The document summarizes several information architecture projects undertaken by Flavia Lacerda at the Brazilian Court of Accounts. It describes her background and role at the Court. It then provides an overview of three key projects: reframing the enterprise portal to improve content management, developing a custom search solution to index large amounts of data, and partnering with other government agencies on interoperability and data sharing. The document outlines the research, strategy, design, implementation, and administration approach used for each project and discusses lessons learned. It also presents a timeline of the Court's evolving information architecture strategies.

1. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
The Brazilian Court of Accounts
Flávia Lacerda
2013

2. ABOUT ME
▪ Information Technology Advisor at
the Brazilian Court of Accounts (TCU)
▪ PhD Candidate in Information Architecture at
University of Brasília (UnB), supervised by Prof.
Mamede Lima-Marques
▪ Doctoral stage at Jönköping University (Sweden)
from August to December 2013, supervised by
Prof. Andrea Resmini

3. ABOUT THE BRAZILIAN COURT OF ACCOUNTS (TCU)
What do we do?
▪ Audit the accounts of federal public resources
▪ Evaluate government programs
 Effectiveness
(How much is being spent and how?)
 Efficacy
(Are the goals being reached?)
 Efficiency
(Are the best procedures being used?)
 Economy
(Are the resources obtained at market prices?)

4. ABOUT THE PROJECTS
Why do we need Information Architecture?
▪ Better communication with audiences
▪ Information transparency and findability
▪ Content management and sharing
▪ Visual identity
▪ Data analysis and content exchanging...

5. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Why do we need it?
Source: http://www.xerox.com/assets/motion/corporate/pages/programs/information-overload/pdf/Xerox-white-paper-3-25.pdf
Image: http://www.foundationnews.org/CME/article.cfm?ID=1003

6. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Why do we need it?

7. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Why do we need it?

8. Richard Wurman
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
The emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age focused
upon clarity, human understanding, and the science of the organization of information.

9. 1st Stage (2006 -
)
▪ Content management
strategy
2nd Stage (2009 -
)
Near future
▪ Search strategy
▪ Cross-channel strategy
▪ Enterprise portal reframing
▪ Interoperability and
government partnership
▪ Responsive design
▪ Visual identity
▪ Social networks
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
TCU Strategies in a Timeline

10. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Planning
PROJECT
Research
Strategy
Design
Implementation
PROGRAM
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)
Administration

11. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Research - Methods
Context
Content
goals, strategy, brand,
process, technology,
resources, politics, culture
Users
objects, types, metadata,
structure, relationships,
source, volume, growth
audiences, user needs,
use cases, mental models,
vocabulary, behavior
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)

12. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Research - Methods
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)

13. CONTEXT
What is our
environment?
Mission, goals and culture
Infrastructure and resources







Provide information and services
Perform effective processes
Improve public administration
Formal culture, but innovative
Internal IT sector and datacenter
Multidisciplinary team (8-10)
CMS Plataform

14. Tarsila do Amaral | Operários (1933)
USERS
Who are our
main audiences?
Brazilian citizens
+ 200.000.ooo
TCU internal public
+ 6.000
± 100 mi - internet access
± 15% - some disability


Public employees
Trainees and outsourced
Special audiences



The National Congress
Government agencies
Press

15. CONTENT
Information resources
Metadata and taxonomies
What are our
sources and types
of information?






Publications and services
Corporative and external systems
Intranet and web pages
Data models
Data types and formats
Controlled vocabularies

16. PROJECT – PORTAL
Why reframe the
Enterprise Portal?
▪ Content management
strategy
▪ Standardization

17. PROJECT – PORTAL
Research
Techniques
Questions
▪ Interviews with stakeholders
and users
▪ Most accessed areas, products
and services
▪ Statistics analysis
▪ Findability
▪ Eletronic survey
▪ User satisfaction
▪ Improvement needed

18. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Planning
PROJECT
Research
Strategy
Design
Implementation
PROGRAM
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)
Administration

19. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Strategy - Methods
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)

20. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Strategy - Methods
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)

21. PROJECT – PORTAL
Strategy
CONTENT
INVENTORY
CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
POLICY
CONTENT
REPRESENTATION
MODEL
Metadata and doc types
<Título>
<Autor>
<Data>
<Usuário>
CONTENT
PRESENTATION
MODEL
Perfil 1 (Public)
Menu
News
Taxonomy
<Tipo>
TABELA TIPO DOC

System 1
<Categoria>
TAXONOMIA
Products and services
<Assuntos>
TESAURO
TESAURO
TESAURO
Vocabulary 1
Perfil 2 (Individual)
Menu
My page
My themes
System n
Vocabulary n
Information resources
Database
Data entry and
storage
Products and services
User interfaces
USERS
SEGMENTATION

22. PROJECT – PORTAL
Strategy – Content inventory
▪ Contents to migrate
and to discard
▪ Needed contents
▪ Types, formats and
metadata

