[Sigia-l] informationwhatever - glossary

[Stew Dean]

Hi,

Information Architecture has various flavours with library science
type approaches at one end but, from experienced, most information
architects deal with functionality more than information.

The standard role of an information architect is not what is described
by the polar bear book but is more to do with tasks and fitting
information around the task rather than the pure structuring of
information. In my view information architects are NOT librarians
nearly all of the time and only really become this when dealing with
large items of 'like' items, such as a online book store or dealing
with weighty indexing and search issues, and even then user task
dictates what kind of search or indexing is best to use not the
information it's self.

There are Information Science type IA's out there but they are very
much the minority, most are a mix of user researcher, business
analyst, and functional / interaction designer.



On 06/12/2007, minko mihaly <minko.mihaly at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, I'm a LIS student from the University of Szeged and we set up a
> little research group on informationwhatever, which means that we are
> examining the two component words whiches begins with information and
> creating a glossary of them. I choose information architecture and I'd be
> really curious about what you think what could be a short descrioption of it
> or  how many meanings (strongest) can be distinguished. I've three different
> at the moment:
> 1. Richard Saul Wurman's original meaning of the word, which is as I see
> basically information design
> 2. Information architecture as one component in the process of website
> development (based on Jesse James Garrett's elements)
> 3. The main topic, or the most explained IA itself as we percieve it
> nowadays (based on the Polar Book)
>
> I don't know if these are legal differentiations or this is a good way to
> start to create such a description.
> I would be really glad to hear your opinions and thoughts on this. Links
> also appreciated! :)
>
> Thank you!
>
> Misi
> ------------
> IA Summit 2008: "Experiencing Information"
> April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida
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-- 
Stewart Dean