[Sigia-l] Role of designer eroded?

[Olly Wright]

I might suggest a significant factor between the success of Facebook  
and the comparative decline of MySpace is that one has good  
information architecture and the other doesn't

Olly Wright



On 17 Jul 2009, at 18:39, "Skot Nelson" <skot at penguinstorm.com> wrote:

>
> It seems like commonly this misconstruing of the role of IA in Social
> Media revolves around confusion of job titles, roles and
> responsibilities. In this case the difference between "Information
> Architect" and "Interaction Designer" often comes up.
>
> Social media or not, information still needs structure. When you build
> social media you create a platform within which users create and
> interact with content. The platform isn't wildly open ended: it has  
> limits.
>
> ONE of the jobs of the Information Architect role is to define (and
> design) this structure. The limits within which your users interact  
> are
> a part of its Information Architecture? (i.e. Facebook's decision to
> provide a "box" within with all apps run rather than providing a set  
> of
> tools which full screen apps could insert into their interfaces as  
> they
> see fit, for example.)
>
> The overall deliverables of the Information Architect are still valid,
> though they may look dramtically different than the deliverables of a
> non social-media site.
>
> Interaction Design is more substantial with social media than with
> flatter sites. I almost said "more important" but recanted: it's  
> always
> important, but sometimes it's a bigger job because there's more
> interaction...
>
> The Information Architect may take on tasks which have more
> traditionally been done by an Interaction Designer but that doesn't  
> make
> you less of an Information Architect. (I for one always saw the line
> between those two roles as being about the blurriest a line could
> possibly be and no one's every provide a knife edge sharp distinction
> between them for me, except in VERY specific project contexts.)
>
> Visual Design (or Graphic Design) is another conversation altogether.
> FWIW, I only enjoy working on projects where Visual Design is  
> considered
> equally important to Interaction Design/Information Architecture.
> Without a viable partnership, it's all just a house of cards.
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