Abby Covert

Abby Covert has given us both a simple and a difficult book about the field of Information Architecture and its possible everyday use.

It is simple and readable, with attractive page layouts, and available in a hypertext version on her website. It includes many down-to-earth examples of how to structure information and of how information that is badly-presented can create problems.

The difficult part for me is in the specialized terms. I assume they are from the lingo used by information architects. I had to learn new, sometimes surprising, definitions of words (like data, content, ontology, taxonomy), special meanings that don't show up in every dictionary, and not quite the definitions I have known.

There is an "Indexed Lexicon" that explains what Covert means by most of the terms that are used in the book. Still, beginner-level words like 'terminology', 'shoptalk', 'network', are seldom or never used.

Each chapter ends with an example, and a project for the reader. These sections might be the best place to start reading.… (mais)