# Peter Morville **Peter Morville** is one of the founding figures of [[Information Architecture (IA)|information architecture]]. He studied library and information science at the University of Michigan School of Information (1993), and in the 1990s ran Argus Associates with Louis Rosenfeld. Together, they applied library science principles (grouping, labeling) to the early web, and called the result "information architecture". In 1998, he and Rosenfeld wrote *Information Architecture for the World Wide Web* (O'Reilly), known as the "polar bear book" because of its cover. It became the reference book of the discipline. He co-founded the Information Architecture Institute in 2002, and since 2001 he has run his own consulting firm, Semantic Studios. He also created the user experience honeycomb: products should be useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible and credible. His other books include [[Ambient Findability (Book)|Ambient Findability]] (2005), *Search Patterns* (2010, with Jeffery Callender), *Intertwingled* (2014) and *Planning for Everything* (2018). He blogs at intertwingled.org. ## Findability *Ambient Findability* is the book most people cite for the concept of [[Findability|findability]]. In it, he defines it as "the quality of being locatable or navigable", and he looks at it at two levels: how easy it is to find a particular object, and how well a system as a whole supports navigation and retrieval. In a 2005 interview, he put it as designing for findability "at both the system and object levels". That distinction maps directly onto a vault. Names, aliases and properties make each note findable. Folders, tags, links and the daily-note timeline make the vault navigable. You need both. ## Recent Activity - ## Insights - Findability works at two levels: the object and the system ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> <!-- SerializedQuery: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> - [[Ambient Findability (Book)]] <!-- SerializedQuery END --> ## Media <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/media AND [[]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Appears in <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/media WHERE contains(cast, this.file.name) AND public_note = true SORT release_date DESC --> ## Related - [[Ambient Findability (Book)]] - [[Findability]] - [[Information Architecture (IA)]] - [[The Complete Guide to Obsidian Search - Find Any Note When You Need It (Article)]] - [[Why You Can't Find Your Notes - The Science of Re-finding Information (Article)]] ## References - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Morville - Interview by Liz Danzico, "Findability is Ambient" (2005): https://bobulate.com/?p=1136 - Morville's excerpt of *Ambient Findability* on his blog: https://intertwingled.org/ambient-findability/ - Book review quoting the Chapter 1 definition of findability (Slashdot, 2006): https://books.slashdot.org/story/06/01/02/1748219/ambient-findability