Category Archives: Information Architecture (IA)

AI, Augmented Reality, Business, Information Architecture (IA), Virtual Reality

Microsoft’s Plethora of Portals

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As I was looking through Microsoft’s catalog of applications, it occurred to me just how many of their platforms are information-centric and seemed to overlap in functionality. Where should I go when I want to get stuff done, find information or produce it? Since the early days of AOL and AltaVista, we’ve seen the awesome power of a “Jump Page” as the starting point for our information journey.

Microsoft, which one do I choose?

From one software vendor’s perspective, we’ve got many options. What’s the best option for me? Seems like there should be opportunities to gain synergies between available Microsoft platforms.

Bing.com

Searching for information on the internet? News, images, encyclopedias, Wikipedia, whatever you need, and more is on the web. Microsoft Bing helps you find what you need regardless if you’re using text or an image to search for like for like information. It also serves up “relevant” information on the jump page, news mixed with advertisements. There is also a feature enabling you to add carousel “boxes”. for example, containing latest MS Word files used, synergy from Office.com

Office.com

Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, Power BI… If you’ve created content or want to create content using Microsoft applications, Office.com is the one-stop-shop for all your Office apps and the content created using these applications.

SharePoint

Another portal to a universe of information around a centric theme, such as collaboration/interaction with product/project team members, an Intranet, SharePoint site with one or multiple teams. At the most fundamental level is the capability to collaborate/interact with teams, potentially leveraging Microsoft collaboration tools. Just one of many of its capabilities “out of the box” is a document management solution and the use of version control.

SharePoint can also be used for any type of Internet/web platform, i.e., a public-facing portal platform. However, SharePoint, in fact, is a sharing tool in which the authors of the website can share video presentations, shared calendars of public events, and a plethora of customized lists.

Yammer

Engaging your people is more critical than ever. Yammer connects leaders, communicators, and employees to build communities, share knowledge, and engage everyone. I’m thinking synonymous with a bulletin board. The implementation of Yammer looks like Facebook for the Enterprise.

  • Use the Home feed to stay on top of what matters, tap into the knowledge of others, and build on existing work.
  • Search for experts, conversations, and files.
  • Join communities to stay informed, connect with your coworkers, and gather ideas.
  • Join in the conversation, react, reply to, and share posts.
  • @ mention someone to loop them in.
  • Attach a file, gif, photo, or video to enhance your post.
  • Praise someone in your network to celebrate a success, or just to say thanks.
  • Create a virtual event that your community can ask a question and participate live or watch the recording afterwards.
  • Use polls to crowd source feedback and get answers fast.
  • Stay connected outside the office with the Yammer mobile app.
  • Use Yammer in Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, or Outlook.

“Yammer helps you connect and engage across your organization so that you can discuss ideas, share updates, and network with others.”

Microsoft Teams

For any team, there is a wealth of information varying from the group or single Chats, Teams, Calls, Files, and practically integration for almost all Microsoft applications and beyond. The extensibility of MS Teams seems relatively boundless, such as integrations with Wikis, SharePoint document folders, etc. From what I can tell, many organizations just use Teams for the group, or individual Chat channels are barely grazing the surface of MS Teams’ capabilities.

Setup of MS Teams, Teams “landing” page is a great place to start constructing your “living space” within MS Teams. From there, you can carve out space for all things related to the team. For example, in the “Team ABC” Team channel, you can add N number of “tabs” relating to everything from an embedded Wiki to specific SharePoint folders for the team’s product specifications. A team could even create an embedded Azure DevOps [Kanban] Board to show progress and essentially “live in” your MS Team, team channel.

Another porta;l overlap, Microsoft Teams Communities, seems to equate to Yammer.

Delve

What is Delve – Microsoft 365?

Use Delve to manage your Microsoft 365 profile and to discover and organize the information that’s likely to be most interesting to you right now – across Microsoft 365.

Delve never changes any permissions, so you’ll only see documents that you already have access to. Other people will not see your private documents. Learn more about privacy.

Delve is a content curation platform for the person it’s most relevant to…you. It gives the appearance of a user experience similar to carousels of video streaming apps. There are “Popular Documents” carousels and other carousels that are based on the most recent access. Based on how files are saved based on who can access content is how the platform gives you a treasure trove of documents you never knew you had access to or existed. It actually paints a potential compliance nightmare if people select the default document access as “…anyone within my organization…”.

Outlook.com / Best of MSN

Another portal of information focused around you: your email, your calendar, your To-Dos, and your contacts/people. It’s not just your communication with anyone, e.g., your project team members; it’s organizing your life on a smaller scale, e.g., To-Dos. You can also access other shared calendars, such as a team release schedule or a PTO schedule.

The Best of MSN is information, i.e., news around your interests, a digest of information relevant to you, delivered in an email format. Other digests of information from other sources may be curated and sent if subscribed.

