[Sigia-l] History of 'Information Architecture'

[Pradyot Rai]

> 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.

UI design, Graphic Design, Navigation and the whole process of building
the interfaces was called dead by this new school of thought. They wanted
to present the idea that it is not the 'interface' but all about the
'information'. I remember this term first coined by people in
consultancy/boutique shops during the 'dot-com' era. In the begining it
was merely a marketing thing, however it has grown out of shape and
proportion. If you ask people to show up any example of IA, you will also
be given examples from 'Product Design', 'Interactions design', and all
about 'Usability Engineering'.

Prady