I was asked the question where a new information architect could get started to learn about the field and I explained that there are experiences all around us that enable all of us to learn. It could be anything from buying speakers for your television to how to book an airline ticket: all of us is uniquely qualified to start as one if we’ve used a computer, and all it takes is just observing how users think and use technology to improve what we have today.

After that explanation, during which her eyes glazed over, the response was, “How about just telling me what books to read.”

Here are five books I like a lot.

Note that none of them (well, one) is written by one of the user experience experts that are most often cited in blogs. There are many authors out there that present equally valid points that should get equal time, and I found these books to be extremely useful and valuable. Most of the books describe the patterns and theory of information architecture and user experience, but a couple of them go into detail about the tools we use to communicate, and how we fit into the software development and web design process.

The last five books I would read if I wanted to learn about information architecture

Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping

By Paco Underhill, Why We Buy is a great read on the observational study of why people shop, how they shop, and what they buy. Most importantly, it sets the stage for triggers for the motivations of completing an action, which is the basis of all interactive interactions.

This book is not too scientific, but honestly, you can look other places for that; what we’re seeing through the eyes of Paco is the emotions of browsing and shopping in the real world.

Don’t Make Me Think

By Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think is the cut-and-dry version of information architecture and the best methods of web navigation. Covered in 216 pages are enough screen shots, design patterns and quick points that just about anyone can get started on building their own websites or improving them dramatically.

What I like most about this book is that Steve doesn’t talk down to the reader like some other specialists, he informs the reader in a very comfortable, friendly tone.

Designing Interfaces

By Jenifer Tidwell, Designing Interfaces most importantly shows exactly what is most important about designing software and web sites: that all applications should follow a very well defined set of a patterns so the user interactions follow exactly what the user expects.

Jenifer’s book goes into excruciating detail of what interface widgets to use when, and why the widget should be used, how to use them, and examples of how the widgets were used in other applications.

Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow The Works

By Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler, Web ReDesign works through not only examples of wireframes, site maps, and how to quote projects, but looks at the project management process of web development. What I like best is that the book shows exactly how Information Architects, Web Designers, Programmers and the client fit together in an orchestra of what happens before, during and after a site launch.

Kelly and Emily also do a masterful job of including other expert voices and opinions like Christina Wodtke and Lynda Weinman about what it takes to launch a successful and user-friendly website.

Grids for the Internet & Other Digital Media

By Veruschka Götz, Grids is a out-of-print but very valuable publication that goes into amazing detail about the usage of grids for interactive applications (not just the Internet but also for multimedia applications and print design).

The book also covers the lost art of typography, how it should be used in websites, and usage of type on a grid. Even if you aren’t a designer, you’ll appreciate the clear and concise examples displayed in a very modern fashion of this title.

I’ve worked with my fair share of clients, coming up with something cool or snazy, presenting it to them, they look at it, and the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, “I don’t like it” or “I like this design over here,” pointing at another design produced by another designer. There’s the usual complaint of, “but our design is better” or you mutter something under your breath.

Smashing Magazine has an article on this too, but here’s a few truths to live with:

The clients don’t always pick the best design

The design you are presenting might be something rich and inviting, with all the bells and whistles you throw on there. The other design might be something clean and sharp, but not exciting. Not exciting sells, especially in certain less progressive environments, like governments or large corporations. The stakeholder or final decision maker probably isn’t a designer, so they really can’t tell the difference between rich and not rich, just what they like or don’t like. Some of the sites I’ve designed I hate, but the client loved, because it hit their target audience.

The clients are influenced by a local designer

There’s nothing like being there in person when showing off a design, and if you can’t do this, you’re already at a disadvantage — you can’t discuss some of your motivations for doing a particular design, or taking a particular angle. Sometimes you are set up to fail from the very start, and it’s best to recognize it and put your best foot forward, even if you know you aren’t going to be the winning design.

Sometimes the best design isn’t the most usable design

When I was working at Escrow.com, eBay was one of our partners. We redesigned the user interface of the site, and on every iteration, we made it look more like eBay. On every iteration, revenue increased. As much as the user interface designer I worked with hated it, we had to keep going that way. Many users might consider eBay one of the ugliest sites on the web, but when revenue rises, you keep going that direction. If you don’t, you are ignoring your users. Follow the obvious roadsigns.