Mediums to Traverse Information: AR, VR…

The visual paradigms used to query and access information may drastically influence the user’s capacity to digest the relevant information. For example, in an Augmented Reality (AR) experience, querying, identifying information, and then applying it, serving up the content in a way most conducive to a user’s experience is vital.

Users can’t just “Google It” and serve up the results like magic. The next evolution of querying information and serving up content in a medium to maximize its usability is key and is most evident when using Augmented Reality (AR). If you’re building something, instructions may be overlayed by the physical elements/parts in front of the user. Even the context of the step number would allow the virtual images to overlay the parts.

Automated and Manual Content Curation is a MUST for all Portals

Categories, Tags, Images, and all other associations from object A to everything else, the Meta of Existence, are essential for proper information dissemination and digestion. If you can tag any object with metadata, you can teach an AI/search engine to identify it in a relevant query. Implementing an Induction Engine, a type of Artificial Intelligence that proposes rules based on historic patterns is a must to improve query accuracy over time.

Next level, “Information applications” – Improved Living with Alzheimer’s

Next Ecosystem: Google..?

AI, Business, Entertainment, Games, Information Architecture (IA), Technology, Virtual Reality

Meta, Metadata, and Information Architecture

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Facebook’s Initial “Beyond” Concept is Virtual Reality and Other Beyond Stuff

Facebook sees the future, the beyond, as Virtual Reality (VR), where people communicate in virtual worlds for personal and business use. To that end, they are working on products outside the Facebook social apps, such as the rebranded Meta Quest, a VR immersive set of hardware and software to realize the experience. In this case, the technology is in line with the overall goal, and ties into the existing Facebook, social media platform. The new company Meta will allow for concentrated development outside social media, which is a smart move to allow for this concentration just like Alphabet/Google did. I’d imagine many of the technologies will have some tangibility to their social platform, but not necessarily so.

Meta Co., VR, and Metadata

Facebook changed its name to Meta as they build out its vision of a whole new world or multiple worlds. Within a constructed virtual world there will be “objects”, and those objects need descriptions and those descriptions should be portable beyond Meta’s Metaverse. Therefore it is essential to enhance data objects with more data, metadata. If you have a tree in the forest, what kind of a tree is it, what are all the “properties” of that tree? This exercise makes Meta worlds, our virtual world a bit more descriptive, in an organized, and portable fashion.

Portability In and Out of the Meta-verse

It’s important to be consistent in and outside [Facebook’s] Metaverse. As we define objects in the metaverse, e.g. people, trees, swords, etc. they must have consistent properties, and that’s where we apply taxonomies, The more comprehensive the metadata set, the whole universe expands. and we can also see gaps in the data as we virtually encounter them. We are experiencing Meta’s conception of a Metaverse, and if we’re not careful, it’s possible new social media platforms could be monopolized by [Facebook] Meta.

Minecraft Axe
Minecraft Axe

NFT Portability, and their Utility in the Metaverse

Gamers should be able to use their NFTs in virtual worlds throughout the internet. NFTs designed for online gaming use range from battle armor which integrates with the massively multiplayer online games (MMOG, or more commonly, MMO) and has utility to protect the character, for example. This type of utility NFT would require a high degree of integration, and comply with the standards of the MMO. Other NFT MMO game “objects” require less integration such as a tee-shirt, jewelry, a mug, and other non-utility items/objects.

NFT Standards Group for Gaming Consortium

Open standards are key, and industry standards committees should be formed for things like NFT properties, and other Metaverse interoperability. Meta objects from one “universe”, .e.g “Meta” should follow a convention to be passed around the “multiverse”, so to speak.

NFTs could be the transferrable objects from Avatars to Swords, what are the required NFT properties for each object type, and object type refers to any object real or factious. Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way

Map of Toon Town Estate
Map of Toon Town Estate

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

So, a few years back, there was a really cool game called ToonTown (Disney), an MMO, massively multiplayer online game, and beyond interacting with other players, and taking on challenges, each player received their own house to decorate. Ergo, in our virtual worlds, I would like the opportunity to decorate my home with the NFT art I acquired in NFT marketplaces. Maybe even an art gallery in the city.

Advertising, Business, Data Warehouse, Digital Assistant, Economy, Finance, Information Architecture (IA), Media, Personal, Technology

People Turn Toward “Data Banks” to Commoditize on their Purchase and User Behavior Profiles

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Anyone who is anti “Big Brother”, this may not be the article for you, in fact, skip it. 🙂

 

The Pendulum Swings Away from GDPR

In the not so distant future, “Data Bank” companies consisting of Subject Matter Experts (SME) across all verticals,  may process your data feeds collected from your purchase and user behavior profiles.  Consumers will be encouraged to submit their data profiles into a Data Bank who will offer incentives such as a reduction of insurance premiums to cash back rewards.

