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

[Thomas Vander Wal]

On 3/30/03 6:55 PM, "Peter Merholz" <peterme at peterme.com> wrote:

> [GUT = Grand Unified Theory. From physics, where some physicists are hoping
> for a single underlying theory to describe everything.]
> 
> The "meaning" thread and the "spatial/semantic" thread exhibit something
> very telling. I know it occurs to me after most every good conference I go
> to. My head's filled with ideas, and I think I'm Just Around The Corner from
> Figuring It Out. 
> 
> I've been sketching out some models for information architecture, that try
> to relate Information As Space, Information as Place, and Information as
> Shape (I haven't tried incorporating Thomas Vanderwal's Information as
> Charged Particle.) I've been desirous of merging facets and ontologies.
> Employing RDF and FOAF. (The power of the Relationship emerged at this past
> summit.) Amy's work on controlled vocabularies ought to settle THAT once and
> for all. 

The Model of Attraction (http://www.vanderwal.net/essays/moa/), I think does
a good job explaining all of these elements in a GUT.  The MoA is a
framework to think about and explain the relationship of information to
users and other information.  I believe it also goes beyond "seeking" and
"recognizing" information (in the phases of attraction) as is findability
and into knowledge gaining ("retaining/storing") and addressing how to think
about how a user will reuse the information, including keeping the
information near them ("following").

The MoA provides four receptors for us to think about how information works
with users (human and mechanical) and the information preparers.  The four
receptors are: Intellectual (Cognitive); Perceptual (Sensory - Visual);
Mechanical (Digital); and Physical (Devices).

Think of Attraction like a charged particle that attracts opposites (what
the particle does not have).  The particles have receptors to attach other
items, but not all items have the same attraction.

> Because, really, isn't information architecture just some practice of
> 
> Understanding the goals of the user
Understanding the various cognitive interests and receptors the user, as
well as their sensory, retention, and following needs/desires.
> Understanding the goals of the organization
Framing the purpose of the organization will also help influence how the
information is prepared and presented.  Does the organization want to
educate (push the user to adopt their terminology or view -- often an
Intranet aims for some enculturation), sell, inform, entertain, etc.  A user
may have various cognitive and sensory cues for different types of
information that prepare them for
> Managing the Stuff that is created by the org to support those needs
> Systems for organizing that Stuff to facilitate finding (thesauri,
> taxonomies, cvs)
> Systems for labeling that Stuff to ensure understanding (and not just in
> English!)
> Systems for encouraging semantic processing of that Stuff (facets,
> ontologies)
> Understanding when to use metaphor (at the outset, to orient the visitor),
> and when to ditch it (pretty much immediately after that, let the Stuff
> speak for itself, in all its complexity)

All the above are examples of different methods of allowing information to
be attracted to itself.  Unfortunately these attractions are not
self-organizing (wouldn't that be wonderful -- someday).   These are also
systems to help information be attractive to the users of the information in
a cognitive manner.  Cognitive attraction spans linguistic understanding,
rhetorical presentation, writing style, information structure, etc.

A thesaurus is a means to attract the user to the desired information using
terms that are attractive to the user, but not used in the actual
information.  These extend the receptors and attraction.  Search is a
mechanical attraction tool that draw like pieces of information together and
the thesaurus extends the possible attractions to information that many not
have been draw to the user based on the user's terms used.

> Providing cues for navigating this Stuff
Should be structured browsing?  Structured as narrative, hierarchical
categories and links, etc. Based on how the information is held together
(attracted) or can be reassembled into other groupings of information (in
whole or microcontent attributes) that have like relationships.  The
structures can also be semantic (cognitive) or visual (sensory) to represent
relationships.

> Not letting navigation dictate the organization of this Stuff

Hopefully the MoA would allow for building better information browsing
structures.  This may depend on what attracts the user.  Should we have the
resources it could be possible to build more than one means of attracting
the user to information.

There is much more but not the time to respond this morning.

Essentially, the MoA is a framework to think about the attraction of users
to information based on the user's attractions.  The MoA helps us think
about grouping information and presenting information that will allow the
user to be attracted to the information.  But the MoA also helps us think
about how the user will interact with the information and reuse the
information.  The MoA also provides a framework for thinking about how a
user will keep the information close to themselves in their rough cloud of
information that allows them to access the information when they need to
access the information.

All the best,
Thomas