[Sigia-l] Less Spatiality, More Semantics?

[Chris Chandler]

In his provocative panel presentation for the fourth IA Summit in Portland, "Wayfinding and navigation is digital
spaces" Andrew Dillon took the field of Information Architecture to task for it's fixation on "spatiality" as the
primary navigation model/metaphor, and suggested that we would do well to spend more effort creating navigation systems
based on the harder, but 'neglected' area of "semantics."

(He also said he didn't think this was really defensible, which I presume means it was intended to generate debate and
provide food-for-thought. It did and it has, done both for me since Saturday.)

To be honest, at first I thought this was intended as a joke. I mean, for as long as I can recall we have bickered among
ourselves over the "meaning and interpretation" (i.e. semantics) of the words Information Architect(ure)!!!!

And then I thought, 'what the heck else are the results of card sorting exercises and taxonomy creation BUT creating
navigation systems based on semantics (at least insofar as the meanings of words are in part determined by their
relation to other words)

After mulling this over, I've decided I don't really understand what Andrew 'meant' (heh) by his use of the word
'semantics' AT ALL.

I'd be interested in people's thoughts.

-cc