 

Everything from activity trackers, home automation, to vehicular automation data may be captured and aggregated.    The data collected can then be sliced and diced to provide macro and micro views of the information.    On the abstract, macro level the information may allow for demographic, statistical correlations, which may contribute to corporate strategy. On a granular view, the data will provide “data banks” the opportunity to sift through data to perform analysis and correlations that lead to actionable information.

 

Is it secure?  Do you care if a hacker steals your weight loss information? May not be an issue if collected Purchase and Use Behavior Profiles aggregate into a Blockchain general ledger.  Data Curators and Aggregators work with SMEs to correlate the data into:

  • Canned, ‘intelligent’ reports targeted for a specific subject matter, or across silos of data types
  • ‘Universes’ (i.e.  Business Objects) of data that may be ‘mined’ by consumer approved, ‘trusted’ third party companies, e.g. your insurance companies.
  • Actionable information based on AI subject matter rules engines and consumer rule transparency may be provided.

 

 “Data Banks” may be required to report to their customers who agreed to sell their data examples of specific rows of the data, which was sold on a “Data Market”.

Consumers may have the option of sharing their personal data with specific companies by proxy, through a ‘data bank’ granular to the data point collected.  Sharing of Purchase and User Behavior Profiles:

  1. may lower [or raise] your insurance premiums
  2. provide discounts on preventive health care products and services, e.g. vitamins to yoga classes
  3. Targeted, affordable,  medicine that may redirect the choice of the doctor to an alternate.  The MD would be contacted to validate the alternate.

 

The curriated data collected may be harnessed by thousands of affinity groups to offer very discrete products and services.  Purchase and User Behavior Profiles,  correlated information stretches beyond any consumer relationship experienced today.

 

At some point, health insurance companies may require you to wear a tracker to increase or slash premiums.  Auto Insurance companies may offer discounts for access to car smart data to make sure suggested maintenance guidelines for service are met.

 

You may approve your “data bank” to give access to specific soliciting government agencies or private firms looking to analyze data for their studies. You may qualify based on the demographic, abstracted data points collected for incentives provided may be tax credits, or paying studies.

Purchase and User Behavior Profiles:  Adoption and Affordability

If ‘Data Banks’ are allowed to collect Internet of Things (IoT) device profile and the devices themselves are cost prohibitive.  here are a few ways to increase their adoption:

  1.  [US] tax coupons to enable the buyer, at the time of purchase, to save money.  For example, a 100 USD discount applied at the time of purchase of an Activity Tracker, with the stipulation that you may agree,  at some point, to participate in a study.
  2. Government subsidies: the cost of aggregating and archiving Purchase and Behavioral profiles through annual tax deductions.  Today, tax incentives may allow you to purchase an IoT device if the cost is an itemized medical tax deduction, such as an Activity Tracker that monitors your heart rate, if your medical condition requires it.
  3. Auto, Life, Homeowners, and Health policyholders may qualify for additional insurance deductions
  4. Affinity branded IoT devices, such as American Lung Association may sell a logo branded Activity Tracker.  People may sponsor the owner of the tracking pedometer to raise funds for the cause.

The World Bank has a repository of data, World DataBank, which seems to store a large depth of information:

World Bank Open Data: free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.”

Here is the article that inspired me to write this article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-might-be-wearing-a-health-tracker-at-work-one-day-2015-03-11

 

Privacy and Data Protection Creates Data Markets

Initiatives such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other privacy initiatives which seek to constrict access to your data to you as the “owner”, as a byproduct, create opportunities for you to sell your data.  

 

Blockchain: Purchase, and User Behavior Profiles

As your “vault”, “Data Banks” will collect and maintain your two primary datasets:

  1. As a consumer of goods and services, a Purchase Profile is established and evolves over time.  Online purchases are automatically collected, curated, appended with metadata, and stored in a data vault [Blockchain].  “Offline” purchases at some point, may become a hybrid [on/off] line purchase, with advances in traditional monetary exchanges, and would follow the online transaction model.
  2. User Behavior (UB)  profiles, both on and offline will be collected and stored for analytical purposes.  A user behavior “session” is a use case of activity where YOU are the prime actor.  Each session would create a single UB transaction and are also stored in a “Data Vault”.   UB use cases may not lead to any purchases.

Not all Purchase and User Behavior profiles are created equal.  Eg. One person’s profile may show a monthly spend higher than another.  The consumer who purchases more may be entitled to more benefits.

These datasets wholly owned by the consumer, are safely stored, propagated, and immutable with a solution such as with a Blockchain general ledger.

