Home | Evaluation of the three Information Architecture Tools | Recommendations

Evaluation of three Information Architecture Tools

Content Management Systems     Collaborative Filtering                                                                                                Web Analytic Software  Content Management Systems Why would a Content Management System be useful to our website?   “A Content Management System is an information tool that supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information.” (Roberts, 2003) Drupal Pros Cons A strong user community, with many libraries throughout the USA using Drupal to manage their Library websites(drupalib, 2012). Drupal is one of the more difficult Content Management Systems to develop from the back end and has a steep learning curve for those who have never built a website(Uzayr, 2012) Many of the world’s most powerful organizations use Drupal because it has the power to build large complex sites (captovate, 2011). Customers need to make sure that they have a standalone IP address, for example a virtual private server or dedicated server to Drupal. Drupal is too hard on system resources, both CPU and RAM.(Learn Drupal CMS, 2009 ). Drupal is the best platform that exists today for SEO (Finklea, 2010). There are modules available that are Library specific, allowing a high degree of customisation and personalisation(drupalib, 2012)   WordPress Pros Cons Easiest to use. Most vulnerable to security issues such as hacking and viruses Popular for being usable from the front and backend Wordpress is not as useful for large complex websites as it does not handle large numbers of pages and user traffic. Enhances Navigation Web design is easier as the Information Architect can implement a high degree of consistency throughout the entire website via pre-established templates.   Navigational elements are also built into the CMS templates as they were designed using website best practices (UC San Diego, 2012).   Navigation to the site is also a big asset to the information architecture; The Content Management System, Drupal is search engine optimized which increases findability on the web (Finklea, 2010). Saves Time Due to Murdoch Library’s large and diverse website, it can be a time consuming and arduous task for the Information Architect to publish and continuously update all content on each webpage.   Publishing content is made simple via pre-established templates.   Library staff members can publish content to their web pages without requiring the Information Architect, as they do not need to have high level HTML knowledge in order to use a Content Management System. Many Library websites to use Content Management Systems for these reasons (libsuccess, 2012). Flexibility Many Content Management Systems on the market are flexible and have a large community of developers who can provide different styles and extras to the website that are designed to suit the end user’s needs.   As there are so many pre-established templates and plug ins, updating the style of the page and expanding the functionality of the website can save time in the design and planning of the Library website (Ray, 2012) Companies that use Drupal : The United Nations Yahoo St Marys Anglican Girls School X.Commerce Companies that use WordPress : Harvard University Gazette Mashable  Good Spotify                                         Collaborative Filtering Software Why would Collaborative Filtering be useful to our website? “Tools that leverage user preferences, patterns, and purchasing behavior to customize organization and navigation systems”. (Morville, 2001) Memory-Based Collaborative Filtering Software Pros Cons This is useful for students within University libraries as students from specific degrees can influence what content is useful for other students partaking similar subject matter research within the Library website. It is dependent on human ratings; if engagement from users is low it prevents the results from being useful, particularly in a Library where we have a large range of information to organize within the catalogue. It may be difficult for the Library to gain the engagement of users as recommender systems aren’t usual practice within Academic Libraries. Easier to implement than Model Based Collaborative Filtering Popular, as many E-commerce websites utilise this technology.   Model-Based Collaborative Filtering Software Pros Cons Model based Collaborative Filtering software learns a descriptive model of user preference and then uses it for predicting ratings Expensive to build, requires a lot of time to develop the classifications for all the items within a library. Handles sparsity better than memory based Collaborative Filters.   Enhanced Search Interfaces Collaborative Filtering is an information architecture tool that is most used in E-commerce websites to make recommendations to customers based on their purchases and browsing history. The tool can be used to improve search interfaces and supply the user with useful content based on what has been ‘learnt’ by the filtering system and promote Web 2.0 interactivity with users. Improved Library Catalogue A Library website can utilize this tool within its online library catalogue to improve their current search interface by providing relevant literacy material based on the data matching services of a Collaborative Filtering System. This will help the organisation of a large range of material available within a search catalogue and structure the results in a meaningful way to library users.     What is a weakness of Collaborative Filtering?   A weakness of Collaborative Filtering is that with a large amount of data and variety of users it may take a large amount of time to build sufficient data on both the user and items available. This is a common problem within recommender systems called a ‘cold-start’ problem, which refers to an item not being able to be recommended due to insufficient amount of data about the item(Bobadolla, Ortega, Hernando, & Bernal, 2011) Although this software would be useful in a Library, it is risky for the Information Architect to implement due to the time it would take to accurately rate each item. Companies that use Memory-Based Collaborative Filtering Software: Amazon YouTube Grooveshark Companies that use Model-Based Collaborative Filtering Software: Netica Application HUGIN OpenBUGS                   Web Analytics Why would Web Analytics be useful to our website? “The measurement and analysis of website visitor activity in order to understand how well the site fulfills its objectives” (Gandolf & Hirsch, 2009) Google Analytics Pros Cons Free to Implement                      No support offered other than forums and FAQs Easy to Implement Statistics provided are not real-time and can take upto 24 hours to update.   Most suitable for small and medium sized websites - Library websites may expand content over time. CoreMetrics Pros Cons Company provides support to their customers via email and phone. CoreMetrics is a high priced Web Analytics tool. Provides a more advanced and integrated solution for a website. Long-term havits of users with JavaScript or cookies disabled aren't tracked. Compares data from your site with other competitors. Providing relevant statistics that will help in the planning of the website Web Analytics are used to track statistical data about customer behavior on a website and is useful for an Information Architect as it provides information regarding how users are accessing the site.   The type of information that Web Analytics can provide includes popular entry pages to the information, how they are navigating throughout the website and what information is being accessed the most or not at all.   Knowing these details can give the Information Architect an indication about how users are accessing the website; this valuable statistical data will help in the planning of the website as we will have information on what is and is not working within the website. What is a weakness of Web Analytics?     One disadvantage of this software is ethics; Libraries have a moral obligation to respect the privacy of their users, and Web Analytics is based on sharing and using information collected about our users. However, as this is common practise throughout the internet and helps us in planning a more relevant website based on this data Libraries need to strike a balance in maintaining the statistics remain anonymous and provide the option for users to ‘opt out’ of this data collection when first accessing the website (Marek, 2010).                         < Previous Page                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Next Page >