I have witnessed the same transition. When I started working in the
Internet world 1995, I never heard of Information Architecture nor
Usability Engineering, etc. There were no specific models. I applied
my previous experiences in journalism and graphic design, with a
strong will to build things that communicate well and appropriately.
These practices were integrated into my work and that of others, often
in a quite informal way. Many websites, even major ones worked without
any serious effort in architecture nor usability, thus many
mainstreams sites in the early days were atrocious.
In the late 90's I became aware of these practices as separate
disciplines, but still with little history on the web, we looked
mostly to software development practices. The problem with this is
that software is developed in a much more formal, structured, costly,
and time-consuming way than web sites. Web agencies and large web
sites adopted these methods, but some tended to get a bit too formal
and separate in these practices.
Today I am working on smaller projects than in the past, so I don't
know if my story is typical. But these disciplines are more
integrated. I see this happening to others too where just to cut
costs, teams cannot afford the "luxury" of having an autonomous
Information Architecture discipline. I think for certain major web
sites, it makes sense to have a separate staff dedicated to this, but
for the majority of other sites, no. It really depends on the site and
the business needs.
Overall, I think it is a healthy evolution. I have always seen IA as a
discipline that is interdisciplinary. An IA speaks for programming,
design, marketing, and of course the everyday user.
. . . michael kay
. . . buenos aires / http://www.peep.org
On 05/05/2009, at 12:44, Joan Vermette wrote:
My own experience with wireframes and their overlap with design is a
bit different from what's described here. Regarding the "designer
as information architect" diagram, my experience would be better
reflected as three diagrams for three different timeframes:
use this article's 2009 diagram for 1997
use the 1999 drawing for 2005, and
keep the 2009 drawing as is
That is, when I started out as an IA for the web, there were fewer
people and less specialization (and less disciplined thought about
information structure, interaction and flow), then more
specialization to the point of stultification, and now more of an
enlightened re-convergence.
Has anyone else's experience paralleled mine?
On May 5, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Elin Sjursen wrote:
Hi all!
Thought some of you might be interested in this discussion on the
future of wireframes, and on the designer as information architect.
http://www.madebymany.co.uk/the-future-of-wireframes-00991
Elin
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