[Sigia-l] RE: Web Standards and I.A.s

Thu Apr 8 12:20:51 EDT 2004

   Using styles for IA needs creates some questions.
    For example: 
     1. Class is not the only way how to specify styles and pretty often
it is not the best way.
        And IA usually is not the person who makes decisions how to
create styles. 
        So, to rely on specific way to specify styles (like class name)
IA have to at least supervise
        this process on all stages.            

     2. What is more important for your project: ability to select all
<h2> elements with class "facet" or
        create styles in the best way to provide page layout? Solutions
to achieve these goals could be different. 
        It's better to have an answer from very beginning.

     3. Consider cascading effect of CSS.
        Any setting could be overridden buy another setting which is
specified in another CSS file or directly in html file.
        And it could be done without any reference to existing class
name (by using element's id for example).
        So, if you need just to select all elements of particular class
it will work, but if you are also interested in 
        specific settings it's not reliable.

Pavel Trebukov

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Thomas Vander Wal
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 8:42 AM
To: Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com; sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] RE: Web Standards and I.A.s

Lyle,

Yes, we largely agree.

In short Standards impact IAs very little, but having developers that
use Standards provides an IA the ability to have their vocabulary for
the information structure adopted and integrated into the semantic
structure of the pages or application screens.

The benefit is much clearer communication across disciplines.  Most IAs
that I talk with have problems with their work being adopted and their
input being desired through out the life cycle.  I know as an IA, which
is the primary hat that I wear even with broader responsibilities, the
work we perform is and should be the foundation for the information
structures.

My formal education in the 80s drove this home as an communication major
focusing on organizational communication (enterprise communication
structures, advertising, PR, communication management).  There is very
little in IA that was not covered in that environment, hence IA has been
the foundation of my approach to nearly everything I have done in my
professional career, the only thing that has changed is what people call
it, the growth in the community around these skills and toolsets.
Building taxonomies, ethnographic studies to build persona, etc. are the
foundation for any development and I have been working to build this
mindset into all the developers I work with.

Standards can be and should be a common language for IAs to
communication to the designers and front end developers.  Many who
develop with Web standards also use the semantic capabilities in their
attributes, which adds greater granularity to just the proper tags.  For
example a site built on an IAs taxonomy that identifies sub-headers can
be facets, categories, or external nomenclature can see the designer or
developer use <h2 class="facet">Region</h2> to distinctly add semantic
understanding to the presentation layer for the information.  This
permits other users to modify their CSS to only view the facets in the
interface or to mechanically scrape the facets.  This provides for our
work as an IA to be used not only in the information storage and
retrieval, application development, enterprise information taxonomy, but
also the front end application layers.  Our hard work as an IA can now
be used as the foundation for a common and clear communication across
all information disciplines in an organization.

I am not disagreeing, but extending the view.

All the best,
Thomas

On 4/8/04 12:23 AM, "Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com"
<Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com> wrote:

> Thomas,
> 
> You seem to have taken my terse comments as a dismissal of Web 
> Standards
> - sorry if I wasn't clear enough.  You make some good points, and I
> agree with the spirit of what you've said.  My points were the
> following:
> 
> 1) Information Architecture goes beyond Web (sites and applications on

> all types of platforms and devices)
> 2) Web Standards do little to standardize the practice of IA or the 
> Information Architectures that Info Architects create.
> 
> I did NOT say (and wouldn't say):
> 1) IAs shouldn't embrace Web Standards
> 2) Standards don't matter
> 
> I'm a strong proponent of web standards and have championed validation

> and compliance on internal development teams, with tool vendors, and 
> in public forums.  Web Standards helped make the web what it is today,

> and only by leveraging standards (official and de facto ones) can we 
> continue to build powerful platforms for information technology in the

> future.
> 
>> Web standards are for the top level presentation structure and
> presentation.
>> IAs, at least most I know work on information structures, which are
> the
>> foundation for web sites, applications, enterprise information
> systems, etc.
> 
> Markup languages indeed provide some structure for content.  HTML's Hx

> headings for example - but heading tags don't provide a *heading 
> system* for an information system, they only provide a way to 
> delineate what is a heading and what level of heading it is.  As I'm 
> sure you know, IA involves much more than document level structure.
> 
>> Taking the
>> taxonomy we developed for the structural elements in our evaluation 
>> of
> the
>> information and having that taxonomy for the structure used by the 
>> developers and having that vocabulary used by developers is actually 
>> practicing what we IAs preach.
> 
> You make a good point that IAs who can speak a common language with 
> developers are more effective.  That's very true in my experience - 
> but that concept also applies beyond developers.  The common language 
> might be technical (programming language, web standards), 
> methodological (RUP, UCD, project management) or business (marketing, 
> branding).  What "common language" is most important for an IA to 
> speak: Java, RUP, Brand or ROI?  What should an IA's first language 
> be?  A technical one or a business oriented one?
> 
> CSS Zen Garden is an awesome site (and an example I've been using in a

> class I teach for some time) - but in my opinion CSS relates more 
> closely with Interaction Design and Visual Design than Information 
> Architecture.  IA is more than interaction and visual style.  Do IA's 
> practice ID and VD (unfortunate acronym that one)?  Sure they do, but 
> CSS is still just a tool in a toolbox.  It's like a scalpel to a 
> doctor
> - it's useful, but in and of itself it doesn't make the doctor very
> effective - as a matter of fact, it can do more harm than good in the
> wrong hands.  Which brings up my next point: I can develop
applications
> that validate against every standard that exists, but that doesn't
mean
> that the IA is a good one or that the system is very usable or useful.
> 
> The upshot of all of this is really that web standards are great - 
> good IAs will promote and comply with standards.  But they are not a 
> silver bullet.  And if I'm "picking the right battles" - I'm going to 
> battle for IA practices and User Centered Design and leave the "we 
> need to be 100% 508 compliant" battle for a much later day, even 
> though I care a lot about accessibility.  The reality is that 508 
> compliance has a lot less business value (in my industry) than 
> building a good navigation system or search system - and we are always

> working with limited financial, time and political resources.
> 
> Web standards are too low level to really be considered a major *IA 
> tool*.  Most architects have to develop their own internal
> (project/application/enterprise) standards and patterns for IA 
> components and systems.  Those standards may be implemented and coded 
> using technical platform standards like Web Standards, but those 
> technical standards only help just so much.
> 
> 
> 
> Most building architects won't argue against electrical building 
> standards, but you'll never convince anyone that building standards 
> make it easy to design a good home or office building.  And sure, 
> architects need to be able to talk to the construction folks using a 
> common language, but it's probably more important (to a successful end

> product) that they be able to dialog with the folks who need the 
> building built or who will use it.
> 
> IA work goes beyond document structure (i.e. markup), interaction, and

> visual styles and addresses with bigger structures (e.g. taxonomy) and

> semantics -- Web standards don't go very far in those areas.
> 
> I think we're in "violent agreement" on this one.  You're saying the 
> glass is half full and I'm saying it's 90% vacant (even though it 
> validates).  :)

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