Information Architecture: two words, plenty of complexity
What exactly is information architecture (IA), and why does it matter?
According to the Information Architecture Institute, IA is “the practice of deciding how to arrange the parts of something to be understandable.” It deals with creating structures and systems of organization so that users can easily, consistently locate information where they believe it should be. Just as architects design buildings so that showers are located in bathrooms and rooms have entryways, information architects bring order, predictability, and comprehension to the seemingly infinite pieces of information that comprise digital products and services (for more on the architecture analogy, check out this information architecture guide.)
Dan Klyn of the Understanding Group breaks down Information Architecture for us with this short video:
The history of IA
History varies depending on who ask, and the history of information architecture is no exception. Its recorded history, however, is relatively short, dating back to the 1960s. There are a handful of key players who get credit for carving out the field, starting with IBM Labs, which, in the 1964 publication “Architecture of the IBM System/360,” defines architecture as “the conceptual structure and functional behavior, distinguishing the organization of data flows and controls, logical design, and physical implementation.” A few years later, in 1970, Xerox’s PARC Labs (credited for the release of the first graphical user interface) centered its mission on developing technology that supports “the architecture of information.” Richard Saul Wurman, an architect and designer, then coined the term “Information Architect” in 1975, and went on to contribute several books to the field (but his most widely known contribution might be founding TED Talks.)
According to the Journal of Information Architecture, IA is initially framed as “the design of complex or dynamically changing information.” This is also known as the Information Design phase of IA’s history. In the 1990s, though, the IA field shifted its approach towards that of “Information Systems,” wherein the field focused more heavily on how information structures impacted business goals and organizational functions. Wetherber and Brancheaux are credited with standardizing tools and deliverables like blueprints and information categories as part of IA. With the transition from an Information Design perspective to an Information Systems perspective, there was a shift from viewing information architecture as the simplification and organization of information to ensuring that the information can be easily found, accessed, and used by relevant business stakeholders.
A third view on Information Architecture, an Information Systems approach, emerged in the 1990s, led by librarians Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. This approach took a narrower lens to information architecture, focusing specifically on the need for users to be able to access information across multiple media. They recognized the need to standardize the organization and categorization of information, and they championed the development of industry-standard features of website design, such as navigation, labels, and site structure.
For the first time in Information Architecture’s short history, it seemed that, with the rise of the Information Science approach, there was a shift in focus from business needs to user needs. The Information Science lens is crucial to IA because it refined the purpose of effective architecture to that which supports users’ interactions.
However, the limits of the Information Science approach to IA became increasingly apparent as the availability of digital technologies exponentially increased. The 2000s onward have been marked as the stage of Pervasive and Ubiquitous IA because information architecture began to play a broader role in the lives of everyday people. In contrast to the Information Science phase (also referred to as Classic IA,) Pervasive and Ubiquitous IA gave rise to the design of information spaces and journeys where “structure flows across channels.”
IA and UX: so what?
While there are people who explicitly work as Information Architects, it’s crucial that anyone who works within the broader field of digital design. As user experience designers who inform the design and development of digital products, we must deeply investigate how our users categorize information, as well as the expectations and assumptions they carry about the way information is arranged and stored. Tools and strategies such as card sorting and creating site maps allow us to concretely gather, analyze, and implement user-friendly information architecture, which in turn helps reinforce, rather than detract from, the usability of our designs.
What’s next for IA
Of course, as the digital world infinitely expands and evolves, so will information architecture. As we continue to produce, process, and rely on more information than ever, we need information architecture that is dynamic and flexible — that is, IA that responds to users’ changing needs and beliefs of how to engage with the information they need. As UX Designer Fiorella Rizza writes, IA must be “flexible enough to enable you to present the content to the users any way you like (read: the way that’s more valuable to them), without constraints.”
This is further compounded by the fact that the ways in which users engage with digital information is rapidly changing. With the rise of non-GUI interfaces such as voice command, we need to design information architecture that doesn’t rely on visual cues, such as navigation bars. We need information architecture that is flexible enough to interpret user commands and present relevant information quickly, seamlessly, and accurately. And, as Shane Kittelson proposes, IA not only powers human-computer interactions, but it also plays a key role in the functions of artificial intelligence. Given what we know about the rapidly developing history of modern information architecture in its relatively short life span, we are bound to continue to see it evolve and adapt to changing user-centered technological landscapes.
Thanks for reading this brief article on Information Architecture. I still have a lot to learn about IA, and I’d love to know what you think.
For more information on Information Architecture from some experts in the field, I recommend the following articles:
- A Brief History of Information Architecture by Andrea Resmini and Luca Rosati (The Journal of Information Architecture)
- Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture from UX Booth
- The Ultimate Guide to Information Architecture by Cameron Chapman (Web Designer Depot)
