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Paula Hay

Jesse James Garrett: ia/recon - 0 views

  • Research benefits architecture most when it seeks to define the problem we must solve. Research benefits architecture least -- and can actually produce bad results -- when it seeks to define the solution itself.
  • When most people think of the job of being an editor, I think they imagine someone hunched over a desk, red pen in hand, marking up an endless stream of text, cleaning up split infinitives and dangling participles and the like. But the editorial role and the editorial discipline are two very different things. While there are definitely some people who specialize in this sort of work, there's usually much more to being an editor. In the broadest sense, an editor's job is to help writers make their writing more effective. This involves grammar and punctuation and word choice, sure, but a huge part of any editor's job has to do with creating effective structures. An editor might be responsible for structures at many scales, from the encyclopedia down to the textbook down to the article down to the paragraph down to the sentence. Like the editor, the information architect is concerned most fundamentally with creating information structures. But the discipline of information architecture views this responsibility in a very different light. In the world of information architecture, all structural challenges are currently viewed as variants of the same problem -- the problem of information retrieval.
  • If you asked an editor at a magazine or a newspaper if the structure of her product had been tested with readers before its publication, she would laugh at you. To her, developing effective structures is a matter of exercising her professional judgment -- judgment honed through years of trial and error and hard-won experience with her craft. To her, the proof of her effectiveness in her discipline is her ability to exercise that judgment. To her, that judgment is the very reason for the existence of her role. To her, the idea of abandoning that professional judgment and recasting her role as a conduit through which research findings become structures would be simply absurd. And you know what? She's right.
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  • It's not always easy to tell whether a research study defines the problem or defines a solution. During the research process, well-intentioned attempts to articulate the problem can turn into suggestions for solutions -- especially when the person conducting the research is also responsible for creating the solution.
  • When we hold the test up as the ultimate determinant of success or failure, we encourage specialization in beating the test. The unwritten law of usability is that the most efficient approach is the best. But again, outside the limited area in which user tasks can be readily identified and goals readily recognized, efficiency is not necessarily a universal good. Testing cannot account for all the possible goals of an architecture or its users. If our discipline continues to develop along its current course, we will have developed an entire body of knowledge about information architecture that amounts to little more than a set of tips and tricks for beating the test. Meanwhile, the real creative problems inherent in our work will remain as poorly understood as they are today.
  • The progress of the discipline depends on the development and iteration of a body of knowledge. This body of knowledge, in turn, can only come about through deliberate consideration of a wide range of architectural problems and potential solutions. What we need most of all are good test cases, and the insights that come from tackling them first-hand.
  • I have often been asked the secret of my success as an information architect. Here, I will reveal for the first time that secret. I have hunches. Of course, it's not enough merely to have hunches. They have to be good hunches. My hunches have to be better than the hunches my clients have -- that's why they hire me.
  • Currently, we are building a body of knowledge whose basic requirements -- a dedicated specialist, extensive time and money devoted to research -- automatically exclude the vast majority of real-world cases.
  • The message we should be sending is this one: Information architecture is a discipline that can be practiced by people in a wide variety of roles. Architectures can be designed to achieve a wide variety of goals, not just information retrieval. The single most important factor in the success of an architecture is the skill of its creator. This skill is applied through a combination of experienced professional judgment, thoughtful consideration of research findings, and disciplined creativity. This skill can be developed and applied by specialists and non-specialists alike. Only by being honest with ourselves about what makes us valuable can we convince others of that value. Only by being generous with our knowledge can we reap all of its benefits. And only by creating a culture in which these principles are fully embraced can we foster the growth of our field, and ensure our continued success.
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