I've decided to start collecting definations of IA. Feel free to add any you come across or heck, make one up!
Information architects map the structure of sites and organizes the location of pages within sections, developing a functional and intuitive navigational plan to get the user to specific information using the optimal path. graphicbiz
, from oldest to newest:
What I did was take all those words that people used to describe IA and pulled out relevant nouns, verbs, and modifiers. I then tried to assemble a list according to the five-W's and H; who, what, when, where, why, how. I adore using those as a tool for sorting things.
Before I get in to that, I thought it was interesting that all of them described IA in one of two methods; either they described IA as a process and what that process is, or they used a metaphor. Lou talks about the design of systems; Squishy calls it "the science of figuring out". This resonates strongly with me. A lot of what I do involves process.
And all of this talk about process segues into two quotes, about process: Process is more important than outcome. When outcome drives the process we will only ever go where we've already been. If process drives the outcome we may not know where we're going, but we will know we want to be there ? Bruce Mau
Or, as my darling designer puts it, Basically process is the key to producing something unique, without it, we only build what is predetermined, and that usually sucks.
So, my list, organised via 5W+H:
Who (are we working for...):
the user, an audience, PEOPLE
What (are we working with...):
data, information, content
foundation, structure, blueprint
systems, navigation, thesauri, hierarchies
design, spaces, flows
When (do we work):
before [during, and after...?]
Where (do we work):
the Internet (intra-, extra-, inter- Nets) [what about books, other media, real life?]
Why (do we do what we do):
help, live, work, play, interact, access, communicate, find, manage, search
meaningful, intuitive
How (do we do it):
organise, present, label, construct, present, design
visualise
professionally
The brackets are my thoughts and expansion of what was offered. Andrea Gallagher's concept of IA as it applies to information as a whole, the idea of organising information systems, regardless of where they are, still intrigues me.
So, we could say that,
"An information architect for . The is built . The goal of her labour is ."
Or, more specifically, an information architect is the system creator and information organiser. And her driving goal is making information usable to her audience. We create order out of Chaos. We are Prometheus bringing back the Fire of the Gods. Which is fitting because Prometheus means, "forethought", of course.
The only problem with this definition ? aside from its grandiose claims to divinity ? is that it is too high-level. And I doubt you could "sell" it to a Client. But that's a different topic all together.
I think that as often as the discussion comes back to "What is IA?" something is going to have to be done about that question. I think that, as IAs, we're pretty good at holding a disparate collection of data in our heads without freaking out. But the brain needs to categorise things; everything is sorted by how it relates to everything else. So most people relate to the world through labels.
I think that one of the points that was made last night was pretty good. Rather than reinvent the wheel, let's emulate designers or doctors. We develop specific labels for specific practices. And, just as any doctor can diagnose the common cold or write a prescription for Retin-A, but only some of them can treat a subdermal hematoma or perform a triple by-pass. What are those specific titles? Beats the hell out of me. Again, that's a different topic.
I don't know, I was just playing with the words... ;) Thoughts, comments, criticisms are all more than welcome.
Cheers,
^David
Posted by David @ 06/20/2001 04:57 PM pst
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aren't IAs just the people who helped designers out back when there was lots of work to do? doesn't seem like you'd need them these days unfortunately.
Posted by gentle ben @ 06/20/2001 09:57 PM pst
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Ouch!
Posted by Paul Nattress @ 06/21/2001 05:04 AM pst
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Where do self-organising sites fit into this definition? Does IA go beyond the tangible end results of icons, labels, theasauri, etc, and move across into balancing the social forces inherent in self-organising websites?
Should IA incorporate aspects of the science of anthropology?
More discussion is at
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InformationArchitecture
Posted by Eric Scheid @ 06/21/2001 05:37 AM pst
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What a delightful synchrony: iaslash has an article about Andrew Dillon's talk at the ACM SIGCHI conference.
Posted by David @ 06/21/2001 03:09 PM pst
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If we could only market ourselves as well as Wurman's publisher...
"There is a tsunami of data that is crashing onto the beaches of the civilized world. This is a tidal wave of unrelated, growing data formed in bits and bytes, coming in an unorganized, uncontrolled, incoherent cacophony of foam. None of it is easily related, none of it comes with any organization methodology. Now for the good news: There is a dune on the beach. There is a breakwater in the ocean that is clearly emerging in these last fleeting moments of the 20th century. The breakwater is indeed breaking up the tsunami of data and focusing it in a more organized way to answer our questions and concerns. There is a new breed of graphic designers, exhibition designers, illustrators and photographers, whose passion it is to make the complex clear. I call this new breed of talented thinkers Information Architects and this book was created to help celebrate and understand the importance of their work - a work which inspires hope that as we expand our capabilities to inform and communicate that we will value, with equal enthusiasm, the design of understanding."
Posted by christina @ 06/21/2001 10:35 PM pst
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I've been using this one. It's heavily biased towards retrieval, and therefore probably in need of some adaptation, but it's found a place in our new Dm1 glossary:
"The art and science
of organizing information to facilitate its rapid and intuitive retrieval."
Posted by Adam, again @ 06/22/2001 01:17 AM pst
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"If we could only market ourselves as well as Wurman's publisher."
And why the hell can't we? I know we've got a lot of creative people who are able to think along those lines. I know we've got a lot of creative and talented visual designers working with us. As Dillon said, "professionals in many camps tend to share the same goals: the design, development and implementation of more humanly acceptable information systems. As long as we are battling to get human-centered design taken seriously, such professionals are all on the same side."
Given the large number of design / UE / IA sites that are in this "circle", why not do some sort of campaign, ŕ la the Web Standards project. Let's call for a new standard: a human-centred design standard...
