A Repeatable Kind of “Magic” – The Art And Science of Aligning Business Goals and User Needs with Information Architecture

If you build or buy enterprise software, you know that even with the most painstakingly-detailed requirements documentation and most adroitly-lawyered scope of work, your project is still exposed to risk. The product you ship may meet or even exceed the functional requirements you defined for it, and may pass all manner of QA processes and still not succeed with customers. Other projects that seemed doomed from the first napkin doodle and which were scoped on the same napkin end up succeeding. Why? How can we know with more certainty (and repeatability) that the products we’re building and the user experiences that result from their use will be good? In this 40 minute talk, Dan presents three critical concepts from the discipline of Information Architecture that software developers and business stakeholders alike can apply to their work immediately to attain results that not only look good, but which are good.

I’m delighted to have to talk about IA with this audience. Also, I’ll finally get to meet Chris Woodruff, who I’ve followed on Twitter forever but never met IRL.

Can we say that Usability, User centered design,
Information Architecture and interaction design fall under the umbrella
of User experience design?

I offered a perspective on Rohit’s question. Wonder how this’ll land

Hi Rohit,

What follows is pretty parsimonious, but I suppose that’s what email lists are for?

There are some folks who use Use Experience as their umbrella construct or philosophical approach to the making of communications systems and artifacts. For these folks, “doing the information architecture” is a project phase or part of a project phase, one that is sometimes blended with “doing the interaction design.” And all of it is done with the experience of the user as the drum major at the front of the parade, and experience as the explicit designed-for outcome. Their business card says whatever it needs to say – they’re not hung up on titles, but instead are passionate about users and about how to make stuff that’s awesome by prizing experience in the design and development process.

There are also some folks who are called User Experience Designers, who see User Experience Design (capital D) as the name for the umbrella and as their preferred name for the nascent field of practice. Many of these folks used to be or would have been called IA or IxD in a similar job 5 years ago. They use UXD instead of IA or IxD because that’s what we call it now, and see the other initials as more or less interchangeable but less advantageous in conversation, publishing, tribal identity etc.

More exotically, there are some folks who (still) use Information Architecture as their umbrella construct or philosophical approach to the making of communications systems and artifacts. For these folks, the work is about understanding, and the philosophy is that understanding precedes action. Their work is akin to the work of other architects, only the structures they create are made of information. In shaping the forms that comprise the structures of an information architecture, they’re balancing and aligning business priorities, user priorities, aesthetic implications, matters of choreography… And all of it is done with Understanding as the drum major at the front of the parade, and performance as the explicit designed-for outcome. Their business card says whatever it needs to say – they’re not hung up on titles (ok, some of them are), but instead are passionate about the “what” of their projects and about how to ensure the stuff they work on is awesome by providing structures of language and information which enshrine the “what” of the project or enterprise in ways that designers and developers can then work within as they come up with the “how”‘s of the project.

Best wishes,

Dan K

• Part One
• Part Two (Repost Coming Soon)
• Part Three
• Part Four

SI658 Information Architecture
In 1998, two graduates from the University of Michigan’s School of
Information were awarded best “computer” book of the year by a
relatively unknown online bookstore called Amazon.com. Their book was
(and still is) called Information Architecture for the World Wide Web,
and its authors are widely regarded as the “founding fathers” of IA.
Or at least, IA as it came to be understood and practiced by the
people who designed and built the first few generations of large scale
websites and intranets. With the dawn of the Web 2.0 era and a rising
tide of web design practitioners embracing a broadly-shared identity
under the umbrella concept of User Experience Design, perspectives on
the role and definition of IA continue to evolve. This course is
designed to teach students the core principles of information
architecture, provide opportunities to apply and push back on those
principles in a variety of realistic contexts, and develop — as much
as we can in a single term — a broad understanding of the world of IA
work and the diverse opportunities to do it (or sound smart talking
about it) in the “real world.”

Here’s the class website, although it does not yet reflect the instructional design for Winter 2011, which is the 8th time I’ll have taught it at UM SI.

Eight times now.

Wow.

=======

Position Statement: IA and IAI Could Be Much Muchier

I’ve spent the first third of my career (depending on how you do the math) as an information architect enjoying the benefits of membership in the Institute, having inherited a fertile field within which to grow and develop my practice and point of view.

As I look ahead to the next third, and to the third which follows, I’m confident that people like me can continue to do interesting and rewarding work that’s deeply informed by and tantamount to information architecture. That being said, I have a number of concerns about the current disposition of the field of IA. I believe that many clients, analysts, business leaders and even other “web professionals” have lost the thread when it comes to IA. I believe that IA began as and can continue to be something “much muchier” than what it is widely understood to be and mean today. I’m very fortunate to have an “iSchool” teaching gig that provides me with some influence to shape individual practitioners’ perceptions of what IA is, where it came from, and where it’s going. And I’m currently developing the plans for an IA archive, symposium and exhibition at the University of Michigan School of Information, all of which is predicated on the idea that it’s good and important to raise the profile of IA and enhance its influence in academia and beyond.

Boldly, I will confide to you the voters that I desire additional influence.

I aspire to be instrumental in the leadership, policy-making and programming of the IAI for the next two years, and to steward this responsibility in ways that bring meaningful and enduring benefit to the field of IA and to practicing and prospective information architects. And while I believe that the IAI’s forums and events ought to be compelling enough to draw interest and attendance from related disciplines and acronyms, I think a(nother) seat on this board that’s always asking “what’s in this for information architects” and “how does this advance the profession of information architecture” can make a significant difference in how the Institute presents itself, serves members and positions its events and annual conference. Mr. Unger and the departing boardmembers have made operational improvements and have laid or strengthened the foundations for a number of important initiatives. I believe that the time is ripe (given the unprecedented number of open seats) for bold action to leverage this excellent foundation and then tighten the focus of the IAI to be… wait for it: Information Architecture. Bridges to related disciplines are good, but I have to admit that JJG’s remark in Memphis still stings me:

“the IAs are so busy declaring peace that they don’t even realize that they’ve already lost the war.”

This doubling-down on IA for IA’s sake is something that I would seek to make happen via respectful discussion and democratic voting processes among the members of the board. If the majority of the board is content to keep the rudder approximately where it’s been for the previous term with regard to the IA-centricity and posture of the Institute, I would be content to act as respectful troublemaker, requiring the majority to at least see and possibly understand what an IA-centric way forward would look like when it’s poised to move in a different direction.

Full disclosure: if you elect me to this board and the other directors collude with me to advance this Much Muchier IA platform, I think we should expect that the Institute will lose some members who’re put off by a bolder IA-centricity and posture on the part of the IAI.

I’m OK with this.

I sincerely appreciate being nominated to and being considered for election to the IAI board.

Dan Klyn