Casual IA

A couple of days ago I met with a client to kick off a website design project. The client’s graphic designer arrived with a set of design documents that included detailed screen mockups and a rudimentary sitemap. Her designs were a good place to start the conversation, but I wonder if it was appropriate for us to be looking at designs that early in the process.

I call this phenomenon casual IA: when folks from other fields (usually programmers or graphic designers, but sometimes also clients) produce what amounts to information architecture design, unbeknownst to them. I see it often here in Panama: the profession of IA is not well developed, and websites still need to be designed and built. Someone has to be doing the IA, and it’s usually not an “IA” doing it.

Some folks do this better than others (eg. the graphic designer referred to earlier did a fair job). Where do these folks’ design skills come from? I suspect that from the same place that the “professional” IA’s skills are learned: from using the web itself. There are fairly well established organization patterns that apply to many websites, and if someone wants his site “look” professional, he organizes it like “the big boys” do.

However, I believe there is an important difference: those of us seeped in IA literature approach web navigation armed with mental tools that allow us to be critical of the sites we’re using. This gives us a deeper understanding of the problem at hand, and the ability to resolve problems in (perhaps) more elegant ways. It also allows us to ask the right questions at the right time. Casual IAs, on the other hand, tend to propose sites that function like most sites they know and love, irrespective of the requirements of the project. So, for example, graphic designers tend to propose graphics- and Flash-intensive sites, feature rigid and tightly controlled layouts, use type as an integral part of the design, etc.

A bigger issue, though, is that usually these folks jump right into the design process without explicitly figuring out the fundamental questions: What are the site’s objectives? Who are its audiences? How will it reach them? etc. If the clients have bought into the casual IA (as tends to happen when they themselves are the designers), it becomes very difficult to re-route the conversation in this direction. If the buy-in is irrevocable, the design challenge becomes how to mold the casual IA into a more thoughtfully considered design. This can be quite difficult if the casual IA is a superficial response to the problem. Sometimes, it may even require a complete re-working; in these cases the challenge is more political/interpersonal than design-driven.

This is not to say that casual IA is necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s great that folks are doing this type of work; as the amount of information that flows through our lives increases, we are all going to have to develop some level of IA skills. (To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future everyone will be an IA.) This brings up some questions: How can we, as “professional IAs” help educate the other folks that are doing this type of work so that they at least know what questions to ask? Is this even possible? Can we provide tools that allow them to “roll their own” IA, without them even knowing to call it IA? Will this enhance or reduce the value of our profession?

Technorati Tags: informationarchitecture

November 3, 2006 | Archived in Information Architecture

6 comments

1
Leon Kadoch | 11-3-2006 at 4:13 pm

I think the best way to educate folks in this subject is by introducing them to the IA Science in a low-level way. They will do some research on the internet, or maybe they will use some IA books to get acquainted with this science. At the end, their interest and knowledge will lead them right to the spot they needed, so they can have an objective opinion. But I beleive that designer’s with no IA knowledge and a clear idea of the needs will vary depending on the project. Some complex jobs will need a professional help, some simple sites (medium sites) may not need that much. Well that’s just my simple opinion, I may be completely wrong.
2
Leon Kadoch - » Cas&hellip | 11-6-2006 at 3:15 pm

[...] Jorge Arango is one of the pioneers in the Information Architecture field in Central America, he´s the leader of the top IA & User-Centered WebDesign company in Panama. As an IA & Web Designer as well, I completely agree with his last post on his blog. It’s about Casual Information Architecture. [...]
3
Peter Boersma | 11-7-2006 at 12:20 am

I believe Jorge already knows [1] that this is what I call Guerilla IA [2], or at least the bit where the “professional IAs” provide guidance to the “Casual IAs” in the shape of easy-to-use tools, methods, template and examples.

Personally, I believe it would free us from some of the easier stuff, and allow us to focus on the wicked problems. Sort of like how design patterns help us (and others) create the “easy” 80% of a design.

(Yes, I know my site is down as I write this, and that my posting doesn’t seem to be indexed and cached by Google. I am working on correcting both…)

[1] Jorge wrote: ” I try to avoid the term “guerilla IA” for fear of being held up at the US border. ;-)” in his posting here: http://www.jarango.com/en/blog/2006/03/31/the-post-summit-blues-or-ia-dissociative-identity-disorder/
[2] See my posting Piece of IA Pie: http://www.peterboersma.com/blog/2005/02/piece-of-ia-pie-little-micro-lite-or.html
4
Rob | 11-13-2006 at 10:40 am

I can sometimes fall into the trap of being a casual IA, even though it’s my day job! Because I enjoy technology, I find that “bells and whistles” grab my attention a little too much. But before I run with it, I always have to ask myself similar questions like:
“What is the purpose of this site?” [MISSION]
“Who are the stakeholders?” [AUDIENCE]
“What story must be conveyed?” [CONTENT IS KING]
“What functionality hits the 80%?” [80/20 RULE see here and here]

Similarly, I find that many folks focus on the “T” in IT more so than “information.” If “information” is relegated to the backseat, then technology, functionality, and design decisions often doom a project.
5
Egon | 11-14-2006 at 2:23 am

I think Peter is right on the “design pattern” approach.

A collection of “open source” IA templates, methods, case studies, etc. in the spirit of Open Source Web Design and Open Web Design would be appreciated by a lot of casual IAs, including myself ;-)
6
Peter Boersma | 11-14-2006 at 8:14 am

Most web design pattern collections contain useful IA patterns. See for example Martijn van Welie’s collection here: http://www.welie.com/patterns/index.html