Boxes and Arrows: Stories by Erin Malone

Learning from the "Powers of Ten"

Erin Malone — Mon, 11 Mar 2002 12:00:12 GMT

Charles and Ray Eames. To most designers, the Eames name brings to mind rows and rows of molded plywood chairs and Herman Miller furniture of the 1950s. But the Eameses were more than just designers of furniture, they were masters of exploration and experimentation into the realm of experience. The Eameses used many media to model experience and ideas. The model was a key tool in their design process. The model allowed them to walk through an experience and offered a way to visualize the possibilities and the layers of meaning. One of the modeling tools they used quite frequently was film.

Throughout their career, they made over 120 short films.1 They ranged in topic from the world of Franklin and Jefferson to advanced mathematical explanations to the scientific exploration of scale in the “Powers of Ten.” The exploration into film helped them explore an idea, work out the presentation and the layers of information and understand a process or theory. The Eameses often carried an idea through multiple versions in order to find the right approach to a problem. On the Eames Office website, Lucia Dewey Eames writes:

“A film could be a model, not simply a presentation of an idea, but a way of working it out. Looking back at the way the office worked, there is a constant sense that the best way to understand a process was to carry it all the way through. For example, in the creation of the project that became the film “Powers of Ten,” first came a test known as “Truck Test,” then the production of “Rough Sketch” (8 minutes; color, 1968), which was a model of the idea of the journey in spatial scale. Only by carrying the idea all the way through could one see the right way to approach the problem. And, indeed, the final version of “Powers of Ten” (9 minutes; color, 1977) has quite a few differences. But both films are models in a more important sense: they are models of the idea of scale. Because such Eames models managed to capture the essence of the problem, they were in fact quite satisfying in their own right.”2

In an interview in ISdesigNET magazine, Charles and Ray’s grandson, Eames Demetrious says:

“There may be a tendency to assume the films are a charming footnote: Furniture designers making films. But that is not how it was, not how Charles and Ray saw it at all. For them, the films were an intrinsic part of the process.”3

“The Powers of Ten,” perhaps their most successful film, is one such model into the nature of scale. The first version, developed in 1968 for the annual meeting of the Commission on College Physics, went under the title, “A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of the Universe.” (8 minutes; color, 1968). In 1977, with the help of Philip Morrison, professor of physics at MIT, they updated and refined the work under the new title, “The Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero” (9 minutes; color, 1977). The film sought to visualize the relative size relationships of elements through space and time and expose what happens when you add another zero to the equation.

“The ‘Powers of Ten’ also represents a way of thinking—of seeing the interrelatedness of all things in our universe. It is about math, science and physics, about art, music and literature. It is about how we live, how scale operates in our lives and how seeing and understanding our world from the next largest or next smallest vantage point broadens our perspective and deepens our understanding.”4
—Powers of Ten website

Series of Sketches for the Films Chart plotting sequences of "Powers of Ten" Storyboard sketch 1 Storyboard sketch 2 Storyboard sketch 3 Storyboard sketch 4

The film starts by showing an image of a sleeping man at one meter square (100) and gradually pulls back, moving ten times away for every ten seconds of time that passes, eventually reaching the edge of the universe (1025). The camera then zooms forward, into the sleeping man’s hand, finally reaching the inside of an atom (10-18).

The exploration of information presentation in the "Rough Sketch" and in the final “Powers of Ten,” speaks to the value of models that the Eameses used to explain their ideas about information organization and presentation. The imagery explores both size relationships and time. It explores the visual relationships of elements and developing patterns that emerge at different scales. The control panel (in the “Rough Sketch”) that is always present on the screen visualizes another six levels of information at its peak. The combination of imagery and the control panels explores the nature of simultaneous presentation of information. The Eameses push the boundaries of what can be taken in and understood at any one time, they play with the notion of information overload and information absorption. The 1968 version (“Rough Sketch”) explores more levels of simultaneous information than the 1977 final version, in which the panel display is reduced to its most essential information and relocated for better comprehension and retention. Sponsored by IBM, the film was one of the many efforts that the Eameses worked on to bring science, technology and art together in a way the average person could understand.

“Eames approached the problem in universal terms (to please the ten-year-old as well as the nuclear physicist) and, as in designing a chair, sought to find what was most common to their experience. Sophisticated scientific data was not the denominator (although the film had to handle such matters with complete accuracy to maintain credibility), but it was the inchoate ‘gut feeling’ of new physics which even the most jaded scientist, as Eames says ‘had never quite seen in this way before.’”5

Although more than 20 years old, the series of films offers lessons on successful presentation and explorations of layered information. The information problems explored through film, by the Eameses, are really no different than many of the problems facing information architects today. Studying the Eames’ work and their processes may yield effective processes for today’s IA. Using different media and methods in prototyping and modeling of ideas, as well as presenting layers of information in a way that is simple and elegant, the Eameses succeeded in their original goals:

“The sketch should, Eames decided, appeal to a ten-year-old as well as a physicist; it should contain a ‘gut feeling’ about dimensions in time and space as well as a sound theoretical approach to those dimensions.”6

For more information:

View All End Notes

Eames Office
Powers of Ten
Library of Congress Eames Exhibition
Loop: AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education: Three Information Design Lessons
By Philip C. Repp
Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames
By John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, Ray Eames and Charles Eames
The Work of Charles and Ray Eames : A Legacy of Invention
By Donald Albrecht (Editor), Beatriz Colomina, Joseph Giovannini, Charles Eames, Philip Morrison
Powers of Ten : A Book About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero
By Philip Morrison, Phylis Morrison, Office of Charles and Ray Eames
The Films of Charles and & Ray Eames—The Powers of 10 (Vol. 1)
Charles and Ray Eames
Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century
By Pat Kirkham

