What this all speaks to, honestly, is an IxD landgrab, or, at least,
a desire to elevate IxD as the premier UX practice. The mentality
exhibited here and by a couple others on this list is dispiriting.
The IxD advocates have eagerly sought the evolution of IxD practice
and influence. But in doing so, there's no recognition of the
evolution of IA. The only interpretation I can make of this desire
to put IA in a little box and to make IxD the King Discipline is a
unproductive landgrab.
And it's clear that if anyone should NOT be placing boundaries
around what IA is/isn't, it shouldn't be interaction designers with
chips on their shoulders.
The field of experience design will most benefit from equal advocacy
across all its constituent disciplines, including IA, IxD, visual
design, industrial design, architecture, environmental signage, etc.
etc. etc.
Oh come on. I'm calling, in Merholz style, bullshit. I haven't heard
anyone here in this thread or any other related one suggest IxD is
anything but a component of the overall user experience alongside
other disciplines including information architecture. What has been
reasonably suggested, I think, is that there is a continuum of
products: some of them require more IA than others, some require more
IxD than others. In the same way some projects require more visual
design than others. Your objection seems to be that I dared say that
the products that require more IA are mostly web-based. I've not seen
a reasonable argument against this assertion yet. The Polar Bear Book
is "information Architecture for the World Wide Web" and the
Blueprints book is called "Blueprints for the Web." Don't Make Me
Think is a "web usability" book. Where is the "Information
Architecture for Devices" book? Or "Information Architecture for
Physical Spaces" book?
There's nothing wrong with this, btw. The web is simply the perfect
medium for a discipline like information architecture. The web is all
about information spaces. The web isn't a great medium for industrial
design, for instance. It's not the greatest medium for interaction
design either, truth be told.
Is interaction design important to the people on this list and do we
consider it our focus and a major component of UX? Umm, yeah, it's THE
INTERACTION DESIGN ASSOCIATION after all. It's not our job to advocate
or recognize the evolution of information architecture. That's what
the IAI's job is. Complain to them that people don't know what the
boundaries of their discipline are. The IxDA was set up to expand the
influence and define the practice of interaction design. Not to the
detriment of sister disciplines, but for the benefit of ourselves.
Dan
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