Information Architecture (IA), Technology, Work

Information Architecture: An Afterthought for Content Creation Solutions

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Maximizing Digital Asset Reuse

Many applications that enable users to create their own content from word processing to graphics/image creation have typically relied upon 3rd party Content Management Solutions (CMS) / Digital Asset Management (DAM) platforms to collect metadata describing the assets upon ingestion into their platforms.  Many of these platforms have been “stood up” to support projects/teams either for collaboration on an existing project, or reuse of assets for “other” projects.  As a person constantly creating content, where do you “park” your digital resources for archiving and reuse?  Your local drive, cloud storage, or not archived?

Average “Jane” / “Joe” Digital Authors

If I were asked for all the content I’ve created around a particular topic or group of topics from all my collected/ingested digital assets, it may be a herculean search effort spanning multiple platforms.  As an independent creator of content, I may have digital assets ranging from Microsoft Word documents, Google Sheets spreadsheets, Twitter tweets,  Paint.Net (.pdn) Graphics, Blog Posts, etc.

Capturing Content from Microsoft Office Suite Products

Many of the MS Office content creation products such as Microsoft Word have minimal capacity to capture metadata, and if the ability exists, it’s subdued in the application.  MS Word, for example, if a user selects “Save As”, they will be able to add/insert “Authors”, and Tags.  In Microsoft Excel, latest version,  the author of the Workbook has the ability to add Properties, such as Tags, and Categories.  It’s not clear how this data is utilized outside the application, such as the tag data being searchable after uploaded/ingested by OneDrive?

Blog Posts: High Visibility into Categorization and Tagging

A “blogging platform”, such as WordPress, places the Category and Tagging selection fields right justified to the content being posted.  In this UI/UX, it forces a specific mentality to the creation, categorization, and tagging of content.  This blogging structure constantly reminds the author to identify the content so others may identify and consume the content.  Blog post content is created to be consumed by a wide audience of interested viewers based on those tags and categories selected.

Proactive Categorization and Tagging

Perpetuate content classification through drill-down navigation of a derived Information Architecture Taxonomy.  As a “light weight” example, in WordPress, the Tags field when editing a Post, a user starts typing in a few characters, an auto-complete dropdown list appears to the user to select one or more of these previously used tags.  Excellent starting point for other Content Creation Apps.

Users creating Blog Posts can define a Parent/Child hierarchy of categories, and the author may select one or more of relevant categories to be associated with the Post.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Derived Tags

It wouldn’t be a post without mentioning AI.  Integrated into applications that enable user content creation could be a tool, at a minimum, automatically derives an “Index” of words, or tags.  The way in which this “intelligent index” is derived may be based upon:

  • # of times word occurrence
  • mention of words in a particular context
  • reference of the same word(s) or phrases in other content
    • defined by the same author, and/or across the platform.

This intelligently derived index of data should be made available to any platforms that ingest content from OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Docs, etc.  These DAMs ( or Intelligent Cloud Storage) can leverage this information for any searches across the platforms.

Easy to Retrieve the Desired Content, and Repurpose It

Many Content Creation applications heavily rely on “Recent Accessed Files” within the app.  If the Information Architecture/Taxonomy hierarchy were presented in the “File Open” section, and a user can drill down on select Categories/Subcategories (and/or tags), it might be easier to find the most desired content.

All Eyes on Content Curation: Creation to Archive
  • Content creation products should all focus on the collection of metadata at the time of their creation.
  • Using the Blog Posting methodology, the creation of content should be alongside the metadata tagging
  • Taxonomy (categories, and tags with hierarchy) searches from within the Content Creation applications, and from the Operating System level, the “Original” Digital Asset Management solution (DAM), e.g. MS Windows, Mac

 

External Source, Information Architecture (IA)

Information Architecture (IA): the Classification of Information (Part 2)

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Karl Smith has created this timeless post on Information Architecture, which is still relevant today. The below is an excerpt of his article I found relevant to the foundation of IA.

To Each His Own

Different groups of individuals have a very specific context of use when looking for content, the descriptions they use and understand to find it and their underlying purpose in doing so. In this case, they will each require a separate structure around an entity and may require their own version of the taxonomy.

Atomic Unit of Information

Define ‘What is the smallest component of viable (useful) information?’ and use that to model the information system. I have worked with several huge education providers and universities and the questions I ask is ‘What is a course?’;

  • A course has a title
  • A course has duration, with a start and an end
  • A course has a subject
  • A course has a level
  • A course has prerequisites
  • A course has an outcome, which leads to options
  • A course has a delivery mechanism

I also ask, ‘Who is a student?’, ‘Who is a tutor?’, ‘What is an outcome?’ even ‘What is a college?’, if a course has a regular location then this creates a second set of entities.

  • A location has an address, telephone number, email address
  • A location has facilities
  • A location has transportation links
  • A location has a community
  • A location has accommodation

And it goes on and on, this is Information Architecture 101.

Source: Information Architecture (IA) the classification of information Part 2 – Karl Smith