AIGA Experience Design - Past, Present and Future

Erin Malone — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:04:09 GMT

Clement Mok, widely considered one of the early leaders of the IA/UE movement, is the current president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He served as a creative director at Apple for five years before he founded Studio Archetype interaction design and branding agency in 1988. When Sapient "Can those who design experiences find a useful, lasting home within the age-old AIGA?"acquired Studio Archetype in 1998, Mok became Chief Creative Officer. Now consulting, he continues to shape Sapient's long term strategy as Chairman of its Innovation Advisory Board. Terry Swack, a 20-year veteran of the design profession as well as a leading digital strategist and designer, is the AIGA Experience Design national chair and serves on the AIGA board of directors. Formerly, Terry was founder and CEO of TSDesign, an Internet strategy and product design firm acquired by Razorfish in 1999. Terry now consults independently, is a contributing reviewer to Internet World's Deconstructing column and is writing a book on the impact of experience design strategy on business. In 1998 Terry and Clement, organized the Advance for Design Forum, an initiative of the AIGA. Its purpose was to 'create a forum for the advance of experience design in the network economy and to define and build a community of practitioners who will shape and advocate for the role of design in a world that is increasingly digital'. In 2000 it formally became the AIGA Experience Design community of interest and now has a national membership with groups established in major US cities and London. The two are uniquely qualified to elucidate the evolution and future of AIGA ED and to answer the important question: Can those who design experiences find a useful, lasting home within the age-old AIGA? They recently talked with Erin Malone of Boxes and Arrows: B&A: What was your original motivation for beginning the Experience Design community of interest? Terry & Clement: Like many design practitioners in the mid-'90s, Terry and I were thrust into developing and evolving our respective design practices for the growing needs of online initiatives by our clients. Being early converts, we found ourselves in conferences, workshops and seminars preaching the Internet gospel and sharing insights and methodologies on creating order out of the inherent unstructured nature of the Internet. Repeatedly, we found ourselves with other like-minded practitioners in hallway conversations comparing notes. We rarely had time to see each other's presentations or have meaningful discourse about the challenges of advancing the practice and the profession. Each of us were making the same mistakes and essentially inventing the same methodology only with different labels. Terry and I were fed up with these chance meetings, and we were hoping someone would organize a conference that will bring together people who we admired and respected from afar, but we didn't know what organization would do it. Coincidently, Ric Grefe, the director of AIGA, approached both Clement and I to see if we wanted to develop 'New Media' design programming for AIGA. Despite the large number of AIGA members who worked in this arena, we felt this new community and practice was more than just media involving the integration or the complimentary use of different design processes with varying emphasis on different visualization and behavioral manipulation skills and disciplines. There was no obvious home for this community, but we had to start somewhere. AIGA was willing to incubate this group as Clement and I envisioned it. The attendees of the first Advance for Design summit in Nantucket in 1998 were drawn essentially from our personal Rolodexes. They were from a range of design and design-related specializations: designers, clients and educators from corporations, agencies, user research firms and new media/Internet consulting firms. The background of the attendees represented the composition of the community we wanted to build-eclectic and diverse with a common passion for (big as well as little) design. Interestingly, the attendees were surprised AIGA would sponsor Advance for Design, but it was clear these practitioners felt equally disconnected from ACM SIGCHI, IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) or AIP (Association of Internet Professionals). So we opted to define our own community and appreciated the AIGA's support. !!!!! B&A: Why was it called Advance for Design? Terry & Clement: It was not a conference or a meeting. All participants were presenters and attendees. The goal was to figure out how to learn and share knowledge among us. In short, to advance the profession and the practice of design ... hence the name. B&A: The AIGA Experience Design community of interest began over four years ago. Why has it taken so long to come into the mainstream IA/UE/UI community? Terry & Clement: Yes, we've had four Advance for Design summits, but the group really did not become an official part of AIGA until after the third meeting. That's when it became apparent that "Design"- the creating of form, the process, as well as the commitment to human-centered design and user experience-was the common thread. We all contributed to the design of experience. AIGA had already demonstrated its willingness to help develop the group, so we made the affiliation official and gave the group a name. So we see this as a two-year-old organization rather than four. B&A: Do you feel change, inclusion and acceptance of this practice and organization is happening fast enough? Terry & Clement: It's relative to one's perspective as to what's fast. Behaviors and beliefs don't change overnight. It changes at the speed of habit (that's a Paul Saffo quote). We also don't believe the practice and the organization are one and the same. Things happen at different speeds out in the world relative to the speed of a volunteer organization. ;)

B&A: How do you reconcile the notion of an Experience Design Community of practice with being sponsored/supported by the AIGA, which has a reputation out there of being solely the home of graphic designers? Terry & Clement: AIGA has been around nearly a hundred years because it has adapted to the regular transformation of the design profession. "AIGA uses the term "Experience Design" to describe a community of practice-not a single profession or discipline."AIGA used to be an organization about printing (graphic arts-the GA in AIGA). It changed into an organization about typographic design and publication design. It morphed into an organization for graphic designers in the '70s and now it's out to earn the reputation to be an organization about Experience Design. Those who perceive AIGA as a home of graphic designers may want to look closely at its activities, membership, conferences and competitions. In recent years, it has become a leader in a number of areas that are not part of its traditional perception-visual culture, design for film and television, converging media and brand strategy. And lastly, for those who simply have problems with the name, AIGA is not unlike SPRINT or IBM. Those companies chose to keep their historical names-through the use of acronyms-despite how they've changed over time. I'd wager to say that many people have never heard a mainframe computer referred to as a 'business machine'. IBM is now the name of the company that invented "e-business". B&A: Do you think AIGA ED will ever branch off on its own, as a separate organization? Terry & Clement: Simply put: AIGA has 12 staff and 17,000+ members. The organization is the membership. AIGA has put no limitations on who the community is or how it evolves. The Experience Design community's growth is purely a function of who has chosen to be involved and what they believe is important-and it is largely made up of IA/UE/UI folks. Despite this, we think the more important question is which institutional characteristics will serve practitioners best in achieving a sense of community, the ability to share information and the means to develop effective communication programs that will enhance understanding and respect for the role of the practitioners. These are the needs of a profession. We think the organization should have sufficient infrastructure to survive the ebb and flow of volunteer energy and be able to reach out to those in allied fields who share teams and who will advocate for the highest and best practices. Within this structure, one can be as introspective as one wants without becoming self-limiting on the reach of this new community. At the moment, it appears these conditions are better met within AIGA than on one's own. There are many organizations with great intents yet no critical mass or influence. B&A: The concept "A Community of Practice," which was discussed at last year's Summit, has a lot of value. How are you evangelizing this notion to the greater field? Terry & Clement: AIGA uses the term "Experience Design" to describe a community of practice-not a single profession or discipline. Designing effective experiences requires many different types of professionals with a broad range of knowledge. However, we now better understand the difference between a community of interest and a community of practice. This distinction has become an important question as we move forward in the community's development relative to other user-experience professional organizations. Posted recently to the SIGIA-L discussion list was link to an article titled Communities of Practice, by Martin White:

