Defining the damn thing… using crowd wisdom
As tends to happen every so often, the IA Institute’s mailing list is abuzz with yet another round of “define the damn thing” discussions. I’m somewhat annoyed because we keep having these conversations, but don’t capture the proposed definitions anywhere we can compare and contrast them. There’s no way for me to remember what was said by whom and how the definitions relate (or not) to each other.
With that in mind, I went looking for a site that would allow anyone to propose alternative definitions to a word, comment on them, and vote for (or against) any of them. I couldn’t find anything like this, so I slapped together a small web app:
http://thatword.net/word/is/information_architecture
I’ve primed the well with four “classic” definitions of the term information architecture. You are welcome to add more, and to comment and vote on the ones already there.
By the way, the platform is abstracted so that anyone can propose and define any word, not just IA. To get started, visit thatword.net and search for a word or term, if it’s not already been defined you’ll be prompted to propose a definition.
For what it’s worth, I’m not really sure we can come up with the “best” definition solely by voting for it, so this goes out to the world with tongue planted in cheek. I hope you have fun with it—it’s meant to be more a diversion than anything serious.
(The app probably has bugs lurking, given that it was slapped together with duct tape and chewing gum over a few days. Please email me if you have any trouble with it.)
I very much love the Princess Bride reference
I was wondering what happens if some adds a definition that I really like after I’ve already cast my vote? It would be good if I could move my vote (although that would remove the simplicity of the app.)
Here’s another thought – what if the IAI agreed that whatever the current definition on Wikipedia is, is the definition we subscribe to. Then, the people who really care about the definition can get in there and fight it out (and the process will all be tracked in the history)….
Hi Leisa, thanks for your feedback. I originally had the rules set up so that you could only vote for and against any one of the definitions, but I had to change it to resolve the issue you raise.
How it currently works is that you can cast one vote either in favor or against any of the definitions, except those that you’ve already voted for. (When you add a new definition you automatically vote for it.) So if someone adds a definition you like, you can vote for it even if you’ve already voted for something else.
I’m not sure about using Wikipedia in this way. I know of people who monitor Wikipedia pages constantly to roll back any changes they disagree with. This system usually ends up favoring whoever has the energy/patience to hang on the longest, as opposed to those with “the best ideas”.
Jorge: I did a stupid thing and spent an hour typing in the “submit” box, only to see my submission get lost … I think …
Any chance you got some data out of it? An email or anything?
Hi Andrew, the tool seems to have a UI issue here. New definitions don’t get added at the bottom of the list because definitions are sorted by votes, not chronologically. I’ll see how I can fix this.
the voting instructions still sound ambiguous. something about “for each” should be mentioned there to clarify.
i love the app, btw, and the initiative you took to build it. I was debating someone on twitter who complained that the latest DTDT thread was a waste of time etc. I listed a number of ideas that had come out of it and mentioned that you had put up this site, her reply?
http://twitter.com/gabrielle/statuses/923604138
but it is a big deal. It was agile. It’s beautifully designed. It meets a need. It’s doing something, the exact thing she said we should be doing instead of talking.
sigh.
Thanks Christian for your kind comments. You are right about the instructions not being very clear; I’m gonna think about the wording a bit.
One of the advantages we have today over, say, ten years ago, is that we have frameworks that make prototyping ideas like this quick and easy. (I used CodeIgniter to create this app; it took about four days.) I’m partial to the “let a thousand flowers bloom” approach to app design: bottom-up is a more robust approach than top-down. Now these things can go from idea to artifact more quickly and cheaply than ever before.