Design is subjective

Totally true, but the best argument I’ve set for some of the clients is, “let’s try some A/B testing.” If it’s a simple website, and the site gets a fair amount of traffic, you’ll know quickly which design works better. Changing the colors of certain buttons in a design can affect the conversion rate. As much as you would like to tell the stakeholder they aren’t the audience, sometimes it’s best to do just that by involing end users.

I have this love affair with Helvetica (note, I said Helvetica, not that bastard child, Arial) and other really clean type styles. It’s one of the reason I’m kind of futzing with this site on a semi-regular basis — I’m trying to get that perfect look typographically, and it will always be a work in progress.

Along those same lines, Samantha Warren has a great blog post where she talks about the shift of the web to clean, international typographic style, which basically emphasizes simple geometrics and focuses on minimalism. They point to iA Japan as an example of gorgeous design. I agree. iA Japan has another great read about typography, how the web is 95 percent tyopgraphy. Agreed there too.

Stolen from a work blog. Go here.

I’m a print guy, and I’ve always felt that typography, because of the limited nature of what you could use, was actually harder and more valuable on the web. One of the favorite blogs, i love typography, agrees, and they published a great entry of some examples of effective web typography and design.

One of my favorite sites, Smashing Magazine, has this list of nightmares that’s pretty cool.

The summary is:

1. Hidden log-in link
2. Pop-ups for content presentation
3. Dragging instead of vertical navigation
4. Invisible links
5. Visual noise
6. Dead end
7. Content blocks layering upon each other
8. Dynamic navigation
9. Drop-Down Menus
10. Blinking images

It comes with great examples of high profile sites too!

Cheers.

Browser Shots takes a screen shot of your website for quality assurance purposes in over 40 browsers available on the web — testing it across the board in PC, Mac, and Linux platforms. Excuse me while I fix some issues I found in Galeon 1.3.20.

I had this on a previous blog, and that blog’s not around anymore. I figured it’s worth keeping around. By the way, I have no idea of who the author is.

Dear Mr. Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor’s house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can’t happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.

The truth is that most, if not all, Information Architects have a toolset of interactions that we use over and over again. This is usually because we’ve observed interactions at certain jobs that happen over and over again (come on, how many different ways are there to design an effective sign-in screen?). Because of this, my information architecture and screen designs are very, very boring — but effective.

Here are a few of my favorite resources:

• Internet Studies has a really good list of sites that have stored design patterns that they use when coming up with ideas.
• UI Patterns is one of the best libraries I’ve seen, and some of the patterns there, I’ve used for years.
• Here’s Yahoo’s design pattern library — they aren’t the best example because their IA across channels is all over the place, but at least they have something documented.
• The best book I have ever seen about this is Designing Interfaces, and this is the website.

I work with a lot of rich media developers at my current position, and we’ve been trying to make the journey to SilverLight, a new technology by Microsoft (and a competitor of Flash). It does some really cool things (the whole non-compiled thing will be a plus once they work out some of the details.

I’m not saying it’s a me-too technology — there are some very obvious advantages to it, beginning with standardizing on a programming language people actually use instead of something specialized like ActionScript, but we’ve had the hardest time adjusting to the workflow, and a lot of designers are afraid of this much like they are afraid of Flash CS3 Professional because it is such an adjustment. It was hard enough just moving over to the whole motion graphics world, and now many designers and developers are expected to relearn the application to a certain extent.

To the person who applies for this job, please remember how your job is better adoption in following ways:

• It’s not enough just to have timelines — the application really should be easy to use for designers because they are not programmers
• Make some of the interactions easier to explain like, “how do you make a button so it has the multiple states”, maybe even adding wizards like, “create a new button”
• Produce a product that can actually align text better (text alignment should be one of those 1.0 items, not on the 3.0 product list)
• Cater to the designers that ditched Flash when it moved to Actionscript 2 to Actionscript 3
• Most of all, it’s about user adoption and talking to your audience — if you don’t do that, no one will use it