How should my site be structured? www.grainger.com

http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_whatisinfoarch/index.html

After reading about information architecture, I immediately identified it with usability (only to find out they are not the same???).  As an employee of W.W. Grainger, Inc, we strive on Hundred Billion dollar revenue goals each year.  Such a goal would not be possible if our site was poorly structured.  Yet, we have designed the site best suitable for consumers to find products by several searches...Manufacturer, Product Name, Product category...  It is amazing to see that a printed catalog that offers millions of products is equally matched through a website.  How does it all flow together?  How is our website able to provide "realtime" stock availability to match whats in the actual SAP ordering system?  The www.grainger.com website deserves a visit, and you will see that there are more than several ways to retrieve information about a particular product.  The ordering system is also user-friendly when sorting items and managing the online accounts.

Even our intranet is structured carefully to provide company resource searches and links in the simplest way.  From this reading I have definitely gained a stronger analysis from a technical perspective as to how the success of Grainger is supported by great information architecture.

I was also attracted to the terminology of "DIGITAL LANDSCAPE, CONTENT INVENTORY."  This forced me to think of a website as a garden or floral structure and how it should be organized to the simplicity of the gardener, to make his life easier for present and future maintaining.  It seems that some structure needs to be in place for a site or system, just for the sake of the people operating them. 

From now on, I will also identify the "site map" as the info arch.

Personal technology toolkit...

My personal technology toolkit is dominated by print design experience...Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.  I am now hoping to become equipped  with tools that will enable me to produce web designs and also multimedia applications such as animation and video.  I used a software to edit a movie during undergrad but I do not remember the name of it.  I hope to increase my knowledge of html and css.  Most importantly, I am seeking employment that will give me the experience in support of the education.  I think that the ability to apply these tools on a daily basis will definitely enhance my knowledge and increase my desire to want to learn MORE. 

DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS...VERY NEW

During my late years of highschool and early years of undergrad, I was a member of Black Planet. What ever happened to that social network anyway? It just dissappeared when I found myself making a MySpace profile..boy did Tom make tons of money$$$$$$$....then I started to receive email notifications saying "Come on back and see what your Myspace friends are up to...right after I started drifting away on facebook. During that same time I created a Twitter account and probably used it for two days...I never understood the concept of Twitting. My internet/website involvement has been a social rollercoaster and Im eager to know who's taking over next.

I was introduced to, or should I say began the act of, Blogging as far back as my archives show. It is a wonderful thing...I intend to set up a seperate blog on wordpress to compare the two.

I am eager to become technoligically advanced on all aspects of web design. Well I was actually introduced to Web Design during an early undergraduate elective, yet things have totally changed since then, and I am now intested in cutting deep into this area for personal, social and career advancement reasons.

I am already significantly more knowledgable than before: The Wiki, Google Groups, Delicious...

And I am definitely ready to soak up all helpful information during our Tech Corner sessions during class...


It is wonderful to connect with peers that are actually applying their technical and design skills in an occupational environment.