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

[Ed Housman]

Yeah, I guess I have to agree with you.  It's not our job to retailor the way
information is stored, but to provide useful interfaces to it.

--Ed
--- Listera <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
> "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 
> 
> 
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