[Sigia-l] Re: New Web Accessibility & IA Organization in Boston (Listera)

[Listera]

"Ed Housman" wrote:

> But the boundless collection of information held by an enterprise, though
> duplicative, contradictory, organized into special-interest files, probably
> having different data elements and logical connections, filed in different
> forms and and in different languages, ... despite all that, this mass of
> information has a structure.  Perhaps it is part of the responsibility of
> information architects to understand the mass of information and make it more
> orderly so as to enhance interoperability among nodes.. and promote efficient
> flow of information among nodes.

Sure. But there's a fundamental difference between operating at the (raw)
level of info and operating several levels of abstraction above it. We are
not in the content creation business. We don't generate info; authors,
artists, and even algorithms do that. In that sense, we don't design the
info itself, we design how it's consumed by the end user. We are the
designers of interfaces, categorization, navigation, branding,
interactivity, etc. that connect the info with the user.

In fact, in well-designed systems it's preferable to not concentrate on info
at all, but abstract it into templates, which are the conduits for the info
to reach the user. The underlying info may be transient, templates are not.
This is why designers use greeked fonts or lorem ipsum placeholders during
prototyping, so as not to be distracted by info but focus on the conduit.
That is, they are designing the interface not the (underlying) info.

If, for example, you are compelled to call a chef a "food designer," I don't
think you'd be implying that he engages in salmon farming, seed
preservation, genetic engineering or cattle breeding. To put it all in
simplistic terms, we operate at the meta level, not at the info/data level.
Confusing the two is not very helpful.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba