first principals (was Re: [Sigia-l] moving beyond first principles: how?

[Jesse James Garrett]

Hi everybody -- I'm back from a week of travel with limited e-mail
access and catching up.

Christina Wodtke wrote:
> Here is a straw man for you

Great, let me find a match...

> 1. Information Architecture is primarily concerned with Information
> Retrieval.

Honestly, sometimes I think you say this stuff just to get a rise out of
me. You're too smart to actually believe this.

> 2. Information Architecture cannot be done effectively without and
> understanding of business and user needs.

Sure.

> 3. Just because you are an information architect doesn't mean everything you
> do is information architecture.
> 4. Just because you aren't an information architect doesn't mean what you
> are doing isn't information architecture.

Yes, absolutely, to both.

> 5. Every site, moreover every digital content collection has an information
> architecture. It's possible non-digital and non-content spaces may also have
> one.

My advocacy for the origins of IA in non-digital content is long
standing and well documented. Not sure how you can have IA without
information, which is what "non-content spaces" means to me.

> 6. There is no such thing as a classification inherent in the content--
> classification comes form context, including culture.

This seems weirdly specific -- not all IA work is classification work.

> 7. There is no such thing as an unbiased IA. But we have to try anyhow.

There's been a long thread on this point, and I'll just chime in to say
that an unbiased IA is rarely the goal of my work. It's always a
question of which biases to apply in which proportions.

> 8. Information wants to be free, but people like to be paid.

Cute, but I don't really know what it means.

> 9. A profession that values naming and labeling will continually have
> semantic arguments.

I'd hope that a *mature* profession would be comfortable with a degree
of ambiguity about itself.

> 10. IA's parents include Lou Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Clement Mok, Edward
> Tufte, Drew Miller, and Richard Saul Wurman. You have to read the polar
> bear, and preferably the 2nd edition.

I'd rather not have a canon, thanks. I say take what you find valuable
and leave the rest. Wurman, for example, is damned interesting stuff
that has virtually no application to the problems I am asked to solve.

> 11. You have to value search and browse and their relationship, and moreover
> be able to design for that relationship.

Again, true but weirdly specific.

> 12. There is always more than one way to organize a group of anything, but
> there is always one best way given a unique content set, unique user base
> and unique business needs.

Not sure I buy this one. I don't have a strong sense that there is One
Right Answer to any given IA problem.

> 13. IA is an aspect of design.

No. IA and design are both areas of creative problem solving. Design
does not encompass all forms of applied creativity.

> 14. IA can be taught, but good instincts are invaluable. Honed with
> experience, they are priceless.

I have some slight reservations about the "IA can be taught" part -- IA
can certainly be *learned*, but perhaps not from a teacher -- but the
point about instinct is right on.

________________________________________________________________________
Jesse James Garrett                                   Now in bookstores:
jjg at jjg.net                            "The Elements of User Experience"
http://www.jjg.net/                         http://www.jjg.net/elements/