Recently in IA-UX Category

Wow, I really should stop waiting 6 months between blog posts. So much has changed since May... including my location... twice.

Anyway, stumbled on an interesting and personally relevant post on UX Design Education through my morning reads.

The UX Design Education Scam

If you emerge from university today with a web design degree, chances are rather slim that you're employable as a user experience (UX) or web designer. Maybe you learned a lot of stuff; it's just probably the wrong stuff. Congratulations, you've been defrauded. Hope it didn't cost you or your parents too much.

Ok, I don't exactly agree with the tone of the post, and the opening seems a bit harsh, but I have had many ups and downs with my own higher education that I may agree with a few points. I don't think every UX job requires higher education, I don't even think every UX degree will prepare you for every UX job. I do believe that some people can thrive in higher education though, and it's not inherently evil. It's just a different way of looking at things.

I was quick to say "never again" after my first Master's degree that it may seem strange my decision to go for a second one. There were many factors in my decision. Being unemployed for a year was difficult (I was bored and struggled to find purpose each day). Knowing that I was nowhere near where I wanted to be professionally was another. Also feeling slightly let down by my MLIS was one more. I didn't want another library job either. One thing I knew before I entered my degree at Wayne State was that I didn't want to be a librarian, I thought my Information Management direction would help guide me where I needed to be, but it didn't. I took a short detour there. Of course, there were also reasons I went for that program when I started and I can't say it was a wasted experience, it was just a progression to the next thing.

I'm pleased with my decision to go back to grad school for a UX Degree, but because I just finished another Master's Degree I think my perception of what I need to be doing to get where I want to be has changed drastically in the last year. My course may have hints of old-skool academic thinking, but there's still a flexibility there to go my own direction that I never had with my MLIS (I tried at WSU, but still felt weighted down by the narrow library-minded curriculum). Please note: I'm not bashing WSU, the program was not horrible, and I am still very passionate about libraries, and I always will be. It just wasn't for me. My certificate in Information Management was new and still finding its legs. I was in the first group of graduates to leave with that certificate, and after a year of job searching in my desired field it was apparent where I should've been focusing my energy in graduate school but didn't know at the time what I needed to be doing.

I'm also pleased with my decision to come to Kingston University for my UX degree. I know the program I chose here in London does not exist in the US. UX focused degrees are often placed in Information Schools in the US. I already have one of those degrees and I didn't want another. I am part of a unique mix of students from not only vast ethnic backgrounds, but also varied educational backgrounds. After watching several presentations from my classmates yesterday I realized just how creative and inspiring this group is, including people from backgrounds in art, development, research, and games design.  These are people I know I can learn from and continue to be inspired with.

Only a week after being in London I had a job interview at a very large company. I didn't get the job, but it was my first interview in over a year. It was also my first interview for an IA role. I was nervous, and I was a little unsure of why I was even there, but I tried to stay as positive and as confident as I could about it (just a side note, I didn't apply for the position, I was contacted through LinkedIn and asked to interview so it was an unexpected surprise for me). The interview was a personal benchmark for me. The feedback I got back said that with another year of experience they might be interested in seeing me again. Before that interview I had no idea where I stood in the field I wanted to work in.  Because I'm enrolled in this course and I know I'll be working on great projects for at least the next two years, I know this goal is absolutely doable for me. I can't expect to get everything I need from a graduate program, but I know it has been the right decision to help me focus on my goals and to update my skills.

I don't think UX Education is a scam, but I do think, at least in my case, it is what I need to find my confidence again.

Just a little cross promotion on the blog.  I've been happy to attend a few meetings now with the group Refresh Detroit which is part of the Refreshing Cities initiative.  I've enjoyed attending these meetings because the group consists of a variety of web professionals (designers, developers, and information architects) who are committed to promoting usability, accessibility, and web standards in their work.  Normally the group meets in Ann Arbor, or thereabouts, and at a previous meeting it came up that the group has never actually met in Detroit (despite the name reference).  I offered, through the Wayne State Chapter of ASIS&T (which I've just started my service as President of the organization) to try to find a Detroit location for the group's October meeting.  Well, with the help of several individuals in the Wayne State Library & Information Science Program, we were able to get some space to host a Website Demo Night in Detroit with the group.

I'm looking forward to attending, especially since I work in the same library where the event is hosted and I only have to walk up one flight of stairs to get there. :)

If anybody is interested in attending or even demoing their work you can find more information on the Refresh Detroit website.

