SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: the line between IA and int
Re: SIGIA-L: the line between IA and interaction design
From: Christopher Turner (princeofcats_at_newarcadia.com)
Date: Tue Oct 31 2000 - 23:57:09 EST
Louis,
I understand why the distinction being drawn here got your thoughts
percolating.
Though I don't work for the folks at Scient (and have no intentions of ever
doing so) I do think the distinction is compelling. I bring two different
kinds of expertise to the client's service: my ability to organize
information in meaningful, accessible ways (bookstore experience paying off,
go figure!) and the ability (based upon the principles of usability and
traditional interface design) to visually express the way that our
hypothetical "shopping cart" would actually work.
Put crudely, it's the difference between Inspiration and Illustrator.
That being said, I'm of the opinion that we need to recognize that the task
we information architects have taken on is large. In order to build the
massive information structures of today (and our convergent tomorrow) we're
going to need the expertise of lots of different kinds of people in our IA
departments. We'll need folks with library science backgrounds, design
backgrounds, and usability backgrounds... anybody who has compelling
information on how people like their information sorted and served.
So I guess my question for Scient would be: does the world really need
another e*commerce-related job title?
Christopher Turner
Information Architect
http://www.leapnet.com
> From: "Louis Rosenfeld" <lou_at_argus-inc.com>
> Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 21:53:22 -0500
> To: "SIGIA mailing list" <sigia-l_at_asis.org>
> Subject: SIGIA-L: the line between IA and interaction design
>
> At the IA2000 conference, Andrea Gallagher of Scient gave a great talk on
> interaction design and how it relates to information architecture. Like all
> of her other talks, it really got me thinking.
>
> As we try to draw lines around what we as IAs do and don't do, many of us
> see a clear distinction between designing transactional systems/applications
> (i.e., interaction design) versus the organizing and structuring of data and
> text that are more commonly considered information architecture. Put in
> more concrete terms: shopping cart = interaction design; product catalog =
> information architecture. (Yes, this is a gross over-simplification; please
> bear with me for a moment.)
>
> But what about a search system? Is it ID or IA? Hmmm, a search system
> certainly looks, smells, and tastes like an application, so it obviously
> should be the interaction designer's purview, right? But search systems
> help users find information, especially when integrated with other aspects
> of the site architecture (e.g., means of browsing), so they're obviously a
> core part of the information architecture. Right?
>
> Hmmm...
>
>
>
> Louis Rosenfeld / lou_at_argus-inc.com
> Argus Associates / http://argus-inc.com / 734.913.0010
> Defining information architecture
>
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