Last Night's Lecture Slides
Jan 30, 09:32 AMSlides are up on the facebooks... Del.icio.us-ing of examples from last night happening now...
Course Materials Now Updated and Available
Jan 7, 02:58 PMI just now completed updates to the syllabus and workplan for my information architecture course. First day of school (for me at least) is tomorrow, and I'm all amped up about how sweet it's all going to be this year. Can't wait!
Clickable Prototypes in OmniGraffle
Jan 25, 01:08 PMJust now I spent several minutes viewing a most excellent screencast depicting the process of building your OmniGraffle wireframe docs in a manner that outputs nicely to PDF with all the links you've created intact. Brilliant!
The Architect's Manifesto
Jan 19, 09:04 AMEver since I was a little kid I've admired the practice of architecture. Maybe it was because Mr. Brady made it seem like such a laid back and tastefully decorated way to live? In any case, I relish the experience of preparing and delivering my perennial lecture on "regular old" architecture and how some librarians co-opted and then became the owners of the orthodoxy and practice of Information Architecture. It's become a kind of penance for me... insisting on one class period that's devoted to regular-old architecture before we go nuts in an LISssy frenzy of Polar Bear IA.
ANYHOW...
So today there's a brilliant addition to Hugh McLeod's ongoing reader-submitted manifestos series from architect/entrepreneur Joshua Horne. Here's some cherries from his architect's manifesto, titled How to be creative in architecture. I think this is more proof that we bespectacled LISssy IAs can benefit hugely from our brothers who do regular-old architecture:
- Don't be afraid to change. The world is changing, are you? When it comes down to the come down, what will stay with you throughout your career is how you help other people, and how many people trust you.
- Evangelize the profession. Do not bitch and moan about architecture and how terrible the pay is. You decide what you get paid, as stated above. It makes architecture look bad. Do something that is good for the profession, and you will be heralded.
- This is not your grandfather's architecture. It's not 1890. We need to move forward. Do something about it. Think about your heroes...did they regurgitate the same old stuff? The guys at the top of this field in 25 years will not be thinking about the "new" same old skyscraper. Are you capable of being somebody's hero?
- Realize that any creative endeavor will be subject to scrutiny. Do it for yourself. Nobody will care about you until you are OK with what you are doing.
Good stuff...
Beyond Rubinoff - Quantify UX w/ Morvillian Honeycomb
Jan 5, 09:56 AM
Those of you who've been subjected to my information architecture class at UM and Wayne State know all about quantifying user experience using Robert Rubinoff's framework and magic spreadsheet. Now comes UX Radar, which goes beyond the four criteria suggested by Rubinoff to include all of the facets of user experience plotted by Peter Morville in his UX Honeycomb. As with Rubinoff, there's an Excel sheet for making the pretty. Oddly, Erez Kikin-Gil fails to give props to R.R...
IA 3.0 : Role, Discipline, Community
Nov 29, 12:14 PMIn addition to spilling the revised definitions of IA from the new edition of the Polar Bear Book, Peter Morville's new article entitled Information Architecture 3.0 provides a new venn paradigm for framing the internal and external debates about what IA is, can be, should be etc. Required reading!
The Impending Death of Information Architecture?
Nov 22, 09:23 AMIn response to a meme that Christina Wodke introduced on her Elegant Hack blog about the bright lights of the IA world such as herself and Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld all becoming uncomfortable with the fit of an old pair of bluejeans called IA...Joshua Porter foresees the immanent demise of IA. Here's a snip from his posting:
Yes, indeed. IA as it has lived will soon die. Not because it wasn’t valuable, not because IA’s didn’t do great work, but because the Web is moving on.Porter invokes Vander Wal and Shirkey and talks about the inadequacy of various aspects of Polar Bear IA... and while I'm not sure I disagree that the climate on the interwebs of today is too hot for Polar Bear IA....Porter is (I think) over-reaching quite a bit in how he's interpreting what Christina was saying about the fit of the IA pants. I'm not sure she was saying the practice of IA no longer fits all of us who practice it. I think she was saying that she and some of her A-list pals were chafing at the fit of what they're now interested in and what their past practice as IAs has entailed.
The problem is that IA models information, not relationships. Many of the artifacts that IAs create: site maps, navigation systems, taxonomies, are information models built on the assumption that a single way to organize things can suit all users…one IA to rule them all, so to speak.
A while back I half-jokingly lamented to Peter that I love being called an Information Architect and didn't know what I'd do if and when our clients and employers stop calling us IAs. Peter's response: don't sweat it - you can always tag yourself as an IA and subvert/augment your title from the bottom-up :)
P.S. I think Porter is dead wrong about IA being about mapping information and not relationships. That's a false premise: info and relationships aren't binaries like that, right?
Austin Govella On Selling IA - Amazing!
Nov 21, 10:47 AMI'm going to violate the principles of private listserv blah-blah and copy-out verbatim some snips from a response that Austin Govella from Thinking And Making made on the IA Institute email list today in response to a thread on "selling IA".
The real difficulty comes from assuming IA has a direct value contribution to an organization, that there's something -- no matter how intangible -- that IA owns, and the value of that commodity, only owned by IA, can only be captures by hiring some information architects. But, deep down, we all know that's a bunch of crap.What do you think? Did I hear an "amen"? Or a Bronx cheer...
For starters, owning a part of the product or the experience is an out-dated idea from the industrialized world. Sole ownership of any part of a product or experience is no longer possible: we live in a collaborative world..
<snip>
Information architecture, like business analysis and enterprise architecture, is a discipline of framing and alignment that ensures an organization's parts work together.
<snip>
Alignment disciplines, like information architecture, identify these gaps and help bridge them. IA creates structures that make it easier for diverse disciplines to stay on the same path. IA creates tools that help groups understand and validate the path their on, so they know where they're going, and it helps organizations validate their current direction against where they want to go.
IA has no value of its own. IA has the ability to help organizations recover the value they lose in the gaps between where the organization wants to go, and where it's headed.
<snip>
Part of closing this gap means we stop trying to own part of a project. We stop governing small tactical decisions that are more the purview of more focused disciplines. It also means we start understanding the larger picture, how the different groups work together. How they don't work together. It means we should reframe our work towards creating tools that help organization's identify, bridge, and avoid gaps and maintain overall alignment.
This is the work we already do. It's really more a matter of perspective.
Mac Webpage Screencapture Tool
Oct 23, 01:42 PMProbably I'm the very last one to discover Paparazzi! - a universal binary for OS X that makes screenshots of webpages, no matter how tall they are. Single-use specialty apps like this make me grin. No menus. No frills. Just gets webpage screenshotting done perfectly. Bravo!
Teaching IA This Fall at UM
Sep 13, 12:52 PMSchool's back in session, and my UM school of information course on Information Architecture is up and running! I'm honored to have another incredible crop of students this year and on my end ... I'm hoping that the changes I've made to the workplan are going to make everybody's time more rewarding, interesting etc.
My video ipod is quickly becoming obsolete (e.g., yesterday's announcements from Apple) but one thing that my device still does well is display the output from iPresentIT. Want to be bored on YOUR iPod? Here are all the slides from my lecture last night in iPod friendly format.
Perspectives on:
Syndication:
RSS 2.0 Feed
Colophon:
My name is Dan Klyn, and I'm an information architect.
I work with amazing people at a nonprofit company called Flannel in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I also teach IA in the library science programs at the University of Michigan and at Wayne State University.
Oh How I Love Thee:
