[Sigia-l] Information Architecture 3.0

[Stewart Dean]

> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 07:38:08 -0500
> From: dave.ixd at gmail.com
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Information Architecture 3.0
> 
> Stewart, I just want to take this piece on:
> << Being an IA is NOT all about organising information!  And this is
> why many have been trapped in a web of confusion - the job title now
> poorly defines what an IA does but is now the defacto label that is
> understood by others that defines a user eperience specialist.  I for
> one am not looking to change this, just be aware what the label is
> USED for. >>
> 
> This is so not true. I don't know what you do for a living and I don't
> know you at all, but the truth of the matter is that outside the
> agency world, the title IA is not all that prevalent and even many
> agencies are beginning to remove the title IA from their work:
> Digitas, Modem Media, R/GA to name a few. Why? I don't know for them,
> but I can hypothesize that they see that IA doesn't speak to the fact
> that they are doing more than structuring information as the title
> suggests and as the history of the discipline and practice has been,
> but telling stories around the behavior and use of systems within
> context. Since Bill Moggridge in the late 80's and early 90's this has
> meant IxD.

Can I say that using 'IxD is one of my personal pet hates. One of the failings of many user experiences is it that they use coded terms, so to code the term Interactive Experience Design (which I presume is what is meant by that) I find not realy practicing what you preach.

Now to get the gist of what you are saying you are saying that many Agencies are stopping using the term IA. That's fine if they know how to fit an IA into the work, but then some agencies still have creative directors, the better ones work without one.  It's also worth pointing out that in the UK at least that all agencies are not the same, you essentially have the design and build shops and you have the promotions shops, to over simplify.  The promotion based agencies are more likely to have creative directors and produce microsites and campaign driven sites, whilst the design and build are more likely to do the large site creation tasks that borders on the work of larger consultancies (but tend to deliver real results rather than expensive powerpoint presentations).  This is based on working for about twelve of the top ten UK agencies - and yes I did mean what I just said.

Personaly I''m happy with the stop using the term IA as most agencies arnt doing IA work in it's tradition sense, just user experience design.  This is why my CV reads Information Architect / User Experience Specialist.  I've seen many many titles float around and I don't want to go back down that path again as it's fairly pointless and very very old.


> Then! I don't think that people in IAI want to agree with you either.

What makes you think that?  You appear to think I'm at odds with the agencies I work with, that's not the case.  I am interested to see what others think but I don't really see you point.  Information architectures don't really do half the things you find in the polar bear book. 

> The IDEA conference in Oct was an example of how IA practice is used
> outside the web sphere. It was great from what I've heard.

I think you're getting confused here. I'm not saying IAs can't contribute to what others do and certainly would never claim the other way around. I'm saying that Information Architect is a web/Internet term, it's a feild that came up because of the Internet and is part of the overall umbrella of a term that is User Experience Design.   

> Last point ... If IAs are about the web, then what happens when there
> is no more Web?

They work on other interactive media.  No brainer.  Some folks who have only have done web do have problems shifting, like for example web designers who design interactive kiosks often don't create large enough 'button areas' or don't indicate where to click - anyone on London can see a bad example of this in the Tate Modern at the moment.  As I did a degree in interactive systems and have worked on several different types of media, including some 'traditional stuff' I know the skills of an IA are transferable - it's just the term IA gets left behind.

As I said - other areas user IA type skills but the titles change outside of web. Inside web the titles often change as agencies try and be unique and funky. It's the work and process that is important, i.e. user centered design processes.

Stew Dean