Posted by David @ 06/22/2001 11:29 AM pst
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It's interesting that some of the above definitions dwell more on the data-classification aspects of the IA role, the abstraction of information into objects. Phrases such as "present that content to an audience" don't fully address our role as communicators.
A dialogue must take place for IA to be effective. The most satisfying response from an audience is "Hey, I get that, thanks." User involvement and user research help us move closer to providing, in Wurman's words, "the structure or map of information which allows others to find their personal paths to knowledge."
Posted by Cindy @ 06/24/2001 07:13 PM pst
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I posted my question to the SIGIA list and -- along with some terrific debate-- I've gotten a few more attempts at a definition.
""Information architecture is the process of planning, designing and implementing the organization of web-based information (content and labeling) and operations (navigation, search, tasks necessary to help meet an enterprise's business needs.
"As part of this process, information architecture intersects with the fields of usability, graphic design, and information design, as well as with systems design."
Note that this definition focuses on the task of organization. That to me seems to be the sine qua non of being an IA. "
Fred Leise
"Here's mine: Information architecture is the architecture of information. LOL... maybe that's too vague.
I think that something general like
"the art & science of organizing, planning, designing and architecting the vast amount of data, of all kinds, that we human beings are increasingly bombarded with in the information age"
...might work :-)"
Eileen "Turtle" Parzek
"I've always seen Information Architecture as the act of:
Defining Data Structures by organizing existing data. [categorization]
Defining how Data Structures should be created, expanded, collapsed, split,
joined or be removed. [data maintenance]
Setting rules for how new or altered data will be filtered into or out of Data Structures. [data flow/version control]
Finding and defining relations of information within and between distinct Data Structures. [links/searches]
Developing human and machine usable paths within and between Data Structures. [navigation]
To be successful the Information Architecture looks at data not as a dimensional object but as a non-dimensional entity which needs to be organized, maintained, related and represented in the most optimal way for human, machine and environmental communications."
- jw
there are quite a few more, and I recommend you check out the threads as they grow (thanks again to andrew for hosting the SIGIA archives.) george has a particularly long and intriguing one worth checking out.
Posted by christina @ 06/25/2001 07:51 PM pst
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We are really screwed up here in Australia. Below is a job description advertised recently. But also I was interviewed for an IA position(only 1 ever) at Sapient here in Aus and missed out, the reason:
"You are too focussed on the user."
No wonder they shut up shop and bailed from aus.
here's the latest job description posted june 25th.
Information Architect
Familiarization with existing applications and related code Continued development of existing code to implement enhancements Annotation of existing code where necessary Code debugging and testing Modifications to existing code to correct problems or potential problems Working closely with the development team on project specific tasks Designing and building software components from WEB applications to ATL business objects Participation in design and code reviews Component unit testing QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering 2 - 4 years' relevant development experience Some familiarity with power distribution systems preferred Excellent understanding of Windows NT Workstation and Server Demonstrated development experience working with relational databases (Oracle experience preferred) Ability to install and support various desktop applications Ability to work in team environment Self-motivated and creative Experience with: C++, JAVA development This position is fast-paced and may periodically require odd hours during the week or on weekends. Conectiv is an equal opportunity employer.
Please contact Mia Westbrook - mia@itnetsolutions.com.au
No wonder I'm can't find a job
www.faircrack.com
www.internetedge.com.au
Posted by matt @ 06/27/2001 09:31 PM pst
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I have posted some thoughts around this at my site as well as a couple of PDF documents that I used at AltaVista to educate other teams and people about what IA was and our role at AltaVista. It goes a long way to getting out of the super high level and into the more pragmatic - what do we do all day and why is it good - thinking. These docs helped us evangelize and generally change some of the internal culture. It was a difficult process, but having to define and clarify in a succint fashion was helpful in justifying our existence (at the time). Of course it didn't hurt that we also rolled interaction design into our set of responsibilities as well.
Posted by erin @ 06/29/2001 12:03 AM pst
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The intangible craft of defining the structure for Websites.
The foundations for this structure are CONTENT,
CONTEXT and USERS. The more you know about them, the stronger your foundations will be. Note that context includes the Stakeholders.
While defining the structure of your building, you also define the spaces and the naviagtion between them, strucutring user paths. You have to carefully label these spaces so the visitor knows where to enter and what he'll find there.
As websites become increasingly complex, they gain functionalities, you'll also have to specify them and how the user is going to interact with them. If you have lots of content you come up with navigation aids like maps and shortcuts, and plan ahead for growth in time.
To be an information architect, you have to be crazy: about communication, about the Web. You also have to have a skillset in web design. Critic thought, and an eagle´s eye for detail.
Posted by mantruc @ 06/29/2001 04:05 PM pst
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Interesting pages... one small quibble... you spell both my first and last name incorrectly (on http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/archives/00000069.html).
Thanks. :)
Posted by Stephen Downes @ 07/19/2001 08:45 AM pst
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Is there anyone left whose name I have not spelled incorrectly?!?!?!!?
Okay, off to fix....
Posted by christina @ 07/24/2001 10:16 PM pst
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If content is king, then information architecture is the power behind the throne?
Posted by ChrisFord @ 08/13/2001 08:08 AM pst
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Everything I know about Information Architecture I have learned from the game Defender (Atari). The small navigation window gives you a sense of where you are, what's going on around you and where you're headed next. It's good to know these things. If your Web site can tell you those three things, chances are that you have a solid Information Architecture in place. ;)
Posted by Keith Tatum @ 11/02/2001 07:27 AM pst
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Information Architecture is the last refuge of people who are too articulate for their own good.
Posted by Andrew Hinton @ 11/14/2001 06:28 AM pst
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