I think you’re right on with your assumption that if one would like to be gainfully employed, or at least work on ‘cool’ web apps, they might want to get a little usability into their IA work. There are too many IA’s out there who have given me a blank stare when any interaction aside from a link was mentioned.

I don’t know if you realize this, but there is nothing new, novel, or revelatory about this post. I don’t mean this as a damning criticism. But this line of criticism (infoprefixation, IA having too broad a definition, focus on problems/use not information) has been around pretty much since “information architecture” has been a phrase used seriously, in the 2000-2001 time frame.

I like your thirst for new knowledge, Peter!

But yes, I know. In fact, I considered quoting Jesse James Garrett in this piece…at one point way back then he suggested IA should be narrowly defined…too bad it didn’t take, huh?

That said, people have been talking about designing for experiences for decades, too. So what?

I appreciate your attempt at deflection…but my audience isn’t just the one in your head.

Kudos Josh!
But I think you are missing 1 important piece. While IA has become too much, there still is THAT IA that is real. There still is a discipline that can be narrowly focused and exist as Information Architecture which some overlap in methods. While social is ONE aspect and Activity another aspect that need to be considered, the ephemeral nature of content, information, linguistic structure is still an important part of creating any experience, b/c until we all go deaf, dumb, and can’t move our hands, our minds are locked around two things: language and pattern recognition and creation. Even a web application which you tried to state has little to do with information actually does have lots of need for IA. Even just take organizing the hierarchy of different actions is a task of IA as small as that might be considered. But IA also offers a lot of skill and resource in other areas of pattern that make web applications much better designed. I’ll also take on social design as one of IA influence in that there is structure in any community and that structure needs to be modeled and well understood before designing for it. Game designers have done an amazing job at doing this w/o calling it IA, but IA is definitely in there.

So while I agree that IA folks have been land-grabbing (including Mr. Peter Me, up there … not quite sure what the point of his post was exactly) I wouldn’t say that IA is dead, but hopefully facing a bubble burst that will reduce it back to its rightful home.

Now, if you carry the title IA, don’t fret. What you do IS more than IA and your skills and talents will be needed for time and memorial. Keep on Truckin’

Since you don’t mention Heidegger, I wanted to make sure that you are aware that this viewpoint is a direct result of his “Question Concerning Technology.” Technology leads us to treat everything as a resource to be exploited, even people.

Adam…thanks for the Heidegger reference. I’ll go dig that up.

Dave, thanks for the thoughtful response. But again, I would argue that when you say “IA is out there” you’re really talking about it from too high a level. It’s kind of like saying “I’m a message architect because I talk to people”.

Now, one place I did not tred in this post is the community aspect of IA. IA has a strong community, and that’s a great thing. But as I look around at the most successful tools and technologies out there, IA seems less and less necessary from a wider scope. What seems necessary is an intense focus on the activities of humans…which of course will involve some information, but doesn’t center on that information but on user goals, etc.

Troll. On this topic, Josh, you are becoming a troll. Troll, troll, troll.

Anyway.

Joshua, you get credit for always being interesting, even if I rarely find myself agreeing with you.

First, please note that Peter Morville and I have generally been proponents of “small IA,” rather than the all-encompassing definition. You’ve clearly not read our book except, perhaps, the first chapter. Otherwise this would have been obvious to you.

In the part you did read, we offer multiple definitions of IA because we’re not personally fond of a single dogmatic definition, a point I’ve certainly written about before. We respect the readers’ abilities to figure out what works best for them. I think our resistance to dogmatism is to be lauded, frankly; unfortunately, there are so many people in the industry, like yourself apparently, who seem addicted to crushingly black and white delineations, with no appreciation for the gray areas. As the lines will always blur, your point seems, well pointless. There will never be a single definition of IA, or ID, or usability, or UX for that matter. You surely must realize this.

