A Brief History of Information Architecture
What is Information Architecture

Imagine you’re at a grocery store looking for toothpicks, if you’ve bought toothpicks at this exact store before, you might know where to go. Otherwise, you will have to do some searching. A well architected system will help you determine:
- What is here (ontology)
- Where you are (taxonomy)
- Where else can you go (choreography)
According to the Information Architecture Institute, Information Architecture (IA) is “the practice of deciding how to arrange the parts of something to be understandable.” Essentially, IA helps you find the needle in the haystack, or in this case, the toothpick in the aisles. Grocery stores usually have signs to direct you to the correct aisle, or as close as you can get. You can glance at the signs for each aisle to see what is there and determine where you are. You can read other signs easily to see if you need to look there or skip it entirely. If you find yourself asking “where am I am supposed to go next?” or “this doesn’t make any sense”, then there are some issues with the Information Architecture.
A Brief History of IA

People have been arranging information before computers even existed. Libraries have long been associated with the practice of organizing information. The ancient Egypt’s library of Alexandria housed a 120-scroll bibliography. As a child, we had to learn the dewey decimal system to find books.
The word “architecture” as relations to computers was first introduced in a 1964 IBM research paper. The paper described “architecture” in the computing context as “the conceptual structure and functional behavior, distinguishing the organization of data flows and controls, logical design, and physical implementation.” It isn’t until a decade later that Richard Saul Wurman coined the term “information architecture” at an American Institute of Architects conference in 1976.
Wurman wrote the book “Information Architect” (1997) which clearly defines the role of an IA, this framework is still applicable today. He defined an information architect as: a. the individual who organizes the patterns inherent in data, making the complex clear; b. a person who creates the structure or map of information which allows others to find their personal paths to knowledge; c. the emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age focused upon clarity, human understanding, and the science of the organization of information.
A year later, a bestseller on a then little known site called Amazon catapulted and defined Information Architecture in the era of the World Wide Web. The book was written by two librarians, Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld. In their book “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” (1998), Morville & Rosenfeld described four major components of IA: (1) Organization scheme and structure, (2) Labeling system, (3) Navigation system, and (4) Searching system. They used their knowledge of library science of how to categorize, catalog and find books and applied it to websites. Morville & Rosenfeld also created a venn diagram of “information ecology” to show the relationship between user, content and context:

- Context: business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, resources, constraints
- Content: content objectives, document and data types, volume, existing structure, governance and ownership
- Users: audience, tasks, needs, information-seeking behavior, experience
Conclusion:

Information Architecture plays a crucial part of User Experience Design. IA identifies what information is needed and how it should be organized in a particular context. This helps content strategy and also when sketching and wireframing the design.
References:
http://journalofia.org/volume3/issue2/03-resmini/
http://understandinggroup.com/information-architecture/understanding-information-architecture/
https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/information-architecture.html
