Information Architecture?

As we know, a Good Decision is made based on the Accurate, Reliable, and On-time Information. I know, sometimes we heard someone said that he made a decision based on his intuition. But, I believe when he talked about intuition actually he talked about his experience who came up and influenced his decision, and the experience again is a collection of past information which then compares to current situation.

Remember that “Information = BLOOD for our company” , our company/individual always need that ‘blood’; when the blood is dirty (the imformation is wrong) our company will die immediately, when we always make sure that our ‘blood’ is clean (the information is valid/reliable, ontime) our company will grow fast and strong.

So…make sure, we have a ‘healthy’ Information Systems.

We knows, our Information Systems in fact also have additional function as an Information channel for our clients or public as general (as a promotion channel). Therefore should also consider to provide a reliable and easy to use this information channel.

One of the parameters  of ‘Good’ Information System is EASY TO FIND OUT ANY INFORMATION. Yes, I know there many parameters for a good Informations Systems such as easy to use, security, redudancy, system reliablitity, etc….but I am going to focus now in this single aspect: Easy to Find a certain Information. It’s a time when a user said “I know we have this such of information but I don’t know where?”..again remember: “If you have something but you can not find it = you don’t have it!”. So to prevent this problem, a good Information Architecture is needed since beginning.

What is ‘Information Architecture’?

Simply, I define this term as a Structure of Information. so when we design an Information Architecture, we design the structure of the Information.

Just like in House Architecture, before we design an Information Architecture, we should know:

– Who will be the Users?

– What information will be needed by each users?

– How should we organize/structure each information so it will be easier for any one to find it?

In this step, just focus on the kinds/groups of information and its structure, and don’t worry about the Hardware.

After we have answered the three questions  above, next let’s come to the questions:

– How is the priviledge of each information (who can access the information)?

– Where will we save/put the information physically (do we have separate the database, …)?   

– How is the network/access system to the information for each user (through LAN, WAN, Internet)? 

Then we can think more about:

– How is the SECURITY? e.g. we setup a Firewall, Password, …

– How is the REDUDANCY efforts? e.g. Backup with CD or other Harddisk every week, Mirroring systems, …

– How is the RELIABILITY efforts? e.g. UPS, high specification Servers, etc

 

Then we can draw all the things above on a paper to make it ease presented to others