'A community of practice is a way of developing best practice in a given area, established by members who wish to develop their specific expertise through open participation in the creation and exchange of knowledge. Of course best practice changes with time and with business circumstance, and so these communities will also need to adapt ... .... To be successful, online communities must show prompt and relevant benefits to both the employer and the employee. Communities constantly evolve and must be managed to keep them fresh and alive. Every community has a life cycle of infancy, maturity and death. It is possible however with good community management to prevent the death of a community by constantly evolving it with the changing needs of its members, and introducing new functionality, topics or subgroups.'

Martin's article was written for a business audience (i.e., communities within one organization). This perspective helped us realize the statement's relevance to us-how we should be looking at the communities within AIGA Experience Design. It also distinguishes the two terms: community of interest (COI) and community of practice (COP). At the risk of contradicting ourselves, by this definition, AIGA Experience Design is really a community of interest made up of many communities of practice. We are continuing to examine how AIGA Experience Design can support and advance the causes for discrete types of COPs, and which ones. A clear start are the role and knowledge presentations presented at the 4th Advance for Design, in 2001 (visit http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=fourthadvancefordesignsummit to download these presentations - which are all listed in the right column of the page). We will continue to refine those definitions and add tools, models and processes to support them. B&A: There is a lot of work being done by both of you, by Lou Rosenfeld and others, to create a community that embraces the new collaborative discipline. Do you feel that the AIGA is the right home for this or should there be some sort of triad (AIGA, ASIS, CHI) coalition or even an organizationally agnostic new group created? Terry & Clement: Given that experience design is about collaboration, we value the opportunity to participate in the group to determine how we collectively can serve the needs of the community. The group will have several meetings in the coming months with the goal of defining some actionable strategies. That said, we started AIGA Experience Design specifically to build a community that draws from a variety of disciplines. Practitioners will be attracted to organizations that reflect the narrowness of their interests and/or their ambition for broader reach-and this will allow a number of institutions to fill the need. We believe that the interdisciplinary nature of experience design as we see it and the commitment to developing educational and professional standards, as well as communication and advocacy programs, is well supported within AIGA. Rather than agnosticism, we believe that an organization that can advance the community's interest is the predominant attribute we are seeking. B&A: Recently there was an interesting discussion on the AIGAED discussion list that criticized the Graphic Design field for perpetuating the "Designer as Stylist" perception, through annuals and awards and the cult of personality that is so often showcased in the magazines. What is your reaction to"AIGA Experience Design is the community that brings all types of Experience Design practitioners together to focus on larger issues of business value and collaborative practice and methods." this? How do you think the ED SIG can help change people's perceptions of Design and the AIGA? Terry & Clement: Design having a balanced focus on behavioral, social and visual esthetics is what's important to us. There will be always be practitioners who will work at the extremes. It will require practitioners, educators and professional organizations to shape and redefine the new center of gravity for design. It's hard work and it needs to be done if our profession will have any credibility in the marketplace. The ED SIG can't do it alone. It requires changes at all level. AIGA is the only organization that has the critical mass and numbers to make the meaningful changes. B&A: Do you think the party is too big? Are we fracturing the discipline too finely? The list on the AIGA ED page consists of:

Design planner
Design strategist
Business strategist
Brand strategist
Visual systems designer
Brand applications designer
Creative director
User researcher
Usability specialist
Information architect
Information designer
Interaction designer
Software designer

Terry & Clement: To the contrary- the party is not too big by virtue of being inclusive of those who tend to work together on teams to accomplish a solution within the practice of experience design. AIGA Experience Design is the community that brings all types of Experience Design practitioners together to focus on larger issues of business value and collaborative practice and methods. Because of this, AIGA Experience Design members are designers who are interested in exploring new boundaries of their professions as they are evolving across multiple disciplines. This includes people who belong to other professional organizations, as well as people who don't identify with a traditional profession and are looking for a new "home" community. The list above is from last summer's summit when we examined experience design 'roles' people might play in their organizations or on teams. The words serve to summarize skills and knowledge required to play them. As many of these roles have overlapping skills and knowledge, it's not as important what they're called, as long as we know what they do. You'll find on our new Web site, coming within the next month, an even more inclusive and expanded list of skills-not roles or titles-found in the AIGA Experience Design community (following are just the headings for each section). Members of this community have skills from:

the online and digital industries
the software industry
the communication design and broadcast industries
the marketing/research/advertising industries
industrial design
exhibit design
the environmental/interior design industries

