Relationship between Information Architecture and Cognitive Style - Taking Smartphone Interface as an Example

• Main Authors: Ti-WeiChang, 張緹葳
• Other Authors: Ding-Bang Luh
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/43fyr5

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 工業設計學系 === 103 === The purpose of this study is to investigate the user preference of interface typology on smartphone operating system in the aspect of Information Architecture (IA), and analyze the relationship between Information Architecture (IA) and cognitive style, by identifying IA typology corresponding with cognitive style. Relevant studies focus on World Wide Web and applications. The concept of which introduced into mobile information devices enhance diversity and intuition and flexibility in interface typology. Thus, it is necessary to re-examine interface typology with mobile Information Architecture (MIA), which consists of four aspects, namely content, structure, navigation and representation. In some cases, users interact with OS interface in two ways: Either they adapt MIA and maintain OS interface, or try to amend interface to suit their habits. Based on MIA and with semi-structured interview, this study investigated 10 expert users for their experiences in interface design, operating inclination, and adaptability. The results of interview were coding into 16 types of Mobile Information Architecture and reformed into 19 MIA questions with Cognitive Style Index as questionnaire to run statistical anaylsis. 400 valid samples were collected from on-line platform. Through a series of Pearson’s chi-squared test, three achievements were facilitated, which are “The popular variations of each MIA types”, “The MIA types and elements that significantly related to Cognitive Style” and “The factor of using experinence that highly related to user preference of MIA types”. Three findings were concluded through examinig these achievements. First, the users with different Cognitive Styles have significant difference on preference when facing some of the MIA types. Second, there are more significant differences of preference affected by MIA and Cognitive Style, when the anaylsis is focus on the users of one specific operating system. Last, the relationship strength between Information Architecture and Cognitive Style is ranging among four elements. These achievements are suggested as references for practical uses, which increasingly lay emphasis on user study, and also help to understand what MIA elements or types should consider Cognitive Style more, and what MIA elements or types is less influenced by Cognitive Style for designers. The findings of this study are also a direct suggestion for designers to keep MIA types or remove them.