[Sigia-l] So, how did you become a [Information Architect|UsabilityEngineer|Interface Designer|etc.]?

[T. Karsjens]

I started "doing" IA about seven years before the Rosenfeld and Morville
book was published.  Way back then, I was putting together the interfaces
for hypertext-based CD-Rom applications for distance learning.  When NCSA
first launched Mosaic, I had a downloaded and compiled version within the
week as I was super excited about the implications of serving hypertext
interfaces via the internet.  Things snow-balled from there...

At the time "the book" was published, I was employed with a Fortune 100
company with many large applications already under my belt.  At the time, it
was a gigantic leap to go from "webmaster" to "Information Architect", as
the architect titles in the company were at six figures, and architects had
Masters or PhDs in COBAL and/or C.  There were few programs offered for User
Experience or Human Factors Engineering at the time, so no one could
actually *have* a degree in Information Architecture. 

For me, even the hat of information architect has never fully captured what
I can bring to a project.  Often, I fill the roles of Business Analyst,
Graphic Designer, Information Architect, Web Engineer, Usability Analyst and
QA all at once.  I have presented on the topic of "Interface Architecture,
Agile Methods, and You" many times, though not for several years as I got
very tired of the battle over agile with other Information Architects.  You
either get it or you don't.

I have a degree in psychology and art history (yeah, I know, nice combo,
huh).

Oh, and at the ASIS conference where we all decided to set up this list, I
was the guy that stood up and asked the presenter from AOL why he was not
making a differentiation between data architecture and information
architecture and maybe this was not the place to talk about the data
architecture of AOL.

So, to answer your question, Information Architecture sort of happened TO
me, instead of me looking at it and saying, hey, that is something I want to
do...

Timothy Karsjens

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Ted Han
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 11:02 PM
To: sigia l
Subject: [Sigia-l] So, how did you become a [Information
Architect|UsabilityEngineer|Interface Designer|etc.]?

Hey all,

I've been semi-lurking on the list for a couple months after
discovering the Information Architecture book that O'Reilly presses
puts out.  I've further discovered through what i've read there and
here on this list that IA is essentially what ties together what
interests me about the web (used to hang out in various interface
skinning communities, as well as being a psycholinguist by way of my
recently finished Bachelors).  While i've done web work, and i've done
programming, and i've done statistical work within the context of the
linguistics work i've done, i'm perplexed and a tad bewildered as to
how one ends up in IA.

Have you simply stumbled in from some other line of work, surprised to
discover that this is what interests you?  Did you set out and go
"usability is my -thing-." and go out and get a degree in something or
other?  How did you find out about IA?

Curiously, and appreciatively,

-T
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