Just a quick post on this, even though I know I should be writing a lot more on this blog right now!  I'm at IA Summit in Miami, Florida this weekend (yea!) and I anticipate a great time here.  Anyway, I decided to set up my Twitter account with hashtags, thing is I noticed that there are 2 tags already set for the conference and I didn't like either one of them!  The two were #iasummit and #iasummit2008.  I liked the idea of putting the year in there, but honestly I'm too wordy on Twitter and those two extra numbers in #iasummit2008 would probably make a huge difference to me.  So I have introduced #iasummit08, just to be difficult, of course...

But, in order to monitor what's going on with all 3 tags I have also added each to a category in my Google Reader for IA Summit 2008, and what's even better is I shared this and now have a public page that is aggregating all of them set up.  I think there is even a feed for this page so if others want to track all the tags via RSS it looks pretty possible.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like I can put this feed on my Crowdvine profile for the conference, which would've been cool, I've used up my Blog/RSS feed space and the rest of the options are for services...

Anyway, mostly just playing around.  Not sure if anybody is really going to be using Twitter a lot here, but it's fun to play...

Another link posted on TechEssense.Info (mentioned earlier today) was about how a design firm, Maya Design, designed and developed the information architecture for The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh website. I still have to read through all of the great information on the site and on the design of the physical spaces, but just glancing at their website you can tell that it's awesome.

The first thing that struck me was something that I hardly see in library websites...people! In the top right hand corner of the website is the text, "Ask A Librarian" with a picture of a women. I clicked on the link...another person! Did you know that using pictures of people on your site makes users feel more welcome on your site? It's true. I just thought it was amazing that this sort of thing seemed out of place at first for me, especially since I've seen and helped design many sites that do incorporate images of people.

Oh well, the site is pretty good, it's worth checking out...

Library Journal also featured IA and Library Building Design in an article mentioned on the Maya site. I'd like to read through both of these soon...

Technorati : architecture, ia, information architecture, libraries, library, physical space

TechEssense.Info has a nice post about Information Architecture Books and Resources . I wanted to point it out because I've read a few of these and I'm reading one now so I can support these reads.

Since I've left my former job for a friendlier and less-stressful job in library land, I don't read the swarm of usability and information architecture literature I used to read.  My eye caught this article on KMWorld.com though. 

Does information need architects?

Yes, yes, yes, hell yes it does!

It's a great article, with a great sense of what IA is and how IAs are viewing themselves (or how they're not).

What information architects do is actually pretty straightforward. Gene Smith, a noted information architect who doesn't call himself an information architect, began one session by stating (approximately) that information architects structure shared information spaces. Their oft-cited prototype of a well-architected information space is Amazon.com: Not only can you easily navigate to what you want, you can find what you didn't know you wanted. It's also clear what information architecture is distinct from: It isn't Web site design and layout, which should instantiate the design laid out by the information architects. And it's not traditional library science, which has focused on the rational organization of information more than on our electronic interaction with it.

This is quite an accurate description of how I worked and how I viewed being an IA.  I loved being an IA (and I still do) because I actually felt like I was solving problems in creative ways.  I was using what I knew about web design or information science and applying that new ways, but I certainly didn't feel like a web designer.  I couldn't design my way out of a paper box if I had to...architect on the other hand...

IA is a gray area world for me.  I look at it like a cousin to librarianship, and it's unfortunate that their paths don't cross very often too.  Reading this piece, however, made me realize that the perceived problems in IA and librarianship are not that much different from one another...the only difference is that traditional librarianship has been around a lot longer than IA has.  IAs come in many shapes, sizes, and experiences.  I certainly know which one of these I am:

the dividing line among information architects is real. One group tends more toward control and using expertise to create a structure that should work the same way for every user. The other tends more toward flexibility and enabling user interaction to determine the structure of the site and the content of the answers.

I'm the second for sure, I think user interaction and content should direct every project.  I wonder if we can track these groups into the type of background an IA has though...

In part it's because the constituency of information architects is diverse. Some come out of library science. Others come out of anthropology and sociology. And others have a webbier background...

So now that I'm not technically an IA anymore, do I still call myself one?  The answer is yes, mostly because I still feel like one...I think it's in my blood actually.  I've given some thought as to whether I would like to go back into doing the job again and the answer here is yes and no.  The more I work in the library the less I want to go into a corporate environment, however the more I work in the library the more I realize that libraries need IAs too!  It seems a bit ironic to me actually, but when I look at so many library websites I think to myself, "I would do this, this, and this differently".  Then I think to myself, "how can a job that was created by librarians not be utilized by librarians?!"  I think a lot of libraries undervalue and underappreciate their websites and this is a huge mistake in my mind.  A library's greatest asset in our technological future will be their website, it's not just about the design but also the organization.  Image if you were to walk into any branch library where the librarians just randomly put books away on the shelf in no particular order...you wouldn't do that to your collection, so why would you do that to your website?

technorati tags: ia, information_architecture, librarianship, library, library_science, web_design