Information Architecture, User Experience & Other Obsessions
You are currently browsing articles tagged Information Architecture.
I posted a working bibliography of sorts (not sure if the word works for a list of links to things that may or may not be books or articles) over on my Summit 2006 presentation page.
But I keep running across more excellent resources, such as the fab Terra Nova blog. I’ll have to update the other list periodically.
In an article from the February 2006 issue of Esquire (that’s unfortunately not online), David Childs, the architect for the “Freedom Tower” to be built on the old WTC site, has this to say about the role of the architect:
“The client’s role, whether it’s a museum board or an individual who wants to create something and gets involved, is a critical factor in the ultimate result of what we do. Unlike a painter or a sculptor … we do it through all sorts of strange smoke and mirrors and all that other stuff. You have to be persuasive to get your way. And the best way to do that is not a head-on fight, but to develop your arguments, and any way you can get there is ok.
… People want to have the architect seen as an individual artist doing his sculptural form. I’m much more pragmatic … I believe that the fascination of the program, and solving the problem, is part of architecture. First of all, you’ve got to do that — and then you’ve got to make it beautiful, rather than making the sculpture and then cramming stuff into it.”
Evidently there was also a Frontline episode about Childs, his firm, and the WTC project.
If you get as much of a kick out of “map vs. landscape” conundra as I do, take a look at mc.clintock.com, where someone has created an illustrated virtual directory of all of his possessions, mapped throughout his home, down to the postcares in the second bureau drawer in the second floor study.
A while back, I couldn’t help myself, and made a little badge for my link to the IA Institute: 
And now it’s popping up in really cool places like Japan! (Noriyo Asano’s IA Spectrum).
Yay badges!
(Yeah, I know they’re somewhat tacky … somewhere between pink flamingos and happy meal toys, but like I said I couldn’t help myself.)
The folks at the IA Retreat got jiggy with ubiquitous technology. Here’s a record on their Wiki (Adam Greenfield as channelled by Chiara Fox): Everyware – iaretreat05 – JotSpot
It’s an idea that may have seemed a little weird back in 1999 when John Seely Brown and Mark Weiser were writing about it: The Coming Age of Calm Technology.
But when I notice how a coworker gets into his Prius, and the car just knows it’s him because of the fob hanging from his keyring, I realize this age is running toward us pretty dang fast. What’s to stop the car from also knowing to have his schedule and contacts ready in its console, his favorite iTunes playlists cued up, not to mention traffic information for his commute?
Why shouldn’t our information follow us around? Since everything’s going to be on one big network anyway? Hey man, it’s all about ustiquity!
(*Kicks self for not making it to the retreat…*)
via Victor Lombardi
Update: As Peter Boersma reminds me in a comment, Tom Vanderwal has been working with the “personal infocloud” idea for quite some time.
I’m big on the idea that the Internet isn’t really about commerce or information reference, but mainly about community and conversation (which of course include things like commerce and knowledge — but only as facets of the larger social drive).
In Wired last month, (We Are the Web) Kevin Kelly evidently agrees:
What we all failed to see was how much of this new world would be manufactured by users, not corporate interests.
I was saying this back in 2002: The real killer app is people. But it didn’t start with me, alas… I seem to remember even in 1999 Whole Earth and other places were discussing the “highways of the mind” as social spheres, and the “WELL” as the prototype of sorts. So, I don’t know that Mr. Kelly is quite right in “we all failed to see” … I think many of us just forgot in the mad rush to make a killing in the tech bubble, perhaps?
Still, I’m glad this meme is propogating … it helps keep us aware of the real human context of all this technology.
When I write about the ‘net, I keep fearing I’m being too repetitive about how astoundingly different the fabric of human meaning is becoming due to this technology (and actually not the technology but its use).
Then I run across others saying similar stuff and I don’t feel so bad, such as David Weinberger on The New “Is.”
We are talking with one another, thinking out loud across presumptions and continents. If you want to know about an idea, you could go to an encyclopedia and read what an expert says about it. Or you could find a blog that talks about it and start following the web of links. You’ll not just see multiple points of view, you’ll hear those points of view in conversation. That’s new in the world.
Peter Morville has a new book coming out, “Ambient Findability,” and a blog to match:
findability.org The book is from O’Reilly, and has a blurb from Bruce Sterling, which gives it enormous geek-cool cred.
So far, the book looks like a lucid, imaginative paradigm-shifter that’s sorely needed. From what I can tell from the intro chapter (available on the site), it focuses less on the “biztech” piece of the new internetworked global village, and more on the elusive human impact of the new world we’ve made for ourselves.
