[Sigia-l] IA Toolkit (was: IA system components)

[Livia Labate]

> Christina Wodtke wrote:
: In my experience, stringent highly structured methodologies breakdown and
: get thrown out, while highly flexible toolkits of skills and techniques
: are better suited to the wide variety of problems that come our way.

I have worked with a similar approach - specifically because my niche is the
SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) world, where abrupt budget cuts and
absurd time constraints are rule, not exceptions.

When Arno Reichenauer pointed out some 'components of an IA system' relevant
to working an interactive system, there were other issues not addressed
such as business background and user research. Though he explained this was
not the scope of his research, I believe they are also components of the
IA toolkit.

We could try to discuss this IA Toolkit without further ambitions such as
forming a methodology or defining anything - more like a survey-conversation
of what are the main skills and techniques (as Christina pointed out) in our
practices.

*My* IA toolkit is composed of items I like distribute into 3 main
categories which help me delegate the work among team members (since IA is
everyone's job not just Information Architects'). The groups are: strategic,
tactic and operational - following traditional Business Levels of skills,
techniques and responsibilities. The toolkit should help you answer the
questions "What do you do?" & "What are your skills and techniques?"

> Strategic
- Business Background Research
 (understanding client operations & motivations)
- Product/Service Background Research
 (understanding what the system will sell)
- Benchmarking
 (understanding competition & partners practices & malpractices)
- Project Planning
 (defining goals, building, development, maintenance & evaluation items)

> Tactic
- Audience Analysis and Definition
 (user research, def. target-audience, creating personas, scenarios, etc)
- System Requirements Survey & Definition
 (functionalities necessary for the system to work)
- Content
 (definition, gathering, creation)

> Operational
- Organization Systems
 (classification, taxonomy, hierarchy, system structure)
- Navigation & Labeling
- Search Requirements & Methods
 (controlled vocab, meta info, etc)
- Continuous project evaluation
 (tweaking the problems that arise during project evolution)

Several of these items will co-exists and can certainly be described with
much more detail; I just wanted to take a 'snapshot' of what the toolkit is.
I would like to hear everyone's thoughts and descriptions of your own 'IA
Toolkits'. No need to get into detail, let's just see what we can identify
as 'common practice'.

Livia Labate

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