Due: By Class 6 (3/9/99), as hardcopy submitted in person, or as email to the instructors. 

Introduction: At this point we've established a good set of criteria for evaluating the information architecture of web sites.  We've discussed audience analysis and user profiling, hierarchies, modular and meta-content, and we've reviewed some of the technologies behind web site design. We've recounted common design sins, qualities of good design, database and page-based metaphors, and static vs. interactive (fluid) delivery models. 

We now have a common model for discussing and analyzing sites, from the subjective aesthetics of look and feel to the objective nuts and bolts of organization, navigation, controlled vocabulary, graphical elements, icons, search, labels, signposts, hyperlinks, to the ethereal realms of visual navigation and discourse. 

The purpose of this assignment is to test your ability to critically examine two types of sites whose material success or failure depends on these information architecture principles. 

Description: Put yourself in the role of an information architecture consultant, and provide a critical evaluation of two information-based web sites -- one major corporate site (whose primary business is not information delivery) and one major knowledge site (whose primary business is information delivery). You do not need to mention every IA element refererred to in lecture and in the list above; some of these elements will be irrelevant given the sites you select, and some would require a more detailed analysis than can be accomplished in one page. But do call out those subjective and objective criteria you use for your evaluation.

Example corporate sites: Travelocity, Microsoft, Disney, Amazon.com, General Motors, Wal*Mart 

Example knowledge sites: CNN, Time-Warner's Pathfinder Network, Infoseek, Nasdaq.com, Quokka Sports