Defining information architecture
20 December 2007 Patrick Kennedy of StepTwo has published an excellent summary of the many faces of information architecture.Bruce and I have talked a bit recently about how IA seems to mean different things in different countries and in different industries. We've noticed that what people mean and expect when they use the term 'IA' can be highly variable, and this is one of the few useful explanations we've seen of how all these practices can be seen to fit and work together.
I'm not so sure the split between the skills and outcomes and the faces of IA are as clear-cut in this country, or other countries, as Patrick states, but it is certainly a useful tool to help people determine what skills they made need when putting together a project team, for instance.
In New Zealand the term IA seems to be connected strongly with the IT industry and systems design, which is unfortunate because it cuts off a whole raft of what I'd call 'information design" skills that organisations can benefit from in an IA person.
It would be good if Patrick's article helped change some thinking around IA in New Zealand.
Labels: IA, information design
posted by Greg on Thursday, December 20, 2007,
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Defining information design
04 December 2007 TCANZ have provided some useful definitions of information design, in the Issue 11, April 2007 edition of their Southern Communicator journal.I was re-reading some old articles and found this good definition of information design by Greg Pendlebury and Janice Leong. The journal is for members only, so have reproduced it here.
Information design = Users + Content + DesignThey also provide a good definition of an information designer:
Information design is a discipline that focuses on communication design where the information is needed to support a user in some action, decisionmaking or process. It is a collaborative process of research, writing, design and testing.
Information designers are content developers that may have a background in writing or in graphic design or in user research. They work across all of these areas in solving communication problems. Information designers work to understand the users, the context and the information required. Information designers strive to be advocates for the users.They certainly do.
Labels: information design
posted by Greg on Tuesday, December 04, 2007,
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