Open AccessInformation architecture: How to be a user experience team of one
Author(s) -
Buley Leah
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
bulletin of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8366
pISSN - 0095-4403
DOI - 10.1002/bult.2008.1720340610
Subject(s) - user experience design , usability , intuition , computer science , design education , architecture , product design , communication design , knowledge management , world wide web , product (mathematics) , human–computer interaction , multimedia , psychology , business , art , geometry , mathematics , advertising , visual arts , cognitive science
Leah Buley is an experience designer for Adaptive Path. She writes online at www.ugleah.com and www.adaptivepath.com/blog. She can be reached at leahadaptivepath.com. A s information architects we tend not to think of ourselves as designers. Library and information science programs, from which many information architects (IAs) hail, do not typically emphasize design methods. And the demands of our day-to-day activities reinforce this focus. Tactical IA, usability testing, content generation and management, database design, user research – these things rank highly in the list of common IA responsibilities; design, not so much [1]. And yet, it’s the design layer that users perceive most directly as the product. Naturally this layer includes the visual design system, but it also includes the moment-to-moment experiences and the blend of information and functionality that IAs are responsible for crafting through wireframes, task flows and storyboards. While many inputs will inform what an IA designs, working out the right navigation, content and functionality ultimately comes from the IA’s own intuition and aesthetics – the timeworn tools of any designer.