B&A: What happened to the Graphic Designer? Is this title good enough anymore? Is it too loaded within the software, IA, HCI field to be a respected member of the team? Terry & Clement: The titles software engineer, programmer, information architect and HCI specialist are also loaded, so why single out graphic designer? People who call themselves graphic designers might also use terms like designer, visual designer, communication designer or communication strategist to describe their current roles. But in the new Web site text, you'll find the term graphic designer. ;) B&A: The joint forum with CHI at this year's CHI is a great start in embracing the related disciplines. How has the CHI forum been received? Terry & Clement: Anecdotally, the CHI2002 / AIGA Experience Design FORUM is being received quite well. People are happy to see more design at CHI, and we're collaboratively happy to accommodate. We'll know better when the rubber hits the road and we know the final attendance numbers! B&A: What outcomes are you hoping for when it is all over? What events, conferences, seminars are next? Terry & Clement: There will be further collaboration, which we expect to discuss at the FORUM. B&A: Is there anything like this planned with the ASIST community? Was there an official AIGA presence at the ASIST IA Summit in March? Terry & Clement: I (Terry) attended, but the timing was difficult for others simply because of the scheduling of AIGA's national design conference the following weekend in DC. A challenge of logistics not interests. As far as collaboration, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of the planning group you asked about a few questions earlier. B&A: Where do you see the AIGA ED community going in the next few years? Terry & Clement: We plan to continue to execute on our mission "to build an interdisciplinary community of professionals who design for a world in which experiences are increasingly digital and connected" by continuing to address the most relevant issues of the community. B&A: At last year's summit, there were a lot of design educators there. Has AIGAED been working to develop a recommended curriculum for universities and art schools for this new community of practice? Terry & Clement: Yes. AIGA is the institution that works with the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) to develop accreditation criteria for four-year and graduate programs in design. In this capacity, we have developed with the ED community a set of criteria for an effective program (focusing on outcomes). The involvement of educators in the community and the publication of Loop, AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education, are attempts to work with the education community to stimulate thinking about curricular issues. B&A: How is it being accepted? Terry & Clement: NASAD and the schools it accredits welcome the guidance. Acceptance in the educational community, however, is not as important as their engagement. In this regard, AIGA and the ED community are attempting to enable the community to become engaged around critical issues to the professional community (and its needs from the educational community). This takes time, but there do not appear to be other comparable efforts going on. B&A: As a hiring manager myself, I have found the well-rounded skills needed for this role are often lacking in fresh graduates-or they have two degrees and have spent too many years in school. Are there any schools with something acceptable in place? Terry & Clement: Schools are in dire need of overhauling their curriculum to reflect the realities of the marketplace. This is not a criticism of design schools but also of computer science programs, business schools and engineering schools as well. B&A: As the AIGA ED gets off the ground, sponsoring conferences and seminars beyond the small Summits, what's next for the two of you? Terry & Clement: Clement is the president of AIGA and Terry is a national board member and chair of AIGA ED. We have our hands pretty full, not only planning this year, but also working with Ric and the rest of the board to determine where the organization is going. For more information than that, you'll just have to get involved and contribute to what you'd like to see happen! We'd also like to thank you for inviting us to participate in Boxes and Arrows!

For more information:

Erin Malone is currently a Product Design Director at AOL in the Web Properties division. She has been a practicing interaction, interface and information designer since 1993. She can be reached at .

Foreseeing the Future: The legacy of Vannevar Bush

Erin Malone — Sun, 16 Jun 2002 12:00:01 GMT

In 1945 a seminal article appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. Titled, “As We May Think,” the article’s author, Vannevar Bush (1890–1974), proposed a new mechanical machine to help scholars and decision makers make sense of the growing mountains of information being published in to the world. This article presaged the idea of the Internet and the World Wide Web and was directly influential on the fathers of the hypertext and the Internet as we know it today. Ted Nelson, who coined the term “hypertext” in 1967, describes Bush’s article as describing the principles of it.

Bush has been hailed as the conceptual creator of “hypertext,” laying out the notion of the modern link 50 years before the web became a public phenomenon. Bush was a distinguished scientist and a scholar. He served as dean of the school of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C. and was the President’s top advisor during World War II. He was chairman of the President’s National Defense Research Committee (1940) Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (1941–1947), Chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (1939–1941), founder of the National Science Foundation and was a central figure in the development of nuclear fission and the Manhattan Project. But he was also an inventor and invented several types of machines—the profile tracer, the justifying typewriter and the differential analyzer which was used in World War II to calculate ballistics table. As early as the 1930s he was concerned about the glut of information coming out of academia and the government and wanted to improve the way people accessed, stored and communicated information. He recognized the limitations in how that information was accessed. In this landmark article he describes a machine, the memex, which would help someone find information based in association and context rather than strict categorical indexing. “A memex is a device in which an individual stores his books, records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”1 The article goes on to describe the physical desk as having a set of translucent screens, keyboard, buttons and levers. The desk would also serve its user as a large storage device. It is because of this article that Bush has been hailed as the conceptual creator of “hypertext”. The article is at its most innovative and interesting in the description of how the memex device was to work for the reader. The memex “affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.”2 This description, some 30 years before the invention of the personal computer and 50 years before the web became a public phenomenon, lays out the notion of the modern link. George P. Landow, author of Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology says of Bush, “Bush’s idea of the memex, to which he occasionally turned his attention for three decades, directly influenced Ted Nelson, Douglas Englebart Andreis Van Dam and other pioneers in computer hypertext. […] In “As We May Think” and “Memex Revisited” Bush proposed the notion of blocks of text joined by links and he also introduced the terms links, linkages, trails and web to describe his conception of textuality. Bush’s description of the memex contains several other seminal, even radical, conceptions of textuality.”3 Some of the ideas, the concept of associative indexing, trails and sets of trails are prescient to the modern topical blog. A single author connects documents that are associated by some common theme, annotated with commentary and available for others to read long after the original associations are made. Bush described the memex reader reading documents and tying them together with links. “Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it to the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. […] He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.”4 Bush goes on to describe the sharing of trails between people and the creation of a “new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of common record. The inheritance from the master becomes not only his additions to the world’s record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.”5 The memex and its description have long been hailed as inspiration for the creators of hypertext and even the web. However, the importance of his legacy reaches far beyond this in the description of information organization and associative context. We are only now beginning to develop software and interactive spaces that allow a reader’s associative ability to be more automated and made available to others across the Internet. Through the addition of linking and the creation of trails, as well as personal commentary and annotation, the reader becomes author as well. The modern weblog starts to walk down the path Bush described. Wiki, the software that allows one person to aggregate and publish information and then allows others to modify and add and change the original information is also akin to his vision as well. Bush was as concerned with people authoring content as well as managing associations around existing content, and the fluid nature of the Wiki, the sharing of data and the sharing of the responsibility for the data trails, is a direct descendant of his ideas. Theodor Nelson, in his essay “As We Will Think” (1972—republished as a chapter in From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine in 1992), says that the “famous call for the memex has been generally misinterpreted for it has little to do with information retrieval as prosecuted today. Bush rejected indexing and discussed instead new forms of interwoven documents.”6 Bush’s vision for how we handle and interact with information took a step towards reality with the creation of hypertext and the basic linked web, but those of us working with information and creating information spaces and connections would do well to take another look at his vision and be as inspired to create new and innovative ways to gather and share information as other have been in the past.

