The Rockstars Aren’t Wearing Any Clothes at connecting*the*dots

November 20th, 2002

The Rockstars Aren’t Wearing Any Clothes

The gist of the recent AIfIA debate centers around the proactive rock stars of the information architecture profession who have been defining the field for the past few years. And you know you hate them on one level or another.

C’mon, they’re librarians!

They’re the same people that shushed us in middle-school and watched over us in detention. They’ve no sense of humor about the title Moby Dick and would rather sort books than get a ray of sunlight. Now, while we work away on projects of all types—trying to hone our overall interactive skills and live a balanced life, their dreams of librarian stardom have kicked in… hard.

The little IA theory has gained so much traction over the past two years, any conversation of Big IA has lost it’s validity backstage within the community; Information architecture has become a discrete entity, separated from interaction design, UI design and information design.

Sure, it’s part natural evolution, but doesn’t anyone remember the time frame of this transformation? It began take hold about six months prior to the great consultancy collapse of 2001. During the La Jolla IA convention, I spent time listening to a woman from (now defunct) Scient going on and on about how interaction design comes into play when you work on a web application and information architecture when you work on a web site and sometimes… you need both on one project.

Sure, that makes sense in the rigid definition we’ve assigned such skills and titles, but in reality it made more dollars and cents than anything else.

Most consultancies billed out IA’s and ID’s at a rate of over $250 per hour at the time. The bloated industry was calling for specialists, and our Rock Stars (management included) were more than willing and able to provide it… for a fee. Now the ultimate venue, the MSG of IA, has supposedly arrived in the form of AIfIA.

With the industry all but collapsing on itself over the past two years, some things have become apparent, with the most visible being that the true need for such specificity is rare.

Just look at some of the specific IA shops that have since shut their doors. Big IA or User Experience Designers (UX) are needed now more than ever (in this economic climate).

So why is it that Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree haven’t yet emerged from the sorting room and observed the big picture?

To me, it seems that they might be so enthralled with the information architecture moniker, that they would rather lead the IA troops into the business world overly prepared to created a bottom up, contextually navigated, collaborative filtered on-line realm when the outside world is nowhere near ready.

It’s like bringing a canon to a fist fight; you’ll probably be knocked out before you can load your 100lb charge.

Creating a UX foundation, working top-down, if you’d like, detailing the specific roles once the real ROI goal — user/client experience — is defined, might make more sense than pushing IA as the end-all-be-all, but hey, I’m just a 9-5 working IA/ID/UX garage band guitarist… what do I know?

Tags: AIfIA, evolution, experience design, information architecture, internet, La Jolla, librarian, methodology, Moby Dick, Scient.

11 Responses to “The Rockstars Aren’t Wearing Any Clothes”

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1 Dan Saffer Oct 16th, 2005 at 8:25 am

I don’t think it’s quite so black and white as this. Two of the recent IA books (”Blueprints” and “Elements”) were more about what your typical IA deals with every day than just library science stuff. Sure, Lou and Peter are pushing library science IA, but that’s what they are and what they do. The problem is, there’s no balance. It would be nice to see more people like Alan Cooper out there pushing the other aspects of user experience more, and more interaction designers and user interface designers (and people who do all those things) taking their place alongside the library folks.
2 spcoon Oct 16th, 2005 at 8:41 am

That’s exactly why I think solid, general practitioners, such as Jesse and Christina, should be concentrating more on creating a unifying unbrella (UX) organization that speaks to the “Big IA” issue, than getting lost in the “Little IA” shuffle. Strictly speaking, by their own job descriptions (adaptivepath.com and interaction designer for Yahoo!, respectively) they don’t “work” as IA’s, so why help start up AIfIA, whose most public players (Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld) have already defined the evolution of “information architecture proper” since Wurman let the term drop back in the day? Why not follow their true callings as user experience designers?

I must be off a bit as all work is good work, no matter the title or the oranization, because it’s just semantics anyways, right? Wrong.

Imagine a world five years from now where there are numerous established graduate programs strictly for interactive designers. These multidisciplinary degree programs will prepare the Masters candidate for the industry by infusing them with Alan Cooper’s touch for interaction design, Edward Tufte’s preciseness with information design, Brenda Laurel’s flavor of interface design, team Argus’ flare for information architecture and Janet Murray’s imaginative spirit. That graduate would be prepped to become an auteur of interactivity. Five years ago, we might have called that person an IA. The interactive design world has changed since, and UX designer is now the closest fit to such a description. So why not prep the client world for our emergence now?

