[Sigia-l] Everything is Miscellaneous

[Peter Morville]

Stew,

I generally agree with you on point one, except that in some contexts (e.g.,
a site like www.cancer.gov) the primary function is making a large
collection of information more easily findable. But, on the Web 2.0 projects
I've worked on in recent years, for instance, function comes before
information, and I sometimes feel more like an interaction designer than an
information architect (but don't tell anyone that :-)

I'm not quite sure what to make of your tropical fish metaphor...but my wife
who is a traditional librarian would agree with you that I'm not a *real*
librarian. Cheers!


Peter Morville
President, Semantic Studios
http://semanticstudios.com/
http://findability.org/

 


-----Original Message-----
From: Stew Dean [mailto:stewdean at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 10:05 AM
To: Peter Morville
Cc: sigia l
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Everything is Miscellaneous

Peter,

I have to say that as an information architect my day to day job is about
function first, not information.  The function of what ever project you are
creating informs the form the information needs to take.

Information architects are not librarians in the same way people who keep
tropical fish are not fishermen.

In short Information architects are really interaction designers in a way
that separates us from specialisms such as visual design.

Had to get that off my chest.

Stewart Dean






On 03/05/07, Peter Morville <morville at semanticstudios.com> wrote:
> I've written up a brief book review...
>
> http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000167.php
>
> ...of David Weinberger's new book:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Miscellaneous-Power-Digital-Disorder/
> dp/080
> 5080430
>
> I don't agree with everything, but I'd still say it's a must read for 
> information architects.
>
> Special Bonus: Everything has IA definitions :-)
>
> "Information architecture - the art and science of organizing 
> electronic information." (47)
>
> "Information architects - the professionals who design the 
> organization of and human interface with information." (165)
>
> Cheers!
>
>
> Peter Morville
> President, Semantic Studios
> http://semanticstudios.com/
> http://findability.org/
>
>
>
>
> ------------
> IA Summit 2008: "Experiencing Information"
> April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida
>
> -----
> 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/
> ________________________________________
> Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org Changes to 
> subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>


--
Stewart Dean