Italian IA Summit 2010 - Why Information Architecture Matters to Me

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andrew hinton / @inkblurt italian ia summit 2010 Why Information Architecture Matters (to Me)

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http://www.slideshare.net/andrewhinton/ Journal of Information Architecture My more comprehensive, articulate explanations of Information Architecture (for now ;-)

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But for today -- a more personal talk about why IA matters to me

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“Navel Gazing”

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Giambattista Vico 1668-1744 When I was in college, I had a favorite philosopher* (* doesn’t everyone?)

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“Verum factum” ... “The truth itself is made” i.e. Civil life, like mathematics, is wholly constructed • Etymology = key to understanding how our civilization & reason evolved from essential metaphorical building blocks • Strongly argued against the reductionist, hyper-rational Cartesian method. • Believed in a new science of the imagination. A few of Vico’s most powerful ideas ...

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The Trinity The Natural World The Civil World Metaphysics Vico’s “map” of the architecture of his ideas.

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Vico writes about the ancient sense of “Poet” = “Creator” Maker of worlds with language.

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But long before college I had another obsession ...

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photo: http://cjsd.blogspot.com/2008/03/day-d20- died.html

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Gary Gygax 1938 - 2008 Principal inventor of Dungeons & Dragons photo: wired.com

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photo: http://www.geeksix.com/ Rules Structure Dynamic User Activity

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photo: wikipedia & http:// www.useit.com/papers/ hypertext-history/

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MUD (Multi-User Domain) @@ Start here! @dig/teleport meetingroom=meetingroom;meetingroom;me;m, lobby;lobby;lo;l;Out;ou;o @desc here=The meeting room is ornate, and is large enough for about 200 people. &OOC here=0 @desc lobby=The exit has two doors and leads into the lobby. @succ lobby=You have left the meeting room. @osucc lobby=has entered. @odrop lobby=has left. move out @desc meetingroom=The meeting room entrance has two doors. @succ meetingroom=Now in the Meeting Room @osucc meetingroom=has left for the meeting room. @odrop meetingroom=has entered the meeting room. move meetingroom @dig Language Place / Context

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Sherry Turkle Julian Dibbell

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First Web Server Tim Berners- Lee

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http://www.drasticdata.nl/ DDHome.php?m=54 The Web was / is the internet’s “killer app”

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Phase Transition

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ƒ Computing Conversation & Cohabitation

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Quake “Mods” - custom games with altered rules & “maps”

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“Thunderwalker” CTF (Capture the Flag) A shared, inhabited space made of information, created by the users of the platform.

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Structure 1997-98 Dynamic User Activity Rules

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1999 My ﬁrst job at a design consultancy.

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An Early Client: Semiconductor Research Corp !!!

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Rules Structure Dynamic User Activity

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? (My Dirty Secret: in 2000 I hadn’t fully read this yet...)

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Even mundane IA tools (e.g. labels, categories, taxonomies) can have powerful effects in people’s lives. Clinical Emotional Practical Using IA to discover the right structure & context for content has helped thousands of women ﬁnd and learn what they need, when they need it most.

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So ... what’s my point?

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IA is bigger than search & retrieval or categorizing inventories of content & products.

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IA uses information as the raw material to design a new kind of architecture. IA is bigger than search & retrieval or categorizing inventories of content & products.

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Information Inhabiting Cyberspace

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Instantiation Representation Territory Map

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Representation Instantiation

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In cyberspace ... ... the map is the territory.

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William Gibson “The thing that's going to be quaint about "cyberspace" (that already is, really) is the inherent assumption that it's a realm unto itself; that it's in any way elsewhere or other.” Cyberspace is any networked space and the places it connects.

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How is IA more than just categorization & organization?

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Oh Noes!! Flickr taggerz ate my job!!! (Many IA practitioners circa 2006)

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We design structures within which users make their own meaning.

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Links Current Context Links to Other Contexts

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Categories Contexts by Function Contexts by Source A Context for Searching by Emergent Semantics

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Rules Access Permissions Editing Rights Algorithmic Context

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Findability Information Inhabited, shared, semantic systems.

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Increasingly, we live in software. More and more of what it means to be human is becoming unbound from physical context.

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Pictures used to be for frames & photo albums.

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Now, photos don’t “matter” until they’re online. And you have little control over what “album” they’re placed within.

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Syntax & semantics now have the power to change our very geography.

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Obvious difference. vs

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Not so obvious. d @ vs

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Fuzzy Human Stuff Made Into Data Our ambiguities rendered into binary attributes. 0 / 1

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Google Buzz FAIL

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Beacon

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“Friend?”

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Friend = Anyone You Connect To Rules Dynamic User Activity Structure Another “map” we live within.

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Cyberspace Gamespace As any space is more deﬁned by binary logic, the more it becomes like a game.

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“Games are ‘designed experiences’… and as such, their study requires an understanding of the full range of human practices through which players actively inhabit those worlds of rules and texts and render them meaningful.” They are both “designed objects and emergent culture.” We can learn a lot from game design & research. “...worlds of rules and texts...” Constance A. Steinkuehler “Why Game (Culture) Studies Now?”

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Why do I call myself an information architect? My central areas of interest: Using information to create structured systems for human experience. Making “maps” for shared understanding & habitation. Especially, making such “maps” that were impossible before the internet. (But that’s just my answer, for me ... for now ;-)

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Physical Territory Cyberspace Map Integrating digital space with the world of bricks & atoms. An expanding challenge ...

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Grazie andrew hinton / @inkblurt

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IA as a ... Title: a label one can be called, whether or not their work has anything to do with the thing, practice, activity or role. Thing: the designed ‘stuff’ itself. Practice: shared history of learning among people who afﬁliate with the role. Activity: the actual work of designing the “thing.” Role: the ‘hat’ for the person performing the activity on the thing at the moment. What I call myself to myself. IDENTITY

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“There is information architecture” ... but “there are no ‘information architects.’ There are only User Experience Designers.” - Jesse James Garrett, Memphis IA Summit 2009 I disagree. * Culture is messy. * Language is organic. * This is all still evolving.

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What should you call yourself? Whatever Gets The Job Done!* *But we still need words for facets of complex design.

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Rather than “deﬁning the damn thing” ... Let’s try describing & exploring. Because if it’s alive, it’s going to evolve anyway.

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Discipline Established standards, deﬁnitions & curricula, planned from the top down. Practice Community & shared history of learning, coalescing around a shared central concern (domain).