I understand that Jesse and Cristina are “doing” IA, as opposed to being “called” IA’s, and we’re all in gray space here when it comes to affiliations. But a foundation in the name of IA will merge those differentiations quicker than ever before. The question then becomes: will you fit into the eventual description espoused or will you pop out into the flux of the “ID” worlds?

Semantics aside, I strongly feel that the sooner we accept, and support, a true multidisciplinary role in this field, the sooner we’ll be able to make engaging, intuative, communicative, moving, productive interactive experiences the norm instead of the exception. At the end of the day, that’s my only motivation to participate in this field. Well, I also need to pay my rent. And buy cool gadgets. But that’s it. Really.

(Originally posted as an apperceptive.com/uxDesign team post at 3:26pm on 11/21/2002, this has been attached as a comment for archiving purposes)
3 peterme Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:02 am

First: I can’t speak at all for Christina, but I can speak a little bit for Jesse. He has done work toward an umbrella UX organization–he’s attended the last two AIGA Experience Design Summits. Also, well, his book is called The Elements of User Experience. And all of us at Adaptive Path are definitely interested in promoting a UX vision.

That said, I think it’s a mistake to this there’s not value in really focusing on “little IA.” I take as a case in point my friend Chiara, who works at PeopleSoft on their websites. She’s a “little IA” — focused on issues of information retrieval, controlled vocabularies, indices, labels, navigation schemes, etc. And she’s kept very busy every day.

The problem has been that folks have appreciated the true and awesome depth in “little IA”. They’ll do the occasional card sort, taxonomy, etc., but they rarely remain focused on the deep information needs of their site. Chiara shows to me that there is more than enough in “little IA” to keep a person busy, and that the value of focusing on it reaps huge rewards.

(Originally posted as a comment at 11:44am on 11/22/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
4 spcoon Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:08 am

I’m sure that Jesse is holding fort for UX (being that’s how you guys put food on your plate), and it’s really never a bad thing to be involved across the board in this industry, especially as UX encompasses everything. I just find it a bit strange how we’ve narrowed the description of IA (role and function) from 1997, which included UI, Interaction, Information Design to today’s [narrow definition] of “little IA.” Now AIfIA has come to fruition through such a cross section of people with varying job descriptions and backgrounds, why go back to the original all-inclusive vision of IA responsibilities now?

“Little IA” IS extremely powerful and in the best examples (Amazon to name one) makes the web an amazing communicative experience. So is AIfIA positioning itself to strengthen the “little IA” stance or water it down? I guess that’s what I’m really wondering. I’d rather see it strengthen via people that do “Little IA” than weaken that perspective by including generalist viewpoints. Unless, again, we go back to the old school vision of IA (more UX). Then this whole arguement becomes moot.

If “Little IA” is now “IA” then lets accept that 100% and focus on strengthening a generalist viewpoint, methodology, skillset, etc. outside of IA. That’s really why I’m landing on the UX wagon so hard now.

(Originally posted as a comment at 1:14pm on 11/22/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
5 Dan Saffer Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:15 am

But what are we going to call these people? Experience Designer sounds ridiculous and I can’t see getting corporate buy-in on that. The term Information Architect has some traction, and it’s not too bad…

(Originally posted as an apperceptive.com/uxDesign team post at 2:27pm on 11/22/2002, this has been attached as a comment for archiving purposes)
6 spcoon Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:22 am

Well, here’s the conundrum as I see it:

IA has moved to a more specialized field of work. All of our UCD process diagrams (i.e. jjg’s diagram –> book) make an explicit point to call out information architecture as a step in designing the structure of a content heavy site (as opposed to ID in an application). So we are already operating under the assumption that multiple disciplines are used to design an interactive site/system. By selling that UCD process to corporations and clients alike, aren’t we making a statement about what our roles are? How about when we’re not working within a multidisciplinary team of designers? Something doesn’t match up. In essense, I feel that most of us are working closer to a UX design role than as a pure IA.

All I’m saying is that if we’re going to sell our skills under the methodology umbrella of user centered design, the title “user experience designer” is not too far off that path. We just need acedemia buy in. IA has it’s place, I just think that we can make a case for UX as well, especially now in the era of multi-hat corporate job descriptions.

(Originally posted as an apperceptive.com/uxDesign team post at 3:06pm on 11/22/2002, this has been attached as a comment for archiving purposes)
7 Lou Rosenfeld Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:25 am

Sean, it’s great that you’re landing there; I’m more and more there myself. But it doesn’t seem like your concerns are really about the AIfIA at all, despite what you’ve written. You seem more worried about what the term “information architecture” means. If you’ve landed on UX, why not just use that moniker from now on? It sounds like that’s where your interests lie, and certainly that’s what your job is requiring of you.

