[Sigia-l] Information Architecture 3.0

[David Malouf]

Wow, my experience is that IxDs are Sr. and IAs are Jr.
That IxDs are better trained in design methods and IAs either are
educated from LIS or have home grown careers mixed from visual design
or computer science backgrounds.

What is true is what you said that in practice in some spheres they
are pretty interchangeable. I.e. agency world. But again that says
nothing about disciplines (Don't worry Donna, I didn't forget you.)
But also, IAs don't do desktop software, kiosks, embedded software or
system design. These have traditionally been taught and done by IxDs.
This is where you go to Frog or IDEO instead of going to Razorfish.

I would say that IAs are better about communicating how to find
things, and IxDs are better about communicating how to do everything
else outside of finding; creating, manipulating, transacting, etc.

Let's also not confuse IxD for UI Design. UI Design is about the
details of widget design, while IxD is more about the systems that
utilize specific UIs.



-- dave

On 12/5/06, Olly Wright <olly.wright at mediacatalyst.com> wrote:
> On TuesdayDec 5, at 1:26 PM, Peter Boersma wrote:
>
> > Don't you think that IxDs have a similar foundation, set of practices,
> > approach and mindset?
> > Don't you think there are Big IxDs?
>
> To be honest, I personally use IxD and IA pretty much
> interchangeably. The description I gave is more how I've seen clients
> react to the titles, who appear to link IA more to strategy and IxD
> more to detail. In (my) reality I see around a 95% skill overlap and
> 95% role / task overlap. So yes there are big IxDs. But from a naming
> point of view we should very much consider our clients, since they
> are perhaps the main end-users of our naming schemes. This even came
> up in our team meeting today, where we raised the idea of internal
> names and external names (the idea was quickly squashed I should add).
>
> Really I see pretty much any role can be "big" or "small" in this
> way. As you seem to be saying too. It's really about the approach and
> skills of the individual.
>
> On TuesdayDec 5, at 1:26 PM, Peter Boersma wrote:
> > And I still think it is wrong for IAs to claim that their
> > profession makes
> > the more suitable to grow into an overarching role, and they are
> > the ones to
> > "speak with relevance, authority and value".
>
>
> Hmmm. What I mean is that much of the relevance, authority and value
> of a "big ias" opinions come from the foundation of "little ia" on
> which their experience is built. Referring to the suggested possible
> disconnect (in the euroIA summit), I don't see a big risk of that
> disconnect occurring because I think it is that connection that makes
> "big ia" possible.
>
> Olly Wright
> ------------
> When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
> *Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
> Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>
> Most presentations/papers and posters have been loaded to the IA Summit 06 website:
>
> http://iasummit.org/2006/conferencedescrip.htm
> http://iasummit.org/2006/posters.htm
>
>
>
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-- 
David Malouf
dave.ixd at gmail.com
http://synapticburn.com/