For more information:

As We May Think Vannevar Bush; July 1945, Issue #176, p 101-108. http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm
The Victorian Web: Book Review: From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine. George Landow; 1992 http://65.107.211.206/cv/Reviews/Nyce_977.html
Dead inventors’ Corner Michelle Slatella; 1998 http://www.discovery.com/stories/deadinventors/dead980807/deadinventors.html
The Electronic Labrynth: Vannevar Bush Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, Robin Parmar; 1993 http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0034.html
The Godfather G. Pascal Zachary, Wired Magazine, November 1997 http://hotwired.lycos.com/collections/computers/5.11_vannevar_bush_pr.html
Hypertext Concepts: A Historical Perspective (PDF) Niels Erik Wilde; Roskilde University, Denmark, November 2000 www.komm.ruc.dk/personale/NEW/CommCourse/Hypertext.pdf
Hypertext and the Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology George P. Landow; 1992, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London http://www.press.jhu.edu/press/books/landow/memex.html
Hypertext in Historical Context: Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson Revisited Mary Hopper moderating; October 1998 http://media-in-transition.mit.edu/forums/hypertext/hypertext.htm#memex
Internet Pioneers: Vannevar Bush Masters Project, UNC Chapel Hill, 2000, Scott Griffin http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/bush.html
Technocracy in America A new Biography traces How Net Visionary Vannevar Bush Orchestrated A Grand Postwar Alliance of Scientists, Industry and the Military Andrew Leonard; 1997, Salon Magazine http://www.salon.com/21st/books/1997/12/08books.html
Vannevar Bush bibliography: Events in the Life of Vannevar Bush David Klaphaak, Jr.; 1996 http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/graphics/html/info/timeline.html

Photos of Vannevar Bush

MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium; 1995 http://www.histech.rwth-aachen.de/www/quellen/bush/photos.htm

Erin Malone is currently a Product Design Director at AOL in the Web Properties division. She has been a practicing interaction, interface and information designer since 1993. She can be reached at .

AIGA Experience Design Summit #5

Erin Malone — Tue, 16 Jul 2002 01:01:17 GMT

Every year, for the past five years, the Experience Design community, now part of AIGA, gathers together for two days to think about the state of the profession and to have conversations around a particular aspect of the world in which Experience Design lives. The summit happens each year as a check point to the profession. “One has to isolate what is going on out there from the perception of what is going on out there” —James WoudhuysenThis year was no exception. 70+ people came together in Las Vegas, Nevada to network and talk about the big ideas and issues that face the profession today. The weather was hot and the strip was hopping. The fountains of the Bellagio danced with the heat and the Cirque de Soleil's “O” was the experience of choice. Despite the state of the economic climate today, there was a good showing. Many attendees were from California (cheap flights) but there were several folks from as far away as Canada, England and Italy in attendance and there were many new faces in the mix. The theme this year: Integrating our values, processes, and insights into the business community The summit began with the traditionally well-attended cocktail hour on Thursday evening, followed by dinner. Terry Swack, Clement Mok and Nathan Shedroff welcomed the group and initiated the beginnings of conversations by asking a handful of new attendees to share with the group who they are, what they do and why they were attending.

AIGA-ED Summit attendees, George Olsen, Rebecca Blood, Patrick Hunt, David Hoffer's back, Jesse James Garrett

Julie Stanford, Nick Ragouiz in the background

Amanda Willoughby, Peter Merholz and Molly Wright Steenson

Dinner, which was beautifully presented, finished off with small groups breaking out to gather for drinks and explore Las Vegas. Friday, July 12, 2002 The first full day of the summit was programmed to provide different viewpoints around the topic of design's relationship to business. There were a range of speakers from James Woudhuysen, a design forecaster, to Artie Wu, founder of Vividence, to David Rose, professor at Harvard School of Design and principle at Ambient to Lou Rosenfeld, consultant and IA spiritual leader and Peter Morville, Semantic Studios. Opportunity James Woudhuysen, from London, started the day off with an inspiring commentary on the nature of design, IT, business and their place in the global economy. He spoke about risk and risk aversion. Woudhuysen took the larger IT discipline to task for failing to overcome their fear and not innovating. He blamed the casual, frat boy, play is work mentality prevalent in IT and Silicon Valley for much of this. He also warned against becoming so USER CENTRIC that we lose the edge of innovation and become overly driven by users rather than guided by their needs. James Woudhuysen was inspiring and made some very good points, in particular about fear and the differences between being inspired by users and being informed by them rather than being led by them. This stifles creativity and innovation which are as important to design as creating something useful and usable. Measuring Value Following Woudhuysen were three presentations that looked at some practical ways to measure the work of design - in economic terms as well as social, environmental and ethical terms. Allistair Williamson, WebCriteria, Artie Wu, Vividence and Anne Willoughby each presented. Artie Wu began by asking us to consider the context for measuring ROI. The main thrust of his presentation lay in the premise that if you aren't on the critical path to success or are and you fail, then you won't get funded or you are irrelevant. The goals of design and the success of design in making the relationship with business work are inherently tied to whether or not the project you are working on is on the critical path for the project sponsor. He went on to show some examples of how the role of design and the impact of design in a project could affect the bottom line. He spoke a bit about Vividence and the type of work they have done for clients. Wu's presentation did not become a pitch for the company but stayed on track. The information presented was important to hear - "If you can't measure the impact you cant defend the value". What was not discussed or presented were more tangible techniques design could take into the process for actually making measurement claims on the work. “Understand what matters; measure what matters; change what matters.”He was followed by Allistair Williamson, who continued the mantra of learning to speak the language of business in order to be understood and valued by business. He recommended that design be prepared to boil down its messages to their most basic elements. Business folks will not listen to the subtleties. He also emphasized that every project must have clear, measurable customer centered business objectives and that these provide the guidelines for what can be measured later. He emphasized the need for clear before and after comparisons as one way that design can specifically point to change. The last speaker on this topic was Anne Willoughby. Her focus was to look at alternative ways to measure the impact and value of design. Environmental and social actions should be important to design as they work with business and in many cases, these factors are as important as the economic factors. There was no real specific example given of how this could or should be done, but the presentation was a reminder to us all that design has a social responsibility as well as a monetary responsibility to the field, to business and to the world. Redefining the Practice The second topic of the day was redefining the practice of experience design. The presentations began with Nico Macdonald, Design Agenda, and then replacing Alan Cooper, who was originally scheduled to speak, a roundtable report by Clement Mok and Davis Masten, Cheskin. The goal for this topic was to look at some of the trends in the field as the economy has evolved and shifted. Macdonald, a journalist specializing in writing about design and technology, presented some thoughts and observations from many interviews and conversations he has had in the last year. The practice has seen layoffs and shifts into freelancing and smaller boutique firms being created. Innovation and opportunity are still all around but design as a practice is having to evolve and adapt as clients are more cautious, expecting more for their money and becoming more customer centric. The climate is one of change and adaptation as design figures out its role with business as well as what it needs to learn from other disciplines in order to continue to be a valued member of the team. The roundtable report by Mok and Masten, was from a dinner that was held a few months ago. The dinner brought together designers, business leaders and other thought leaders including:

