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
