connecting*the*dots

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?