23. PROJECT – PORTAL
Strategy –
Representation
model
▪ Document types (161)
▪ Book
▪ Event
▪ Journal article
▪ Judment
▪ Law
▪ News
▪ Report
▪ Resolution
▪ Sumary
▪ Thesis [...]
▪ Metadata

24. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Planning
PROJECT
Research
Strategy
Design
Implementation
PROGRAM
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)
Administration

25. PROJECT – PORTAL
Design
Principles
Implementation requirements
▪ Visual identity
▪ Build and validate prototypes
▪ Usability
▪ Develop style guide
▪ Accessibility
▪ Customization
▪ Personalization
▪ Colaboration
▪ Integration
▪ Flexibility…

26. PROJECT – PORTAL
Design –
Presentation
model
Header
Audience pages
Publicity
General Search
Specific Search
Thematic topics & contact
Services
News, publications &
events
Information & Culture
Partnerships

27. PROJECT –
PORTAL
Community of practice
Design –
Colaboration
Wiki

28. PROJECT –
PORTAL
Design –
Personalization
28

29. PROJECT –
PORTAL
Design –
Flexibility
(Hotsites)

30. Cândido Portinari | Menina Sentada (1943)
VISUAL IDENTITY
Phisical and digital
spaces (parallel project)
New logo
Artistic images
Partnership with Portinari Project
to use the painter works

31. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Planning
PROJECT
Research
Strategy
Design
Implementation
PROGRAM
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)
Administration

32. PROJECT – PORTAL
Implementation
▪ Implement specifications on CMS (customize features)
 Representation model (tables, fields and forms)
 Presentation model (layout)
▪ Validate and adjust
▪ Train content managers
▪ Migrate content for CMS (automatic and manual)
▪ Test and validate

33. PROJECT – PORTAL
ECM, WCM, CMS, CXM...
▪ Multiple solutions for content management
▪ What each vendor offers X what the organization really needs
▪ Decisions must be guided by:
 Business problems and needed features (design principles)
 Compliance with technologies used in the organization
(databases, servers, languages,patterns)

34. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Planning
PROJECT
Research
Strategy
Design
Implementation
PROGRAM
Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville (2002)
Administration

35. PROJECT – PORTAL
Administration
▪ Ensure the application of the content management policy
▪ Preserve standards compliance
▪ Monitor access, evaluate user satisfaction and adjust
▪ Handle issues identified during the project
▪ Keep evolving

36. PROJECT – PORTAL
2005
1997
2001
2012
2008

37. PROJECT – PORTAL
Lessons learned
▪ Models and policies must be developed for each case (no magic recipe)
▪ IT systems are only tools to create and manage the spaces. You need to design
them and involve those who will use in the designing process
▪ Methodology is only direction
▪ Homepages are political instruments - the strategy rules must be clear, based on
evaluations and statistics
▪ Content areas must have specific holders

38. 1st Stage (2006 -
)
▪ Content management
strategy
2nd Stage (2009 -
)
Near future
▪ Search strategy
▪ Cross-channel strategy
▪ Enterprise portal reframing
▪ Interoperability and
government partnership
▪ Responsive design
▪ Visual identity
▪ Social networks
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
TCU Strategies in a Timeline

39. PROJECT – SEARCH
Solution
 Internally developed
 Free software plataform
(Lucene/Solr/Java)
 Multiple databases
 Constant customization &
evolution of features
 Maintenance costs
 Sharing with governmental
agencies

40. PROJECT – SEARCH
Solution
Portal
Capture,
processing
& load
Systems
DMS
External sources
Total (2013): 227.683.411 itens
Textual database

41. PROJECT – INTEROPERABILITY
Government
partnership
TCU project
 Data exchange
 Shared solutions
 Cooperative development
Federal Senate of Brazil project – www.lexml.gov.br

42. PROJECT – SOCIAL NETWORKS
Sharing

43. 1st Stage (2006 -
)
▪ Content management
strategy
2nd Stage (2009 -
)
Near future
▪ Search strategy
▪ Cross-channel strategy
▪ Enterprise portal reframing
▪ Interoperability and
government partnership
▪ Responsive design
▪ Visual identity
▪ Social networks
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
TCU Strategies in a Timeline

44. PROJECT – CROSS-CHANNEL
Pervasive Information Architecture
Information-based activities require us to move
across different media, channels, and
environments, with no distinction between what
is physical and what is digital.
We still visit Web sites, but we also use mobile
applications, interact with intelligent devices, and
connect with people on the go through a variety
of computer-mediated technologies.
Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati
(Pervasive Information Architecture, 2011)

45. PROJECT – CROSS-CHANNEL
Responsive design

46. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
Conclusions
▪ Focus on users
▪ Promote the effectiveness of the organization
▪ Create spaces to estimulate flow of information and meaningful
experiences
▪ Keep in mind design principles and avoid technological determinism

47. THANK YOU!
Flávia Lacerda
flavialacerdaoliveira@gmail.com