Information architecture exercise

[james....@tafensw.edu.au]

Hi Michael (and others)
Noticed on your webdesign google group you are doing ia next week. I
just trialled a new lesson technique that worked really well.
- I split the students into small groups (3 per group)
- gave them a pile of cards with page content (60 cards)
- asked them to do an open card sort
- each group writes on the board the major categories they came up with
- students from other groups are asked to tell me where they would find
certain pages within a groups categories (really interesting and
exposed a lot of common mistake making for some great talking points)
- they then create a site map into an excel spreadsheet to reveal
levels and content types.

I am now getting them to create a graphic sitemap in illustrator based
on the Garrett visual vocab.
next lesson they will be creating wireframes for their major site
sections.

In the past I have taught the ia stuff in a more theoretical way, but
this has been great for extending their thinking and getting some
practical experience. It was also a good team building exercise.

maybe some of these things are of use to you - i will post the content
inventory spreadsheet and the powerpoint content (print them out in
slide view 6 to a page and cut them up) if it will help anyone.

Cheers
James

[Michael Nelson]

James, your Info Architecture activity sounds incredibly helpful and fun! Please do send the resources on! If you could include an example of the graphical site map and wire-frame produced by students that would be helpful...

Also, if you've got the example HTML and CSS that you used for the "Be the Browser" excercise, I'd love to try that too. That would be a great exercise to develop at different levels. Great idea!

-Michael

--
Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.net/