[Sigia-l] History of "Information Architecture"

[Tony Brown]

Hi all,

Can someone educate me or show me a pointer on the history of the term
"information architecture" and how it came into existence?

I remember being asked about the term by a dot.bust consulting agency back
around 1999.  It is now a common phrase as we all know, but how did the name
evolve and field evolve?  Are there schools that now offer a degree in
Information Architecture?  The people that I'm talking to that refer to
themselves as IA's seem to have a very mixed background.

I come into the discussion from a human factors and usability engineering
perspective with 15 years of history in that area.  We were doing user
interface design on DOS-based applications and Windows-based applications,
but nobody called that "information architecture" and it was considered UI
work.  If anyone can share some history on this topic I'd appreciate it.

            - Tony

Tel. 781-729-8055
tony at softplex.com