[Sigia-l] Still Defining the Damn Thing

[Cindy Hoffa]

Just trying to clean up the odd breaks so this message has a chance at a
response. See message below.

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Richard_Dalton at Vanguard.com
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 1:29 PM
Subject: [Sigia-l] Still Defining the Damn Thing

I agree 100% with Christina Wodtke and others who have the opinion that
we need more definition of Information Architecture (and other related
disciplines). To 
that end I offer yet another definition (in what I hope is simple,
plain-talk language).

Comments and discussion are welcome - if you don't want to discuss it
(again) on this mailing list, then why don't those of us who do find
somewhere we can - 
suggestions welcome.

 - Richard Dalton

"Finding vs Using" - A User Driven Definition
=============================================

This debate is being discussed mainly within the context of Websites.
Users face (at least) 2 major challenges when using Websites: 

   1. Finding "things". 
   2.   Using the "things" once they've found them. 

I suggest that: 

   - Information Architecture is the discipline of organizing and
providing navigation to "things" in such a way that users can find them.


   - Interaction Design (or whatever you want to call it) is the
discipline of designing the "things" such that users can use them once
they've found them. 

I realize the term "things" could use some work - i'd loosely define it
as "content or functionality that helps a user complete their task". 

I would include the following within the realm of I/A: User Research to
identify discrete User Tasks, Creation of Mental Model Diagrams using
User Tasks, Content Inventories (including Metadata), Taxonomy &
Labelling, Searching Systems, "Traditional" Information Architecture
Diagrams, Page Layouts or Frameworks that
show placement of global navigation elements, etc, etc. 

And the following within the realm of I/D: User Research & Task Analysis
to drive Workflows of discrete User Tasks, Local Navigation (navigation
between  pages within a discrete "thing"), Page Design (selection &
placement of task specific Content or functionality on the page). 

There does not seem to be a huge of overlap in the skills used to
organize Information to help people find it at a macro level (cognitive
psychology, LIS?, etc) vs those used to help someone interact with an
interface (HCI, graphic design, etc).