Some more thoughts on the final project:
Information Architecture:
Bottom-up categorization idea 1: cupcake
Items:
A. Paper cup/wrapper
B. Spongy cake
C. Sweet top half of the cupcake
D. Frosting
E. Sprinkles
F. Cherry/candy piece
Bottom-up Information:
A. What format or platform is the structure to be held in? Where and in what form will the information be constructed?
B. Filled with content. Content is ordered, structured in a way to form a recognizeable structure. Cupcake batter is slimy and formless until heat is added. Data is a mess and meaningless until it is organized. Chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, German chocolate? What is the content that dictates the categories?
C. Before the frosting, this part of a cupcake can have a sweetness of its own. This is the first layer of categorzation of the data. Perhaps it is the separation of content and the menu bar. Either way, it is the top of the cupcake itself that lends a clue as to what type of flavor the cupcake is.
D. Frosting is the decadent layer, the translation would be the interface? What we see, the web design itself with graphics, content area, and menu bar. Frosting is what we are all looking at, drooling over, wating to taste first and typically what we do taste first. It has to be inviting! It also needs to marry with the content. You don’t typically want a chocolate cupcake with cherry flavored frosting, but the food coloring turned it purple. That’s misleading! Nor would you want a chocolate cupcake with brown frosting, which leads you to think it is chocolate flavored when in fact it is licorice.
E. On top of that frosting is the sprinkles. Not all cupcakes come with sprinkles, or anything noticable as sprinkles. I suppose then the good cupcakes come with them. And as a translation, that is to say that our options, menu bars, and other descriptions invite the user to experience one cupcake over another. The sprinkles can also be seen as navigation. They are the little things that lead to bigger/more intuitive/descriptive things. It draws you in to investigate that much more into the webpage or the interface.
F. The topping on top! The logo or banner of the information. The precise description and what links all the content. The first thing you see when you view a cupcake is the top which includes the frosting, the sprinkles, and the candy on top. The first things you should notice on a webpage is the general layout of the page, the navigation, and the banner/logo of the site.