I think you’d be better off investing your considerable intellectual energy more constructively than you have here. For example, you could start by acknowledging that we all have much to offer, and work to build a better user experience community and practice–as some of us have worked hard to do–rather than making wishful, silly pronouncements of an entire profession’s demise.

Joshua, when you are constructive, you’re really good. But posts like this one make it hard to take you seriously anymore. They’re cheap shots with the seeming goal of getting attention. Now that you have it, what will you do with it? What are your constructive recommendations? Beyond having all information architects commit mass suicide?

Here’s a suggestion: spend some of your ample time and energy trying to build UX into an inclusive community, one that includes those of us who may work in areas that you personally don’t understand or appreciate–such as designing for information finders. One way to do that is to build a few bridges, rather than burning this particular one again and again and again.

One more thing: please realize that enlightened IAs aren’t necessarily moving away from IA to UX. We’re just realizing–as you should as well–that we’re all part of something larger, a UX that includes information, activities, and much more. IA and UX aren’t mutually exclusive terms, nor is interaction design and UX, etc. If you see them as such, then I’m afraid you don’t really understand user experience design at all.

This debate reminds me of the Blind Men and the Elephant fable. Information architects? Designers? Does it really matter what label we use as long we focus on the value of what we’re doing? If we don’t understand the context of how our products are being used it doesn’t really matter whether we’re information architects or designers; we’ll fail our users. Sure, the territorial scuffle is fun, and has academic value, but keep your eye on the user.

Also, I just gotta add: “infoprefixation?” Ack! I agree with the idea, but man, let’s steer clear of the pendantic potholes, and use real words.

Keep up the good work, Josh.

Louis, thanks for your candid reply. If you and Morville are proponents of “small IA”, which presumably means (labeling, categorization, etc) then why don’t you stick to that?

Seriously, why not stay at the small IA level? If it means what I think it means, then I wouldn’t have any issues…but right now my head hurts when I try to reconcile your definitions with other fields. Honestly, I’m writing this more to clear my head than piss people off. I don’t need anybody mad at me.

You ask what I hope to gain from all this. Well, I don’t want to open the kimono too far, so to speak, but in a larger sense what I see happening is that IA is a content-side strategy for information organization done by people who aren’t the user. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen many big wins for that type of thing. What is user-friendly is a user-side strategy for information organization, where the users are the organizers. And the wins there are growing by the day.

I hope to address this issue and its social implications in more depth in the future. This will be my last death of IA post, I promise.

Yeah, Devin, I know. It’s a tough word. It’s not mine, though, so I tried to explain it clearly in the piece.

Josh: what exactly do you mean by “we haven’t seen many big wins for that type of thing”? This strikes me as a biased opinion, and nothing else. It’s like your quoting one associate who happens to (naturally) agree with your perception of an IA land-grab.

Hey, it’s your blog–and you’re entitled to your opinion–but it’s also a very public opinion, so it’s a bit disingenuous of you to be surprised that people are pissed at you. And let’s be honest: you’re not clearing your head. You’re indulging in cheap generalities without any supporting evidence. And the result is to reinforce negative stereotypes that do nothing to help us–all of us–design better user experiences.

I think it’s quite shabby. And I’ll challenge you once again: what will you, Joshua Porter, do to convert the attention these posts are getting into something positive (other than clearing your own head)? Will you reach out to someone who has a different design perspective? Offer to help put on a UX event? Mentor someone?

Or keep posting the same whining about information architects again and again?

If you really give a crap about user experience, you’ll put your money where your mouth is.

Greetings!

I think you would all do well to read the free ebook:

Beyond the Information Age

Its available for reading and download at

http://www.vias.org/beyinfoage/

Enjoy!

i agree with this, mortal combat does own streetfighter2 no question about it
1 ]-[4\/3 ]-[3|\/|12()1|)$ 1|\| 7]-[3 4$$

You should not let shrill land grabbers frame the question for you, as they’ve attempted to in the comments here.