David Liddle
David Kelly - IDEO
Paul Saffo
Susan Rockrise - Creative VP Intel
Todd Holcomb
Nancy Hill - Hill Holiday
Christopher Ireland - Cheskin
Tahl Roz, Inc magazine
Ray Riley

They discussed the nature of the economy and the design practice within the business environment. They talked about structural issues, cultural issues, and education. Masten and Mok shared a few quotes from the conversation “Designers wander around looking around for their higher purpose the way a golden retriever looks for his tennis ball… I just know there's something here if I could just claim it… like this itch that can't be scratched” —Paul Saffo “The more successful the relationship the more able you are to change the conversation to where you need it to go.” —Susan Rockrise It sounded like an interesting dinner, but seemed somewhat out of place and not so practical for the summit attendees. Interesting quotes, but how does that help the Product Designer when they go back to work on Monday? The q&a discussion around this topic offered some interesting models that the field could look into adopting. Analogies to the movie studio production model as well as the union model were offered for discussion as well as thoughts about what exactly the problem was in the first place. Repositioning the Practice The final set of conversations on Friday were loosely collected around the idea of repositioning the practice; what changes in thinking, in working, in doing need to happen in order to keep the practice of Experience Design moving forward and vital. Kicking off the discussion was Peter Morville, Semantic Studios. He put onto the table the notion of Findability as a dimension of Experience Design that offers an interesting and robust opportunity for the design community. Morville offered several examples of what is not working currently and how adding the layer of findability to the table can create better products. Google, the Flamenco project from Berkeley and others were offered as beautiful examples where findability was in the forefront of the objectives. He challenged the audience to think about this concept —findability equals beauty —in their design work —beyond usability —and to look for this beauty in new places. Lou Rosenfeld followed with a very pragmatic presentation around organization and organizational structure. He proposed the creation of strong autonomous Experience Design groups at the enterprise level of business. The model for the group would offer a variety of services and solutions and would look to create a centralized vision for long term and short terms needs within a company. He put forth a very well thought out model that not only had practical application but had a built in business model as well. The idea of becoming a more entrepenurial styled organization within a traditional business organization is interesting and may yet prove successful for those with enough clout and vision to pull it off. Rosenfeld was followed by David Rose, of Ambient Devices. Rose talked to the group about a series of initiatives he and his company have been working on in the wireless space. The goals in thinking and products they have been prototyping have been to decouple (a word heard quite often over the course of the two days) the interface from the technology. Rose had several devices on hand to demonstrate some of this thinking, including an orb [show picture] that plugged in and glowed different colors to indicate the stock market activity. Another example was a pair of picture frames that blinked and glowed lights as messages when the person shown in the picture was physically near a companion picture frame. The philosophy that they have taken involves capitalizing on people's awareness of the environment, on everyday objects and adding layers of meaningful but not overwhelming or confusing information to those objects. This was a very interesting presentation and offered up to the group new ways to think about design and the design process. Interface does not always equal screen. The last presentation was Jeffrey Huang of the Harvard Design School. Jeffrey presented a more traditional sort of conference presentation - a recap of some of the work he has been doing with his design curricula at Harvard around visualizing information and then went into an overview of a recent project that took some of the ideas from the class work and research and applied them to a real project. The recent project was done for the Swiss Consulate and consisted of the creation of what is known as the Swiss House located in Boston. The project entailed the design and creation of physical and virtual environments. Utilizing multiple layers of technology and full wall size curtains of information projection, the Swiss House attempts to create a feeling of single spaces of interaction across multiple disparate physical locations. The project was extremely interesting to see and is an example of how design can combine physical and virtual technologies to create new business architectures for everyday activities. The day ended with groups breaking off for drinks, dinner and many of us attending the grandest of all experiences Cirque de Soleil's “O”.

Saturday, July 12, 2002 Saturday's agenda began with an overview for the day and a look back at what the Experience Design group had accomplished over the last year. The CHI/AIGA Forum and the Case Study initiative were the two major undertakings for the last year. There are plans for more case studies, evolving into several different types of cases as well as the new DUX (Designing User Experience) conference that is in planning with CHI and SIGGRAPH. Terry Swack and Clement Mok mentioned that the AIGA is also working on initiatives that represent the process of design rather than the design artifacts. The AIGA-ED initiatives are part of the larger picture of the shifting organization.

