You are at the home page of infoarch.org, where we study user interface design and information architecture. Articles on this site are intended for User Interface Engineers, Graphics Designers, Software Developers, Information Architect, or those who are simply curious.

We live in a world saturated with information. We believe these information can be efficiently delivered, beautifully presented, effortlessly absorped, and effectively acted on.

There are many courses and books on "Information Technology" or "Information System Science". The subject of technology has been merticulously addressed, and the subject of information has often been dealt with in the same technical manner, which is unfortunate, because packaging information for human consumption is as much a scient as it is an art.

To jump right into the topic, take a look at the lower-right figure and the available data:

1. It is a figure of Vora, the "Staff King"
2. Vora is popularly believed to be Inca's sun god, creator of the world
3. The Inca civilization vanished in the 15th century

Combinations of the data can produce different outcomes:

• Knowing (1) by itself creates little value
• (2) adds context to (1), we can now sell artifacts which have this figure on it
• (3) adds emotion to (1) and (2), we can now sell the same artifacts at higher prices, or choose to preserve them

First, a quick re-definition of the term "information" :-

Within the confine of this site, "data" are bits and pieces of knowledge which by themselves are mostly meaningless, such as age, gender, income; the data become informative and meaningful after statistical analysis or calculation is performed, for example, the number of female between age 25 and 30 with income level higher than 80% of the other female within the same age group. This final piece of knowledge together with the original "data", are "information".

We do not dispute the validity of the data, we also assume the information are relevant to its intended receipients.

We are at the stage where you can easily find the instruction on how to built a terabyte database server, but what do we do with those terabytes of data? Our brains are not wired to handle large quantity of information. Beyond a certain threshold we instinctively shorten our attention span and tuned the information out as background noise. Why is that so? How do we parcel these data into bite-size pieces of useful information? Would it make an impact if the dissemination of information were conducted differently? Where can we look for inspiration on how we can best transformed data into information?

We present four case studies to relate information architect to city design, processor architecture, operating system, database structure, computer game interface, movie trailer and VCR clock :-

1. There are cities which, despite seemingly random expansion, attracted and continue to attract visitors. Were they built for the tourists, were they so well-designed that even a stranger visiting the city finds it easy to navigate? Perhaps the charm lies not in the city itself, but its residents? (Infrastructure)
2. Many companies design and built computer that are arguably easier to learn and use, yet not many can claim to be the dominant PC manufacturers. Was it marketing muscles? Internal political unrest? Or simply not easy enough to learn and use? (Target Audience)
3. Computer games, like business applications, are developed with a specific audience in mind. Since the market segment is pre-defined, the requirement analyzed, shouldn't it be easy to just built the games and see them sell like hot cake? Why do so many seemingly good computer games not sell as well as they should have? (User Interface)
4. Finally, let's take a step back to past and revisit the myth of VCR/VTR (Video Cassette Recorder/Video Tape Recorder) clock; is it really that difficult to program a VCR's clock? (Return On Investment)