I’d love to see people start other organizations, if they see a need: for whatever their preferred flavor of IA is, or for UX. It’s a free world, and I wish people would remember that instead of taking constant potshots at those who do try to make a difference (not saying you do this Sean, just a general comment here).

(Originally posted as a comment at 8:30pm on 11/22/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
8 spcoon Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:35 am

Hey Lou, thanks for the advice, but I actually haven’t used the IA moniker for going on 2 years now. I named [uxDesign] more for the diverse group of people that might be participating here, rather than for my own business card. What are you going to suggest next, that I should move to Brooklyn? haha. jk!

It’s actually funny how semantics (titles, roles, etc.) can cause such a stir nowadays, bringing raw emotions to bare. Saussere would be peeing his 90 year-old suit he was buried in if he could listen in on the title jockeying of our profession.

Speaking to your second point, I dropped names as references to make a point and maybe my point wasn’t made clear (that’s usually the case when I try to explain myself, as my arguments often take more iterations to be understood than my designs). But shooting from the hip is my style, I can take the good with the bad.

Here’s the gist of it; I’m all for AIfIA. I hope it totally defines IA—prefferably in a really smart way. Less static “site maps,” more metadata schemas. Less guessing, more user research. And more relational databases for contextual navigation and collaborative filtering… period. That’s the natural evolution of the web and specifically information architecture DUE TO the work and leadership of you, Peter, Samantha and countless others (I’m not going to name the entire rat pack).

I guess “my concern” (way too heavy choice of words) with the AIfIA launch, is that without affiliated representation of the sister ID groups (any/all of the three), and/or a clearly affiliated umbrella UX org, ROI for user centered design might be expressed in a less than optimal manner.

Why not create a “multifaceted” institute to represent how we would optimally work and sell ourselves? That’s my only beef, but God speed with the institute.

(Originally posted as a comment at 4:06am on 11/23/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
9 Lou Rosenfeld Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:37 am

Why not indeed? So my suggestion: go and do it. I’ll help in any way I can.

This is how things get started. With AIfIA, a bunch of us felt that there was a gap–no formal group of information architects–and sought to fill it. This was partly in reaction to existing professional associations–including ASIS&T–not stepping up to the plate. No cabal here, no evil intent, no plans for world domination; perhaps we were naively optimistic.

UX people (I say “people” because there’s no UX “community” yet) might be feeling the same way right now, that other organizations, including AIfIA, don’t meet their needs. My question to those folks is this: what are you going to do about it?

Unfortunately, the negative reaction to the AIfIA on the part of just a few still clanged away loudly. I hope all that noise doesn’t discourage others who would try to build something, whether it’s a UX organization or an alternative IA organization…

(Originally posted as a comment at 10:17am on 11/24/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
10 George Olsen Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:43 am

Not to start another semantic flamefest (a lot of which I think is driven by job/professional insecurity), but why not just call UX UX? Personally, I’ve found people outside the profession get a bit confused when IA is applied to the wider range of things you’ve described.

Which is why I think IA is contracting into a tighter definition these days. In that context, “architecting information” becomes a lot clearer to people. And as Peter’s noted, it may be a bit narrower, but it certainly can be pretty deep.

As such it’s one of the four pillars of UX. Which is where I think we need to separate the fields we practice from the titles we hold.

There’s a need for both specialists and “holistics.” UXs should be competent to do general-level IA, IAs should be able do general-level UX.

I agree there’s a need to promote both UX and IA. Having been part of discussions around this, it’s pretty clear to me that there are two groups that need to be served. Part of this is title-driven — there are people who are really wedded to”IA” and don’t like “UX” for whatever reason. Part of it is focus-driven, i.e. they’re interested in “content architecture” rather than the more general concerns of UX. For these people, there was a legitimate feeling that they didn’t really have a place to call home, since they ended up being the rump interest of larger organizations. Hopefully AIFIA will provide that home.

There are similar concerns from those who see and consider themselves “UXs”. The question, as Lou says, is what are we going to do about it?

(Originally posted as a comment at 2:05pm on 11/25/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)
11 spcoon Oct 16th, 2005 at 9:46 am

I say we start by killing the “Big IA” moniker once and for all and establish UxD as a replacement. I agree with George, the IA split terminology only acts against us when trying to sell ROI to companies, clients, etc. If it’s too confusing for us as practioners, then how can we expect outside groups in IT or business to grasp the differences?

I think I might need to diagram some stuff…

(Originally posted as a comment at 11:25am on 11/26/2002, this has been reattached for archiving purposes)

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