Right. Or nut jobs who can only participate in conversations by dominating them.

“If you really give a crap about user experience, you’ll put your money where your mouth is.”

You call this a “conversation”?

The aggressive and petulant tone of your three posts here precisely describe just how accurate the characterization “land grabber” has been. And not surprisingly.

Information = Data + Context

There has been an ongoing misconception for a while now that information is something that can exist on its own without interpretation. But one man’s information is just another man’s data. Without the context portion involved in the above equation, the human perception and understanding, there is no information, only noise.

Consider a very simple example: a list of phone numbers. Some people would call that information. I would say that without the associated names, it it not information. And I would add that it is design’s job to make that name-number association useful by putting in alphabetical order (or whatever order the user would like).

There are is tons and tons of datum in the world. Most of it is going to waste because it isn’t being transformed into information. if you don’t believe me, look at what Hans Rosling accomplished with the right data and intelligent design.

(BTW, it’s a bit disappointing when a proponent of design engages a “neat” feature like a live preview for comments that literally makes it impossible to type quickly. I had to switch to a text editor to type my message and paste it in because the live preview was so unresponsive. Put your money where your mouth is and turn off that wizbang, useless feature.)

I’m working on a series of articles about the imminent death of social web design. It’s really a framework that’s outlived its usefulness, so 2004 with it’s squishing of everything humane into the tired overloaded term social, don’t you think?

And “design,” don’t get me started. We’ll all be human-touch-thing-planners within six weeks.

My then girlfriend, who studied (real) architecture at the GSD in Harvard and eventually became a certified architect used to scoff at the phrase “Information Architect” as early as 1996. Her argument was: I needed to go through a laborous education and certification procedure in order to be allowed to call myself an architect, and these people just patch it on to their job description.

To me, someone who calls himself an Information Architect is, sorry to be so blunt, a pretentious dick who tries to make their contributions to design look and sound more important than they actually are (in that, they actually match the common attitude of real architects who generally consider themselves at the top of the design pyramid). This term once might have raised one’s market value, but since nowadays everyone and their brother has much fancier job descriptions on their business cards than the job they actually perform in happens to be, it just sounds utterly ridiculous, only to be surpassed by the even more obnoxious term of the ‘Experience Designer’. As a matter of fact, this is the first Website/Blog on these matters which I come across that doesn’t drip with self-complacency and egos who are a bit too bloated for their own good. Given the vile reactions Joshua’s piece has triggered here it seems indeed that in the end it’s all a vanity issue and nothing more.

TN, this is not a blog about having a title of “information architect,” but just to let you know, most information architects have finished a master’s degree in library and information science. They also don’t hold on to the title for dear life. Many might call themselves Information Service Managers, Digital Content Librarians, Content Managers, Content Specialists, and so on. In this case, the term architecture only serves to create an analogy to refer to structure. When there is structure, there are also standards; these information professionals keep track and implement digital content standards that comply with NISO, DLF, W3C etc. These are probably the boring bits that most Web designers would gladly pass up, but they must be considered. You can usually tell the difference between a real information architect from a phony one by asking them about controlled vocabularies, thesauri, metadata, and taxonomies. If you get a blank stare, then you can go right ahead and call them a pretentious dick.

Thank you for your reliable post, that’s what i was searching for.

Very interesting article, but rather from a traditional designer point of view.

I see too many “User Experience Design” hijacked by “designers” who had no knowledge in “Human-Computer Interaction” and “User Centered Design”, but merely their ego-centric “design innovations” in the sake of “design”.

IAs by definition are not “information-centric” people as mentioned in the article, in stead, any IA will tell you “User” is always the first and foremost priority in any Information Architecture. UCD (User Centered Design) is the foundation of Information Architecture.