Julia Whitney presents a recent project from WGBH

Straddling the two presentation rooms, attendees get a little of both show and tells

Eugene Chen from Aaron Marcus and Associated presents a recent project

Show & Tells The formal part of the day began with a morning of Show & Tells. Seventeen presenters, one hour and ten minutes, one room with a couple of divider screens and a whole lot of attendees moving back and forth between simultaneous presenters, made for a really interesting and dynamic part of the summit. The presentations were given by Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path, George Olsen of Capital Group, David Shavrick of ModemMedia, Davis Masten of Cheskin and Nathan Shedroff, Gillian Crampton Smith from Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Molly Wright Steenson of Razorfish, Gilmer Maluyao from the ACTION project, Kristee Rosendahl of Classroom Connect, Julia Whitney from WGBH, Thomas Mueller of Razorfish, Angela Shen-Hsieh and Mark Schindler of S+A Visual I/O, Eric Wilcox, from IBM Research, Molly Rutten from Intel Corp., Julia Stanford of Sliced Bread Design, Sharon Poggenpohl from the Illinois Institute of Design, Chris Jones of Small Pond Studios and Eugene Chen of Aaron Marcus and Associates. The presentations ranged from conceptual looks at the future of brand (Masten and Shedroff) to the latest project launched at WGBH (Julia Whitney) to the set of deliverables created for a recent consulting project (Kristee Rosendahl) to a scenario and concept presentation pitch to Kodak (David Shavrick) to what's been going on in the first year at the new Interaction Institute at Ivrea (Gillian Crampton Smith). The presentations were all interesting and the discussion very lively. This was one of the most dynamic and enjoyable parts of the summit because it had to be quick - presenters were given seven minutes to present and three minutes for questions. Following the Show & Tells, the entire group posed for the traditional group photo, gathering outside into the 110 degree plus weather and then returning inside to talk about the break out section of the day. Break Out Sessions Throughout the two days of conversations, presentations and their followup discussions, Swack and Mok, as well as the presenters jotted down themes, questions and big ideas that surfaced, onto large white tablets. In addition, attendees added thoughts and other questions to these pages. At the end of Friday, the planning committee gathered to review the ideas and group them into common themes. These became the topics of conversation for the break out sessions. Five topics, with discussion facilitators were introduced to the group. The five topics were offered for discussion and the large group was given a chance to choose which topic interested them. The next three hours, including lunch, were spent in these groups. The goal, to come back to the larger group in the afternoon with some ideas, some initiatives and next steps that could be taken on as projects for the AIGA Experience Design group for the coming year. After the allotted time was up, the groups came back together and presented their thoughts and ideas. There was lively discussion after each as well and it was apparent that this was a favorite of the summit. 1. ROI and development of consistency and standards in descriptions and communication, Allistair Williamson Highlights:

You have to care about business results
We need more, clear, evidence of business results
We need a framework for linking attributes to business benefits to measurable objectives
We need research around existing measurement systems
Business values people who care about their results rather than some just delivering widgets

2. Vocabulary / Criteria to articulate value, Rick Robinson Highlights:

First condition for talking about designing. Saying that something can be a design = thing A can be changed through an intervention we x to y in order to z
an activities - objects - outcomes defining product business reasoning service social delivering process objectives what makes design design and not meddling? The way in which you make the choices, the standards and principles that guide the process - the thread that ties the community together
Decisions within the process are informed by the value to the constituent. (useful, usable, desireable) Design brings value to the constituent Design makes decisions based on standards
What do you get by having the design organization that designs you get capabilities, outcomes, comprehensibility, clarity The design organization has ability to innovate, to imagine, to deliver something that didn't exist before
Tell this story clearly to business technology public press other professions

3. Redesigning practice and our fit in organizations, Nick Ragouzis “ We have the students focus on designing the right thing and designing the thing right.” —Gillian Crampton Smith, Director, Interaction Design Institute IvreaHighlights:

Design wants to be more effective in - business - society - environment - greater good
define problem - can simplify and summarize - can visualize - typically generalists - self perception is a detriment
strengths - in communication - different useful toolset - we are doers, get things done - able to quickly prototype
weaknesses - credibility - lack domain knowledge and common vocabulary - not conversant in business - we're generalists but not necessarily managers
opportunities - become better known in business and part of business - can act as change management and change consultants - act not just as problem solvers but project definers
threats - design perceived as a commodity - designers are outsiders - culture is threatening - brought in too late to really solve problems and then are scapegoats when they dont go well - internal resources, or incorrect resources brought in - substitutes for us
Plan - continue to work through this process in the nine areas - further distill the commonalities - put in place a plan of action for acting on our learnings

4. Stepping away from the screen - what ideas are out there in this new landscape and what do designers need to know to participate, David Rose Highlights:

Questions were to help understand what it means to step away from the screen
Who has the money to do these things?
How do we get invited to the table to ask why?
What skillsets do we need to know to cross these barriers?
What tools, techniques do we need?
Technologies, knowledge base?
How is design positioned to be a critical component in designing products
Why do we care?
Positioning Ubiquitous
The advance of beyond-the-desktop is inevitable. The infrastructure for embedded wireless is nascent which creates important windows of opportunity. The ED community needs to drive the dialog or our role as designers will be limited. Designers need to acquire a new skill set to participate and have a valued voice. And as true advocates for users we can lead the emerging and critical conversation around ethics and privacy.
How do we help shape these decisions?
Research topics for ubiquitous
What is the framework to balance convergence devices and divergence
Tactical
Find new partners for this community to learn from and interact with
Research education initiatives - where should training come from
Develop a more holistic skills taxonomy and road map for progression. Address deep core skills and wide skills
Develop a new technology radar system, establish scouting and forecasting roles and publish to the community
Establish a process and structured format to critique new products

5. Where opportunities for design may lie in the future, Nico Macdonald Highlights:

Looked at the areas where there might be opportunity for design in the future.
Transportation
Medical
Education
Family
Financial
Government
Narrowed down to transportation.
Looked at the notion of transportation in context of public and private modes.
Opportunities in a travel scenario might include creation of devices to harness the community of travelers on a plane, messaging between travelers, or the need to broadcast information about the nature of the travel method - are there seats in the full subway car, or the line at the airport check in is 300 people long.
Future things designers might need to know in this space include traffic patterns, census growth, government initiatives, research and observation about travelers

