| Sections |
| 1. |
Intro
|
| 2. |
Trends
|
|
- Bottom-up
- It's The Content, Stupid
- Models in Design
- Working with Clients, Not
At Them |
| 3. |
Future
of Information Architecture |
| |
- The Spread of "Good
IA"
- Data Analysis
- IA Playing Nice in the Sandbox
- Library Science Impacts Agency Information Architecture
- Data-Driven Information Architecture
- Professional Affiliations for Information Architecture
- Further Specialization
|
| 4.
|
Pain |
| |
- Business Savvy
- Ill-defined Roles and Responsibilities |
|
|
| Future |
|
This stuff ends
up feeling a lot like the "trends" stuff, but I
distinguish them as being not au courant, but where
the field will be in a couple of years.
Please keep in
mind that these are notes. I was hoping to get something up
more polished, but this ain't it.
|
| |
| The
Spread of "Good IA" |
|
There are two elements
I see as fundamental to the spread of "Good IA"
practice throughout the world.
- Good IA principles
need to be 'baked in' to site development tools
- We need to approach
Information Architecture as a discipline, not a job
The former is partly
addressed by the notion of "Data-Driven Information Architecture,"
mentioned below. The next step will be to take such IA and
place it within content management systems. By baking in best
practices, we'll make it easier for anyone to produce adequate
information structures.
The latter point
was initially raised by Andrew
Dillon (dig that "thoughtful statement" pose
on his home page!) when he noted that while he sees a field
called "Information Architecture," he's not so sure
there's really a job called "information architect."
(His analogy is that while we have "user-centered design"
you never hear of "user-centered designers.")
The idea being
that information architecture becomes an approach toward managing
your information, a set of processes and methods undertaken
by anyone. While this notion scares professional IAs ("What?
You mean you'll have just anyone architect a Web site? But
they don't know what we know!"), it responds to the reality
that there is simply far too much information in the world
to be managed, that folks throughout an organization will
be creating information architectures whether they're aware
of it or not, and that our best hope for ensuring widespread
quality is to educate people on best practices.
(This thought also
spurred in me a wonder as to whether we'll begin to study
the difference between "professional" and "vernacular"
information architecture, the way that we have with real-world
architecture. I hope so--studying vernacular architecture
has taught us much about how people really live; vernacular
IA might teach us how people really organize their information.
Andrew did some work in this direction with his paper on genre
characteristics of home pages.)
|
| |
| Data
Analysis |
|
It never ceases
to surprise me how Web sites aren't aware of their own usage
statistics. As data analysis tools become easier and real,
measurable success becomes more important, the practice of
information architecture will become increasingly informed
by usage data, and the information architecture of web sites
will need to flex to accommodate what people are actually
doing.
|
| |
| IA
Playing Nice in the Sandbox |
|
Perhaps less about
IA than it is about internet product development, optimizing
how these various disciplines interact will become of paramount
importance. IA's actually have a leg up here--for whatever
reason, we're process junkies, and since so few others are,
we will inordinately influence how products get made.
|
| |
| Library
Science Impacts Agency Information Architecture |
|
This may (or may
not) come as a surprise to many of the LS people in the IA
world, but up until very recently, the impact of hardcore
library science has been negligible in how information architecture
has been practiced by agencies claiming a specialty in the
discipline. Agencies have had a huge impact in spreading the
gospel of information architecture, and in those organizations,
IA grew out of the "design for understanding" approach
of graphic design, with no knowledge of the work being done
in information retrieval, taxonomies, thesauri, etc.
Thanks in large
part to the efforts or Lou
Rosenfeld and Peter
Morville, and their participation in the ASIS Summit and
the Argus Center for
Information Architecture, agencies increasingly understand
the importance of library science rigor in developing information
architectures. They'll hire university graduates of "information
architecture," and add thesaurus and taxonomy development
to their design processes.
|
| |
| Data-Driven
Information Architecture |
|
One of the more
foolish aspects of Web site development are the umpteen different
formats used to express the same dataset. A typical project
might use Visio, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Word,
Excel, and lord knows what else to simply allow the expression
of the same data in many different forms--flowcharts, wireframes,
prototypes, specifications.
Some folks, like
Michael Kopcsak, are
working on developing data-driven information architecture
tools; these would be products that draw from the same dataset
but allow it to be viewed in myriad ways. By allowing quicker
and smarter IA with live data, these tools could help advance
the discipline in ways similar to how CAD changed architecture.
|
| |
| Professional
Affiliations for Information Architecture |
|
Through the ASIS
Summit and other conferences, it's been clear that a information
architecture community exists, and a likely outcome will be
the development of a professional organization to represent
the discipline. What's not clear is the shape such an organization
will take.
ASIS isn't the
only organization trying to claim information architects as
their own. The AIGA, through its Advance
for Design efforts, vies for much of the same talent pool
(calling them "experience designers"). Concomitantly,
local information architecture and user experience interest
groups are springing up across the country, sometimes affiliated
with an existing organization, but often just a motivated
group of folks who wanna talk shop.
Personally, I'd
like to see what happens through the networking of local independent
communities. I think it might be wise to not take on the burden
of an existing professional affiliation and develop one that
directly addresses the unique needs of this burgeoning discipline.
|
| |
| Further
Specialization |
|
Christina
Wodtke raised this during the Q&A for the panel--she
cited the historic role of "Webmaster," which became
fractured as the requirements for maintaining a Web site grew
exponentially. It's becoming clear that no one "information
architect" can excel at all aspects of information architecture
(particularly if you group interaction design within IA).
There's some contention
as to whether or not this is a good thing; I think that, as
it was for the benefit of the medium to specialize out of
the "Webmaster" role, it will serve our field to
have focused experts.
This will require
more and more "directors" of information architecture,
folks whose responsibility is to manage the efforts of a group
of specialized IAs in order to produce the best product possible.
|
| |
| |
| |
|