the fact that I could hand it off to the Marketing folks, IT people, or anyone else for that matter and they could get an idea of why usability was such a good thing. Christina’s book is very much the same in that way.

She does for IA what Krug did for usability. Mad props to her.

Filed under: Web General