When WIAD Does Research
In 2020, on February 22nd to be precise, the last live World information Architecture Day took place. It was just over a year ago, but it feels like a lifetime!
On that occasion, we asked the participants of WIAD events to take part in some research; a survey we made thanks to Optimal Workshop, one of our longest-standing supporters.
The purpose of the research was to acquire information that would help us learn more about our global community to create an “identikit” of our guests. We were particularly interested in understanding how many of us identified as Information Architects and which fundamental IA skills were used by other professionals, too. Promoting and practicing IA as well as monitoring its growth are among the aims of the WIAD.
The Research
Participants were invited at local events, in order to keep age distribution and location as varied as possible. For the same reason, the survey was available in both English and Spanish: a small but important step, as the community speaks more than ten languages!
We used Optimal Workshop (in particular the card sorting tool) and asked participants to answer questions and perform activities related to two main research goals:
- The first goal was to gather demographic/personal information regarding the WIAD conference. Knowing who participates in our events is essential for various reasons, whether from a purely logistical point of view or to gauge expectations of the event and topics for communities working in different cultures.
- The other goal related to the name people give to their profession and the tasks they perform while at work. We tried to understand (through card sorting) how often the participants fulfilled specific duties, selected as representative tasks for the profession.
Results: Demographic information
We included more than 400 people in the study, mainly between the ages of 25 and 44. About 60% identified as women.
Most had been in their profession for a relatively short time, between one and three years. The data portrays a professional landscape in continuous evolution and could hint at the work world’s recent increase in attention on the topic. The research also shows that people changed roles quickly, yet still remained in the same job sector.
Secondly, we asked people to define their work roles by choosing from a proposed selection.
The result, as expected, revealed that the vast majority of participants defined themselves as UX Designers. There could be many reasons behind this. The expression “UX Designer” is the most widespread, most international (not all participants are native English speakers), and often (controversially) used as an umbrella term for all professions that deal with people and design.
It is curious that WIAD event attendees who call themselves information architects reflected only a modest percentage of those who participated in the research.
Some participants even felt represented by a combination of roles, confirming the evolution of the field in a professional sense as well.
Results: Typical IA activities
The second part of the research focused on typical IA activities. We asked people to report which tasks (from a list of the most common and characteristic) were part of the participants’ workday.
Each work activity could be classified in three different ways, ranging from “do little/rarely” to “do a lot /always”
We pooled the answers into three main clusters related to the professions to highlight the similarities and differences between UX, IA, and the other professional fields of the participants.
The first datapoint of note is that WIAD audience members appear interested in IA because a good portion of their work directly concerns activities that we ascribe to the IA discipline. This finding pertains to those who defined themselves as Information Architects but it encompasses everyone else too, including the UX Designers in the group.
The results also show how some activities, among those proposed (and typically considered specific to the role of Information Architect) are carried out more frequently by UX Designers than others. Weird, huh?
That last observation was difficult to interpret. We propose two explanations:
- It helps us understand some specific characteristics of UX Designers in the current professional scene;
- It shows how this role is widespread amongst organizations as a lot of people see themselves in it. The data collected return a very varied image of the context within which this type of professional is employed and how the role is applied. Undoubtedly, being part of a small organization vs. a larger one affects the variety and number of tasks that UX Designers have to perform.
Insights Gained
The research provided some assurance and lays the foundations for an in-depth and critical discussion of the role of Information Architect.
Some insights:
1. There doesn’t seem to be a big difference between the tasks performed by Information Architects and UX Designers, regardless of organization size. In larger, mature companies, people probably perform fewer and more specialized tasks. In smaller (or less mature) studios, people are used to carrying out different activities, no matter their role.
2. The term “UX Designer” still does not identify a specific role or skill set, more than ten years after the Memphis plenary* This also makes it difficult to define it, especially outside communities like the one behind WIAD. How can the industry understand which person it needs if multiple roles seem to include identical tasks? The most specific UX task was “Determine the experience of something from end to end” while the least specific task was “Determine how things are related” which showed almost no difference between job types.
3. WIAD participants are people first and foremost, and they carry out activities related to information architecture, even though it may not actually be the main activity required by their role in the organization.
What about you? Did you participate in our research? What do you think about the results? Let us know by commenting below or writing to us at info@worldiaday.org
🤓 If you want to read the entire research study, you can find on the WIAD Github.
Happy reading!
* More about the Memphis plenary http://www.jjg.net/ia/memphis/
Thank you to the team at Optimal Workshop for supporting this research and analysis!
