Expanding, or Redefining, the Value of Information Architecture

The Journal of Information Architecture has had two issues thusfar. In the first issue, Andrew Hinton had an article titled, “Machineries of Context” (Spring, 2009). Granted, it’s taken me a while to get around to reading this article, but once I did I was inspired as to where my career choice can lead and the things I can do for other people.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand: What IA has been about from the beginning is designing context with hyperlinks. That is, shaping contextual experience with connections afforded by the new, digital layer of the web. This may sound like a limiting definition, but I believe it’s instead a helpfully pragmatic description. (pg 37)

In his article, Hinton reviews how people create context in space. In my words, it essentially means a person has learned “I’m here” and “You’re there” by seeing herself standing here and the other person over there. As we’ve layered technology on top of our physical space, the immediacy of here/there is removed. Instead of speaking to someone in person, we send letters. Instead of sending letters, we use the phone. Instead of using the phone, we use the Internet.

But with the Internet, where is “here” and “there”? Our traditional ways of constructing space breaks down. A document is somewhere, but nowhere physical, unless you refer to the bits and bytes on a server somewhere. But it can also exist in multiple places at the same time. A person can create multiple identities and be a different person, or representation, in each community on the Internet.

Hinton says the title of “information architect” should not be just “metaphorical.” In order for people to understand context on the Internet, information architects, like regular architects, need to help people create meaning and make sense of the Internet. Architects have helped people define spaces.

My contention is that the name of the practice is not merely metaphorical. And that understanding why can help clarify the practice’s nature and significance. Recall that for millennia, our species has relied on context being relatively stable, aligned with physical boundaries… The mental models we have to understand for this work have less to do with organizing content and more to do with organizing the contextual conditions that best empower users. (pg 44-45)

Information architects need to help people define space on the Internet. How can individuals, groups and communities use the Internet to their best advantage. We think of corporations that are inundated by information: email, ftp files, html files, web based applications, social media. How do all these items affect smaller for-profit companies, non-profit groups and charities, and individuals? How do poorer people participate in this “space”? How can information architects help members of society make the Internet meaningful?

To say that Information Architecture is about designing structure in the service of information is to get it mostly wrong. IA is about using information as raw material in the service of architecture for a new contextual reality. Understanding that new reality, continuing to develop the methods, tools and community of practice around that work, is an important step toward the future of IA as a field of work and study. (pg 47)

Information architects need to provide the constructs that allow people to communicate, make meaning, and build community on the Internet. Instead of focusing on serving up information, we focus on helping people create meaning in this new “space.” For me, this article gave me a look into what information architecture can be and I thought it was very exciting.