Back to the Physical metaphor of “Architecture”, any organized structural system requires architecture, whether it is a conventional building, or a really innovative cutting edge organic living structure such as the space station in 2050…In the same sense, any information system requires architecture in order to form a non-chaotic system, the work and process of creating this order is called “Information Architecture”. Designers should stop complaining and fear about the “IA-land grabbing”, and focus on the really design issue, which is how to make the interiors and exteriors beautiful.

I’m a Project Manager by trade who has been looking closer into “IA” to see what on earth it actually is, and why I should pay someone an excessive amount of money to do it.

I’ve come accross numerous sites all vague and filled with generalities, buzz terms and jargon. It reminded me a bit of the Project Managers who have read all the books but can’t actually manage a project. They have all the answers and use all sorts of terms that are central to the PM world, but in the end they find that they can’t actually manage the project. Just because someone knows how to use tools does not a carpenter make.

I guess I may be foolish to believe this, but I always felt that being a GOOD web designer involved designing for human experience, being a good web designer really enhanced the, as Microsoft has called it, “story” for the user.

The concept of the IA seems to be made up to compensate for designers who only create pretty pictures. This I don’t think warrents creating a new role, it warrents getting better designers.

There are many freelance developers/designers out there that do a fine job without having to bring in an overpriced “user philosopher” to tell them how to build the website experience.

This same thing holds true I might add for the role of Project Manager in these situations.
Am I the only one that thinks that we are adding uneccessary bloat to projects by putting too many cooks in the kitchen?

Do we really need all these people touching this – I mean, its a website. Its not nuclear physics, its not the worlds largest particle collider..its a website. we’ve all been on ones we like, and ones we didn’t. I think “IA” is becoming more and more ingrained in people. Charting and graphing it, doesn’t change much.

I then read some of the above posts and I couldn’t help but think that what I was hearing was “Derrida-esque” in that, it all was just jargon strung together, designed to collapse on itself under scrutiny, the linguistic equivalent of a house of cards.

The role of “IA” seems to be one more corporate created position that adds overhead to the project, and really provides very little to the end result. These things are, I believe nothing that a good team and a quality designer couldn’t have brought to the table on their own.

The role of the “IA” resembles to me the role of the “consultant” when they come into the company. They say the same thing that everyone else has been saying or doing, and get paid for this reiteration and creating a nice pie chart.

Perhaps I’ve had the luxury of working with great designers that already understand “IA”, I don’t know. What I think however is a different story. What I think is that the role of the “IA” is arrogent and is one of those high level filler positions that is not only unecessary but somewhat detrimental to the development of a strong team.

I’m eagerly awaiting feedback – someone, anyone show me in a clear manner that I’m wrong, and then provide me with concrete evidence about how a “IA” truely improved something over what the original team’s plan was.

I enjoy reading older articles like this, and see how reliable they turned out to be. Thanks for the good post!

The keepers of the IA gate would do well to think harder about Josh Porter’s post and comments like Capolan’s. It is a common sentiment out there. The personal attacks on the messenger reminds me of those who dismiss a usability participant for not getting their design. Their reactions are legitimate. We have to face the truth that the product really does have issues.

I’ve been designing products since before the library/info science folks planted the IA flag. I struggled to understand why IA wasn’t just a subset of what people like me were doing all along. (To Capolan’s point.)

Now I understand better the legitimacy of IA. IA to product design as plumbing is to a general contractor. Plumbing is a legitimate specialty, and some jobs need the specialist. To call it a specialty is not to denigrate it! But a plumber wanting to expand his business should expand his skills and his title, not the definition of plumbing.

That a crisp definition of IA eludes the profession year… after year… after year… should be construed as a hint that Rosenfeld’s flexible definitions have too much play in them. We all seem to agree that “small IA” is a definition that holds its own. Can we make it official?

When the definition of IA crisply matches the grain of the real world, the perennial controversy will finally die down.

I enjoy reading older articles like this, and see how reliable they turned out to be. Thanks for the good post!