From the introductory chapter:
It’s not enough to focus on the I in IT. We must also lose the C in HCI. Because ambient findability is less about the computer than the complex interactions between humans and information.
I haven’t read the rest of the book yet, so I don’t know if what I’m thinking is in line with what the rest of “Ambient Findability” says (so, that is, don’t take my ravings as a reflection on Peter’s undoubtedly more considered and level-headed message).
But, that said, I’ve felt for a long time that the technology device is just the throwaway, surface conduit for an epochal human phenomenon. Focusing on interfaces and technologies, while necessary gruntwork for making the things we use to do what we do, it’s the “what we do” that is so amazing and life-changing. It’s shifting the way we think of basic human concepts like “nation” or “city” or “language” or “time.” Like most things of this sort, it happens almost invisibly (although it’s incredibly rapid, compared to, say, the printing press, or the telephone even), so that we wake up taking much of it for granted and not realizing how far we’ve gone.
But what about those of us who *like* knowing where we’re heading, and who want to have some part in shaping the trajectory? This sounds like it’s definitely a book for us.
Like so many other great ideas and technologies for the Internet, Flickr emerged from a soup of game thinking. Nice interview with JJG:
adaptive path » an interview with ludicorp’s eric costello
JJG: How much of The Game Neverending would you say is still present in Flickr in its current state?
EC: I think the spirit of it is there, definitely. Someone once described Flickr as “massively multiplayer online photo sharing.†I think that’s a good description. There’s kind of a feeling of exploration within Flickr. It feels like a world where you can move around and find wonderful things – the wonderful things being the great photographs that people upload.
And because it’s got the social network aspect of it, you can kind of build neighborhoods within Flickr. The page in Flickr that shows you all the photos from your friends and family is very much a space like you might find in a game. It’s a place where you go and interact with the people you know.
This seems wrong on so many levels. The main one for me at the moment, though, is that all these people are using the word “architecture” but nobody’s talking about how the buildings are used. They’re fixating on the outer form.
If architecture is mainly about making wacky shapes on the skyline, then why can’t Brad Pitt do it? Anybody could.
And they’re using the word “design” … grrr.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | From Troy to Hove – Brad Pitt’s new career
The height of the towers was reduced after protests from residents and only two are now proposed. But their radical sculptural design, described by one critic as “transvestites caught in a gale”, remains unchanged.
A telling quote from Pitt:
In an interview with Vanity Fair last year Pitt said: “I’m really into architecture, structure and design. Give me anything and I’ll design it. I’m a bit nutty with it.” Pitt added: “I’ve got a few men I respect very much and one would be Frank Gehry. He said to me, ‘If you know where it’s going, it’s not worth doing.’ That’s become like a mantra for me. That’s the life of the artist.”
Yes. That is wise insight for any artist. But that’s *ART*!! Design is for things people have to USE.
via jjg
It’s fun to see someone thinking out loud in their blog, and especially when it’s Weinberger.
Joho the Blog: NECC talk – New Shape of Knowledge
But in the digital age, we snip the connection between how we organize physical stuff and how we organize knowledge. Four principles of organization change: A leaf can be on many branches, messiness is a virtue, the owners of the information no longer own the organization of that information, and users are contributors.
Every time I see one of these, I find it somewhat jarring. (Pictured is one of those “If you’re asked to pay something other than this amount, call this number” signs outside a Taco Bell drive-through window.)
What it tells me is: the people inside cannot be trusted — so much so that we don’t want you just to ask them to revise the amount they say you owe, but to call us and rat them out, because they’re essentially criminals on probation.
It’s like one of those sex-offender electronic ankle devices, only for a whole taco joint.
I honestly don’t think I’m overstating the case — at least not for myself. It really does make me think of all of these things.
It’s basically an architectural element, one which shapes the environment in a very particular way. No matter how friendly or responsible your particular fast-food window helper might be, this sign makes sure you question their honesty, even if for just a moment. That you, essentially without your consent, join a sort of police force that’s keeping them in line from outside their enclosure.
If I can’t trust the amount of money they’re asking of me, something I can actually verify by checking the prices on the menu, why should I trust that the food itself is safe and uncorrupted?
If I were a true pomo nerd, I’d start quoting Foucault. As it stands, I’ll just get my Nacho Grande and stop thinking so much.
Welcome to inkblurt, the online home of Andrew Hinton. Read something, drop a comment, or say hello!
BTW I also tweet at @inkblurt.
