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| Authors: Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy Used: $13.49
You Save: $26.50 (66%)
New (43) Used (27) from $13.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 10215
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 526
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7 x 1
ISBN: 0596527349
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.7
EAN: 9780596527341
ASIN: 0596527349
Publication Date: November 27, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Mint interiors, no highlighting or markings, good covers
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Great Resource May 18, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is a great resource for IA. Struggling with what type of navigation to use and why? This book is an easy read that helps you get good IA done. It also explains the in's and out's of IA.
Sensible, Scalable, Essential, Valuable October 25, 2005
24 out of 32 found this review helpful
I read "Ambient Findability" first, and then bought this book. Both are excellent. This one is more focused on carefully orchestrating an approach to an enterprise architecture that makes content usable to end-users in context.
As the world gets ready to move toward exobyte scales of information sharing, at machine speed, this book becomes very relevant. While the authors are careful to point out the fallacies in cost calculations for informaiton access design flaws, I for one find the factors compelling--the cost of finding information, of not finding information, the value of rapid access, visualization and integration, the value of ease of use. I find the rough figure of $100 per employee per year to be a conservative estimate of opportunity costs--I think it is close to $1000 and in some instances $10,000.
Over-all I found this to be a superb reference for self-study, one that breaks down complex issues like different kinds of navigation systems, and one that also shows the value of offering end-users multiple means of access, both search and browsing.
Chapter 19 was especially valuable to me, since I am not even close to being a technical person or even a librarian--the itemization of the functions associated with information architecture and implementation, and why they might benefit from centralization, was a very helpful vehicle for getting a sense of the challenge when thinking of the scale of say Google, where thousands of hits are returned and thousands of relevant documents are NOT found. Google is great, but in this context, Google is in the second or third grade, at best.
I like this book, which does not claim to make anyone an information architect, because it helped me see, in a logical easy to read manner, just how *much* is involved in making tons of information accessible and usaable in time lapses and at costs that both people and organizations can afford.
A Classic for creating massively scalable web sites October 5, 2005
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
So, you know how to create web pages, maybe even an entire web site. But do you really know how? Do you understand how to create a site that is massively scalable from a content and navigational perspective? This book will show you how. If you read any book about site design, this should be the first, the foundation. Already a classic.
 Good Book, but a bit wordy July 29, 2005
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
Overall, this was a good book with good content. At times, the author is a bit too wordy, and some sections are difficult to comprehend if you are not a library sciences professional. I would recommend reading this book if you are an interactive professional, but realize that you must weed through excessive detail to find some really good information.
A Valuable Asset For All Web Developers April 12, 2005
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large Scale Web Sites, 2nd Edition, (the Polar Bear book) was written by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville and this second edition came out in August of 2002. It is a book about web site development from two pioneers in the field of information architecture whose backgrounds are in the fields of library studies and information systems. Both are published authors and experienced in web site development.
Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Morville use architecture as a base of understanding for readers to comprehend the essential elements of developing a web site project focusing on the design of the organization and managing the information effectively within a web site in order for users (consumers) to find and manage the information more effectively and efficiently.
The authors talk about broad concepts and principles of web site design which allow readers to think about applying these concepts creatively to their own site development. The authors target some specific areas of web site development. For example, the authors want readers to think about the goals and intended audience of the potential web site, the content that will be placed in the site, and also the structure of the site. All of these elements could be considered universal to web development. Yet, the authors explain in such a way that allows readers (or designers) to apply these concepts individually to their own area of development. Other topics covered include user interaction, and navigation and search systems that allow users to access, retrieve, and manage information from the web site more appropriately.
This book, although extremely technical in some chapters, explains the importance of web site development comparing it to architecture, specifically information architecture, emphasizing the importance of successful information retrieval from a collaborative view point.
Overall, I consider this book to be a highly valuable reference material on any web designers desk. However, frankly, some chapters were just way over my head. The material was very technical in some chapters and spoke to business professionals in other chapters, doing exactly what it was intended to do. I welcome the opportunity to review it more throughly from a course development stand point and I consider it to be a very well written and researched and very valuable book on web development
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