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

[Nuno Lopes]

Thanks for your kind comments Melanie. Probably you can clarify some
issues to me. But first let me introduce myself.

Who am I?
My background is of Computer Science and Software Engineering, and I've
been creating and implementing Software Architectures for 10 years now.
One of the countless things that I've done is defining Data Models (thus
Data Architecture) for the system to cope with some information space.
All the software I've been creating falls into the category that I call
Web Applications/Sites. While doing this I worked with graphical
artists, writers, web designers, editors this just to name a few as the
scope of the applications differed greatly. My work as been mainly
within the Content Management / Document Management field (from
programmer to project manager, system analyst and software architect,
and later Global Technical Advisor for a software company).

Why I'm here:
I was on the CMS list when Avi Rappoport kindly posted some comments and
references about Faceted Classification. This indeed unlocked some of my
own barriers around modeling information structure (semantic structure)
as me an my teams of then were already hitting walls that traditional
data modeling could not break that easily. From writings around faceted
classification finding Information Architecture as a topic was easy. So
here am I.
So bottom line, my interest in IA is in structuring information that it
as been traditionally acknowledged as unstructured.

My excitement and delusion:
I have called myself a newbie more then once in this list, but to tell
you the truth I've observed that the type of most discussions going on
this list is basically a reiteration of discussions made over by
scientists in the 70's-80's around data modeling. I started wandering if
in fact there was something new in this all Information Architecture
movement apart from context. I believe there is, but I'm afraid it is
simply cultural at the moment except from a few groups of people (This
is an alert as probably some people on this list are not that original,
including my self). I think I'll stop calling myself a newbie as it
seams I've missed placed Information Architecture over may own
experience.

The Web is really amazing as it for the first time many professionals
from different areas suddenly have woken up to the problem of
Information Architecture within the scope of computer based Information
Systems. By this I don't mean that the scope should be of structuring
electronic information, rather then human vs machine interaction as both
go hand in hand. This energy is tremendous and inspiring, indeed.

What's next on my list?

*) When we discuss Information Architecture today is there an awareness
that we are doing it in order to build better electronic information
systems providing more effective automatisms, or is this just an
awareness of mine due to my preconceptions about the field? 

Melanie wrote:

>...Is this in the realms of IA as a discipline? I agree it may be in
the job >spec of an Information Architect but is it Information
Architecture? 

I honestly think that it is if electronic information systems are to
evolve. The reason why is that IMHO computers don't deal with
information (data + semantics or content), but with data stripped down
to an attribute/element based structure (the computer screen just tries
to hide the inadequacy of its internals). If the answer to *) is yes,
then work on the third group is paramount.

To give an example of this marriage and why it needs further discussions
I'll borrow Christina Wodtke post on "Findability is dead, Long live
ummm... Meaning?":

>> Speaking as former newspaper editor back in the day, structure is 
>> often intertwined with content.

>the ramifications of this haunted me as I watched the CMS talk at the
AIfIA >seminar at the summit. If we as IA's take apart content, removing
it from >structure, and chunk it into data bites, then repurpose it,
what becomes of >the satisfying whole of a page that a writer normally
crafts?

>It's writing by pushbutton, like design by pushbutton. And
design/writing >by pushbutton can't be as potent as a directed piece
made with an eye for >the whole.  How can we keep the writing from being
mediocre, if it is a >computer created combination of a set of modules
crafted to be >interchangeable? I believe this can never be as powerful
or as useful or as >elegant as a handcrafted piece of writing.

>Of course, not everything has to be elegant and powerful-- still, I
wonder >if we are remembering to make a judgment about what does and
what does not. 
> - CW

I must say that I look more like computer when I try to write in English
as I'm from Portugal, so please accept my apologies upfront Melanie and
be lenient to me regarding this fact.

Best regards,

Nuno Lopes