SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: Virtual Architecture
Re: SIGIA-L: Virtual Architecture
From: Peter Merholz (peterme_at_peterme.com)
Date: Sat Apr 22 2000 - 12:46:49 EDT
> > If the signage on the directory is clear and informative, we
> > can find which floor / suite the office we are looking for is in. We
can
> > all agree on certain architectural conventions, such as the up and down
> > indicators on an elevator.
>
> You just described signage conventions, not architectural conventions.
> Architecture is the building of the building, not the drawing of the
> map. They're related, certainly, but they're not the same.
To be even more nitpicky, those are wayfinding conventions.
http://www.libfind.unl.edu/casetudy/456/sharon.htm
The Web analog of wayfinding is, to state the obvious, 'navigation', usually
some type of visual landmark on the top of the page, and a list of available
paths either across the top or down the left side.
And to nitpick further--architecture is not the building of the building.
Architecture is the planning. The specifying. The drawing up of blueprints.
Architects don't build things. Contractors do.
Here, an architecture analogy holds. I don't build web sites. I specify
their structure and how they should function and then hand that off to a
contractor to make it real.
--peter
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