[Sigia-l] I Want My GUT of Information Architecture!

[Chris Chandler]

"Nuno Lopes" wrote:


> Hi Chris, thanks for your post.
>
> >That sounds good to me!
>
> Excellent.
>
> >... there have been numerous messages (even a new list) about
> communicating to >business, all of which reminded me that a lot of the
> value I bring to the >design process is as a communicator, facillitator
> and outsider.
>
> I don't see that as a differentiator but one of the artifacts of being a
> consultant. System Analysts, Project Managers need to be that as well.
> At the level of responsibilities that I'm talking about being a
> communicator, facilitator and eventually an outsider (although stake
> older are often poor facilitators) is a mandatory requirement.


My experience is quite different. I've worked with several consulting firms, and with quite a few internal web teams,
and there is generally an appalling lack of "user centeredness" at any level.


> >I think we have a tendency to talk about focussing on the needs of the
> >"user" in a way that glosses over how difficult and central this is to
> what >we do, and how different it makes us from other members of a team.
>
> Shouldn't that be the prime concern of a Software Architect and System
> Analyst too? I don't really get how that can be different without
> further context.


Yes it should be a prime concern of the Software Architect and the System Analyst (if those two roles exist as such on
the particular team) and if it is a prime concern for those people, the completed system is of a naturally high quality.
Again though, I've worked on plenty of teams where the only concern for the "user" was to squeeze more cash from them or
to make them stop complaining.

Like I said -- I think we tend to gloss over the part of our job that makes us focus on the use. As if it's such an easy
thing that all we have to is give it a name and anyone can do it. It's actually not natural for most people.



> >NOTE: I >am NOT saying other members of the team don't, can't or won't
> have >this >fundamental orientation, just that it is "baked in" to what
> I do as >an IA.
>
> The word usability has been used in this list in many different
> contexts.
>
> If usability is about human Vs machine (system) relationships then the
> art and science of User Interface engineering have been studying the
> topic for ages taking into context many different types of devices
> (involving Interface Designers, Cognitive Psychologists etc). I guess
> that people are awaking to usability problems of Web based systems and
> wrongly call the solutions "Information Architecture" in most cases.


I don't understand what you mean by "wrongly call." My title right now happens to be "Information Architect" I not only
get to participate in usability tests, I often have a deliverable around the results. My boss gives this work to an
Information Architect -- who am I to tell him he should change my title or hire a usability engineer.




> >"Playground" is a good word for what goes on here.
>
> I don't understand what you mean by this, please can you clarify?



Well, I think it works on a couple of levels. A lot of what goes on in a public discussion forum is similar to what goes
on at a playground.




> >Let me ask you this -- would you consider the last five years of
> marketing >material for a consumer product company structured or
> unstructured?
>
> I don't know. It depends what you mean by structured or unstructured. If
> you use the word structured referring to semantically structured, then I
> would argue that it is already structured, you just don't know the
> structure enough to map it in the best manner to an electronic system.



I agree that it was semantically structured -- that was part of what I was getting at.





> If you are talking about structured in physical terms probably it is
> unstructured unless the content is basically formed of data. The basic
> difference between structured ands unstructured information when it
> comes to its physical representation is if there is an explicit
> structure or not. For instance the content of a form is basically
> structured although it may contain some unstructured parts.



Physically, it had a low level of structure.




 >In any event, I added more "structure" to it when I modified the
> existing >structure based on other sites in the same 'genre' and
> designed a faceted >browsing mechanism for the product line.
>
> Have you modified, added structure or created a structure around it
> towards some objective? If you modified than I guess you changed the
> information structure not the information it exposes. While doing it I
> guess you created a new structure around the information exposed by the
> site but your approach was indeed ennovative if you tackled semantics
> without modifying the inapt structure of information available.


Actually, I wasn't going for innovative, I was going for "works by Jan 1." Luckily, the architecture of the previous
site was truly inapt, so it wasn't hard to improve.

My real point was just that I often work with "semi-structured" data, even if I just call it the "highly professional
pile of junk" from the marketing department. This is my 'playground' as you put it.







You
> mentioned faceted browsing mechanism, what do you mean by this? Have you
> used a mechanism based on Faceted Classification? My question is due to
> the fact that all browsing is faceted.


Seriously, I'm the last guy to argue semantics. All I meant was that you can now easily browse the product catalog using
three different facets, which I developed using the method of Ranganathan, and the database guy recreated it using his
own preferred language and tools.






> >Perhaps this is too inexact and informal to satisfy the challenge to IA
> you >pose above.
>
> Not at all.
>
> >but I believe IA is at least as much craft as science.
>
> Humm, do you really mean that at the present state of the art?


Art is another interesting word. I don't believe IA will ever or should ever become a science.


> PS: I don't really care if you are an Information Architect or not, that
> is simply a title, tell me what you did and how you do did it, I think
> there might be were the innovation is.


You know... I walked around the conference handing out business cards that said my title was "knowledge choreographer"
and "wisdom engineer" and no one even batted an eye.

-cc