Comments on The Indie life: Talking with Louis Rosenfeld

Mary Jean "Lou's wife" Babic — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

I feel obligated to point out a blatant falsehood in the interview: Lou doesn’t like devilled eggs.

Happy to serve the IA community in whatever small way I can.

Lou — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Paul, there you go with the questions again…

“Best set of skills to do IA?” Don’t think there is one. There’s perhaps a best mix of skills, with balanced coverage of techniques that help us learn about users, content, and business context (picture those as three circles in a Venn digram).

One may know a lot about content from a background in librarianship, but may benefit from learning about users through HCI and context through studying organizational psychology. Or one may have a background in technical communication (content), with competencies in ethnography (users) and context (management).

This three circle approach can guide one’s efforts at building a good educational foundation to practice IA. It can also help in the recruiting of IA staff and assessment of IA vendors.

Paul Nattress — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Lou,

Do you think that being a librarian before becoming an Information Architect provided you with the best set of skills to do IA?

I’m also curious to find out what previous disciplines other IAs came from.

I was trained in graphic design, later specialising in advertising copywriting and I think these skills transpose to content design, IA etc. quite well.

Lou — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Information architect. Or, if you were going to push me for what I did before becoming an IA: librarian.

Bob Baxley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

If you’re living in a world of content-centric Web sites, it’s true that IA is considerably more complex than ID. However, if you’re working on functionality-centric applications, just the opposite is true. As an interaction designer, information architecture seems like a pretty simple problem. However, that’s only because I work on applications with limited content and therefore only encounter simple IA problems. Structure, behavior, and presentation are all equally important and equally difficult problems although they are balanced in different ways for different types of sites and products. To say that one is more difficult than another is like saying its harder to be a pianist than a guitarist or a drummer.

On a different tack, Lou I’m curious, if pushed for a one word description of your “occupation” what would it be? Designer, librarian, architect, other?

Dennis Huston — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Lou – Great interview and congratulations on the 2nd edition. I can’t wait to get my copy from O’Reilly any day now. A few years back when I read your first edition I found myself thinking, “Hey, that’s what I do.” So why didn’t anyone call it IA then? Well now everybody (or at least many more people) do and I looking forward to reading the new edition and learning about what’s been happening to me since.

Sean — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Sure, I think I could provide that service. But if you get a sudden spike in sales in the metropolitan NYC area, I want to be handing the bear a coke on the next cover.

Lou — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:36 GMT

Hey, while you’re at it, take one of the books that you *don’t* steal and turn its cover to face out. (Old authors’ marketing trick.)

Sean Coon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

There is plenty of ID innovation horizon within and outside of the browser environment; both now and in the future.

But let’s focus on a specific case; take a controlled vocabulary/thesuarus for example. The development of the CV is a rich and consuming practice, and can be performed on various levels depending on requirements and the database structure in place. But the intriguing aspect of the CV is that once it has been developed and introduced to a database environment, the interface possibilities for it’s implementation are practically immeasureable.

Are we to say that unless we’re talking about “holographic systems, (or) jacking directly into one’s brain” that innovation is not possible? Just take a look at what Plumb did with Thinkmap. And that was 4 years ago. Are we conceding convention? Are there not cutting edge interaction design solutions remaining for CV’s/search engines within the web environment? I think yes, there are.

Reminding people that distinctions exist between professions/roles is a positive thing. But if I said, “C’mon folks, usability engineering has no weight in comparison to the complexities of interaction design” to “promote discussion,” I would be wrong in doing so.

If I’m alone on this, so be it.

BTW, I’m still planning on getting your book, because I do respect your knowledge as an IA. But now, I’m going to steal it from B&N.

KJV — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

This interview was great! I always love reading new articles on this site and Louis Rosenfeld material. My favorite part of this interview was, “Maybe we should start calling ourselves ‘findability engineers?’”. Although it doesn’t sound as elite or glamorous as “information architect”, it definitely gives normal people a better idea about what is being done. Everyone could relate to that because they have all been to sites that confuse them and where they can’t find things.

Lou — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

...or a good way to promote discussion.

I agree; it’s highly unlikely that an LIS IA probably won’t develop the new widgets we need (though they might help).

But do you think many such widgets really will be developed? I’ve limited my thinking on this to the familiar realm of 2D digital spaces; should we include more futuristic approaches (e.g., holographic systems, jacking directly into one’s brain) in this discussion? If we do, I’ll concede that plenty of ID innovation is on the horizon. If we stick to web browsers and similar, I still have a hard time seeing how the ID problem space will change all that much.

And yes, IA and ID are joined at the hip, but they’re definitely NOT the same thing. I might also add that IA and UE are joined at the hip, as are IA and CM, as are IA and KM, as are IA and organizational psychology… Not trying to be flippant; just want to point out that there is a reason for all of these differences, even if there is much overlap. Part of my hope with this discussion is to remind people that those distinctions are important.

Sean Coon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

Content will scale. True.

The organization and ‘findability’ of such content will most likely become a more complex task. True.

But the interface(s) that proliferate the results and launch the acquisition of such ‘findability,’ will result through a more complex design task (as opposed to a complex interface). These future widgets, allowing for the exploration/interaction of such scaling content and functionality, have not been designed yet (i.e. look at the historical development of web interface features). Will these interface components be designed by a pure LIS IA? Possibly, but most likely not. Could they they be designed by an IA/ID or ID or an engineer? Most likely.

My point here is that no matter where new media/software development takes us in the future, IA and ID are joined at the hip. To say one will be dealing with more complex issues than the other is being a bit haughty.

Lou — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

I didn’t say ID was *easy*, and I’m all for hiring a specialist. Although I didn’t completely outsource my site’s ID.

My point here is really one of scale; I don’t think ID addresses the same sort of scalar issues that IA does. Exponential growth in content presents new problems, but I don’t think ID experiences something analogous.

However, I’m happy to be corrected. I’ve brought it up a few times with people and on mailing lists, and no one has ever told me I was wrong. (No one has told me I was right either.) Anyway, here’s a nice soapbox for all you ticked off ID’ers out there. Go for it! ;-)

Sean Coon — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

As an ID, who was once specializing in IA, I agree with Lou about the complexities of IA compared to ID. BUT the ONLY reason I am in agreement is because I do NOT have a formal library science background.

Performing hardcore IA tasks (developing search engines, controlled vocabularies, etc.) for me is like pulling teeth compared to designing interactive spaces for design personas. My only question to Lou would be; if ID is the less complicated profession, why did he have to outsource the design of his not-too-complex web site?

Bob Baxley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:35 GMT

So I catch the tongue in cheek aspect of it all but am still wondering about compare between IA and interaction design. Each field presents its own set of challenges and difficulties. Since we’re all supposed to be working together, it seems more productive to respect each other’s unique contributions regardless of specialty.