Pat’s Point of View

Hot off the press is my latest article The Many Faces of Information Architecture. Here’s a taste:

A lot of confusion and misunderstanding surrounds the term ‘information architecture’. The multitude of activities that can be labelled with these two words span a vast variety of people, skills and situations. [...] A precise definition of each term would be difficult, as there is still much debate even among the professionals who practice in this field, and that is not the objective here.

What is needed is a primer to help ordinary humans weave their way through the various labels that might be used to describe work related to information architecture.

To engage consultants or contractors, it is useful to understand the variety of terminology and be able to identify the area (or areas) in which you need assistance.

I wrote this article because I found myself explaining to my clients, the different flavours of work that come under the banner of IA. Most people have either a highly specialised view—whereby I couldn’t do XYZ because my business card said ABC—or they took a very wide view that ignored any specialisation, assuming that an IA-ish person could do everything.

It was a fine line to tread, because on one hand I didn’t want to split hairs, for example if I design the way in which users interact with a web form it might be best described as Interaction Design but is it really a crime to call it Information Architecture instead? On the other hand, people do get into all sorts of trouble by using one term when they really mean something else. Which is why the article includes a bit of a cop out:

While this paper attempts to explain the different labels being used for areas of speciality in information architecture, the key to success will always involve explaining exactly what it is you expect to get from a potential information architecture professional.

It really is the best solution; spell out exactly what you want done (or what you do if you are a practitioner) so there is no misunderstanding. By all means you can use a label such as Information Architecture but make sure you back this up with a plain English description.

The other thing I wanted to explore was the overlapping nature of these terms and the activity they represent. Even if you could distinctly define Information Architecture, Information Design and User Experience Design, there would definitely be overlap. My attempt to illustrate this is the lovely circular orange diagram you see in the article :)

I am expecting this will be a fairly controversial, which really serves to highlight the ambiguity surrounding these terms, and the difficulty people have when they try to use these terms. But that’s OK. If you disagree with anything I’ve said in the article, please write a comment below. Hopefully this discussion will help educate non-practitioners, if nothing else.

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