[Sigia-l] Pick a theory (was "IA and Semiotics")

[Andrew]

Hi Chris,

just on the "nostrum extraction and re-use within IA" concept...  I have 
taken the following principles from various religious mystery traditions 
and used them with a range of information presentation and organisation 
tasks:
- Everything is connected, more or less.
- As above, so below - the microcosm (individual system component) is a 
reflection of the macrocosm (the whole) in some way or another.
- Boundaries are artificial constructs that we place upon problem sets 
to make them manageable - they are no less artificial for this. To name 
a thing is to change it.
- There are many layers, in both scope and complexity, to every issue.
- Every man and woman is a star - each is a piece of the whole, with 
something to teach, and something to learn.

I am happy to discuss both the practical and philosophical implications 
of these principles :)

Cheers, Andrew Boyd

Chris Fox wrote:

>Once could also extract IA nostrums from Deleuze, Jung, Freud, Skinner,
>Hegel, Spinoza, Derrida, Leibniz, Kittler, Aristotle, Levi-Strauss,
>Plato, Heraclitus, hey, why not even Kabbalah or Tao Te Ching. And I'm
>only being a little bit (and playfully) sarcastic. Not intending to take
>potshots at the discussion so far--I think it's interesting. I honestly
>do see possibilities for all of the above to inform one's practice as an
>IA in some way, as well as semiotics and semiology. But that's where the
>point really comes...as practice. 
>
>To what extent would any concept borrowed from of these theories change
>a design decision I made about what goes where in a digital environment,
>or how it's done, or how users interact? Let's imagine statements in the
>form of "When theorist X makes statement Y, I applied the inference X'
>to design problem Z in the following way." Then let's imagine validating
>those statements by deploying the designs in the contexts where they are
>used, and then observing how they operate within those contexts. In my
>opinion, that would be the method by which we could explore a
>theoretically informed IA.
>
>Unless...In the same way that architecture "proper" starting in the late
>70s allowed for the possibility of purely theoretical architecture,
>would anyone ever carry out information architecture specifically NOT
>for the purpose of it being implemented and used? But what would that
>mean?
>
>Christopher G. Fox, Ph.D.
>Principal Consultant
>Logical Design Solutions, Inc.
>            (www.lds.com)
>
>
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