[Sigia-l] RE: first principals

[George Olsen]

Jesse James Garrett said:
> "Like the editor, the information architect is concerned most
> fundamentally with creating information structures.

Jesse beat me to the point I was going to raise, it's not just about
information retrieval (aka findability) but also information structuring.

This is one of the key differences with LIS. There was a good essay (in
the ASIST newsletter?) comparing information architects and librarians.
While obviously librarians _can_ create classification schemes, they
typically work within them. In contrast, IAs spend typically create
classification schemes and aren't as worried about working within
standardized schemes the way librarian do.

There's a third field that IAs other work in as well -- structuring
presentation of information for understanding and navigational
orientation. What Tufte calls information design and what Wurman called
information architecture when he was doing print work. Needless to say, it
overlaps with work done by UI designers and visual designers.

So there are (at least) three clearly defined areas:
* information retrieval (findability) - Overlaps with LIS

* structuring information - both findability _and_ to promote
understandability - Overlaps with content strategy, editing and writing
(with the greatest similarity to writing and editing done for
publications.) However, content strategy typically focuses more on
understandability and less on findability.

* information presentation - understanding and navigational orientation -
Overlaps with graphic design, specifically the subfield of "information
design" within graphic design. Also overlaps with UI design, but with a
focus on dealing with content rather than functionality.

> At last year's IA Summit, I gave a presentation entitled "The IA of
> Everyday Things"

Oh you mean design? <g>

George