Information Architecture and Content Management in theory and practice

So this break became a lot longer than I expected. In some sense a happy problem since during 2011 it has been caused by work assignments. But since I now have only one assignment remaining I’ve decided to start working a bit on my websites again. Probably only a few hours per week but we’ll see.

This blog will be on a bit of a break while I deal with matters related to the death of a loved one.

I’m spending the major part of this weekend at Wordcamp, Stockholm. Some interesting talks and then a nighthack. I doubt I’ll be doing the nighthack but hopefully an interesting experience.

One of my reasons for creating the website with resources on how to study Japanese is so that I can try out different ways to structure content in WordPress. It wont be a hugely complicated website so I could probably get by with pages, posts, categories and tags as they come out-of-the-box but I’d like to see where I can go with customized content.

I’ve done a quick mock-up of the planned content for the website (mainly in Swedish.)

Mindmap for studerajapanska.se content

Basically the site will contain a set of descriptions of different resources that can be used when studying Japanese such as books, websites, software, courses, etc. These resources will be classified according to level, their study focus etc. I also hope to provide affiliate links to bookshops, app-stores and maybe e-books.

I haven’t decided on how static the site will be but I’m leaning towards making the resource descriptions static and then add dynamic content by posting reviews of the resources. The website is unlikely to be a very profitable one as long as I keep it in Swedish so I wont be able to spend huge amount of time on it. I do however contemplate the possibilities of either making it bilingual (adding English content to get a larger possible audience) or adding member functions to allow others to add content.

Given the planned content I want to try out Custom Posts for the reviews, possibly also for courses since these change at least every semester. I will also look at Taxonomies for the different classifications. Not sure about Custom Pages but I think one for Books would be a good idea.

Next step will be to take a look at plugins for Custom pages, posts and taxonomies.

Before starting the design of the site I’ve contemplated how to structure the project. I’ve mainly used the Rational Unified Process (RUP) when working with development before but using that for a small website feels a bit like shooting mosquitoes with a cannon (as we say in Sweden.) But since I know the structure of RUP I will try to use that main structure but then add activities from other sources such as:

Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson

Information Architecture for the world wide web by Morville/Rosenfeld

http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/information_architecture_tutorial/

A Practical Guide to Information Architecture by Donna Spencer

And finally mix it up with my own experience and knowledge.

The overall structure of a RUP project consists of four phases

Inception – figure out what the project is (and isn’t) and that it is feasible in terms of time, technical solution and budget.

Elaboration – define what the project will produce and establish an architecture for a possible solution

Construction – build it, test it and prepare it for delivery

Transition – establish the solution in the organization that will maintain it

So first I have to decide what to do during the Inception phase for a website project.

Stephen Anderson talks about how small changes can make a big difference to your website’s ability to make a user “buy” the message you want to sell.

I should check up “Channel factors” but now I’m giving up on this talk because it is just too much information at too high speed. I don’t deal with these issues enough to motivate me to watch this. I might check out the slides later. And having recently read Steve Krug’s “Don’t make me think” I’ve had a doze of this this month.

The Norwegian conference Webdagene is streaming their presentations. I first noted this conference because they are having Kristina Halvorson as one of the speakers. But the whole program looks interesting so I’ll check out some of their broadcasts.

Right now I’m viewing the Keynote by Luke Wroblewski about Trends, Challenges and Possibilities in Modern Webdesign. He talks a lot about the web moving to mobile devices which I knew but it made me realize that I should spend some time thinking about information architecture in that perspective. He also talks about how to (re)use  information you already have on the internet i.e. use facebook as your identification when you register on other services. I like the idea except for the fact that facebook isn’t what I would want as the hub of my net-presence. But I need to check up a bit more on the connections between sites (facebook, linkedin but also wordpress gravatar.)

The blog part of this site will mainly follow my project regarding the creation of a website on WordPress. The project will cover everything from site planning to launch and probably a bit of the continuous work with the site after launch.

The actual website will be in Swedish but all my documentation and this blog will be in English. The project focus is on content strategy, information architecture and how these things can be supported by different parts of WordPress i.e WordPress as a Content Management System. I will deal as little as possible with design, graphic design and implementation mainly trying to use WordPress themes and plug-ins out-of-the-box.

The time frame is to have the complete website done by the end of the year but possibly the first public incarnation of it by the end of October.