The breakouts seemed to be one of the favorite activities for the summit, and this attendee wishes they came earlier in the programming. The presentations and discussions fed the breakout, but by the time they actually happened, the group was tired and not as focussed as they were in the morning. Closing The summit officially ended after the last of the break out groups presented. Terry Swack and Clement Mok invited attendees who were interested in pursuing some of these initiatives as well as others mentioned throughout the weekend, to join the steering committee meeting happening the next day. Overall, the summit was informative and offered a lot of high level conversation and discussion around a few key ideas. The need to discuss these ideas and come up with strategies and solutions is important in our industry. The parting mood seemed positive and there are changes afoot in the way these ideas and initiatives are going to be pursued in the next year, which is hopeful. The failings of past summits have been the lack of follow through and the little evidence of practical initiatives that have actually come to pass as advancement for the practice. This year's discussions and plans are encouraging to look forward to over the coming year.

Books mentioned during the Summit

The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim
Strategy and the Internet PDF download by Michael Porter
Risk Society - Towards a New Modernity by Ulrick Beck
The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi
The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine, James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II
Creating Breakthrough Products: Innovation from Product Planning to Program Approval by Jonathan Cagan, Craig M. Vogel

Erin Malone is currently a Product Design Director at AOL in the Web Properties division. She has been a practicing interaction, interface and information designer since 1993.

The Tool Makes the (Wo)Man

Erin Malone — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 12:00:01 GMT

The other day at work, we were planning some new processes for bringing work into the team. One team member suggested we use a product that another group was using to track our projects. The suggestion on the table essentially meant we would force fit our way of working into this tool “because we already had the tool.” This was proposed instead of doing the work to figure out how we needed to get our jobs done and then doing the due diligence to find the tool that best matched our needs. The tool we should be cultivating here is our brain—our skill for problem solving and providing value to our clients and companies.This scene resonated with me because it is an example of not understanding the problem at hand. Jakob Nielsen’s exclamation “Flash is 99% Bad” is another example of barking up the wrong tree. He is now working with Macromedia to make the tool more usable—as if that was the source of the problem. What I can’t understand is why more people aren’t getting riled up about the fact that the problem isn’t the tool. The SIGIA list occasionally erupts into the “Which tool do you use?” or “Which tool is best for information architecture/best for flow mapping/best for wireframing” conversations. Even Steve Krug noted this at the IA Summit in his Top Ten list of what IAs talk about. These questions arise as if the perfect tool would make the perfect IA. We lose sight in these discussions of the fact that we already have the perfect tool: our brains. The knowledge, expertise and skills to solve problems are right between our ears. The visual manifestation of a solution—whether done in Illustrator, Omnigraffle, Visio, HTML, Flash or even on a cocktail napkin—is beside the point. If the solution is appropriate to the problem and the end user, then it doesn’t really matter how it is implemented. But, you say, “the best, the right, the perfect tools will help us.” “It will make us more efficient and give us more time to think, to solve problems.” And I would say, you are right… to a degree. Solving the problem will come from a deep understanding of the issues, of the users’ needs, of the task—from research, from analytical thinking and then sketching out solutions. Sketching these solutions can be done in any way—on a whiteboard, on paper with (gasp) a pen or pencil, or on the computer with the tool of choice. My concern and angst over these types of discussions, as well as the kind of proclamations that Nielsen and other gurus make, is that focusing on the tool—either finding the right tool or badmouthing the perceived “wrong” tool—moves our energies away from the real problem at hand: design solutions that are inappropriately or poorly executed. In all the talk of Flash being bad, I have never seen Nielsen and others offer to work with design schools or to help craft curricula, lessons or workshops that will teach the appropriate skills to the generation of designers who are being taught tool after tool rather than how to appropriately solve problems. So what’s my point? The tools of the trade that we use to solve our problems are mostly irrelevant. They come down to personal preference, to comfort level, to speed of learning and what others in the group are using, which is generally a concern when sharing documents. The tool we should be cultivating here is our brain—our skill for problem solving and providing value to our clients and companies. The tools used to implement solutions (as opposed to the tools used to design solutions) also matter a little less than we’d like to think. Of course, the solutions need to be appropriate to the medium, to the end users’ needs and should solve the problem in the best way possible. So even if Nielsen and Macromedia succeed in making rich media best practices 100 percent “good” (Macromedia press release, June 3, 2002), or even if someone comes along with the killer app for IA work, it still won’t matter much if designers and IAs don’t understand the medium or how best to solve the problem. We have a responsibility to kick things back—to our bosses, to our clients, to our colleagues—when the recommendation to use a certain tool or technology just because it is there doesn’t fit the needs of the task, whether that task is designing a solution or implementing a solution. We have a responsibility to be smart problem-solvers and use the one tool that we all have—our brains.

Talking with Jesse James Garrett

Erin Malone — Sun, 27 Oct 2002 17:15:41 GMT

“Many an information architecture has run aground on the rocky shoals of corporate politics.”B&A: Congratulations on the new book. You must be excited to be finished and have the work out there for the community to learn from. JJG: I’m very gratified by the reception people have given the book so far. The initial feedback I’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. Also, if nothing else, writing this book has really changed the way I experience bookstores. I have a whole different appreciation for the amount of work packed into even the slimmest volume on the shelves. B&A: The new book, “The Elements of User Experience”, grew out of the diagram (EOUE) you created a few years ago. What made you decide to expand these ideas into a book? JJG: When I released the diagram, I really thought only the insiders—people who had to wrestle with this stuff on a daily basis—would find it interesting or valuable. And, in a sense, I was right. But what I discovered was that those insiders were not just using the diagram to talk among themselves. They were using it to help communicate to outsiders about their work. As I heard more and more stories about people using the diagram in this way, I came to realize that there might be a market for a book that did all that explaining on our behalf. B&A: What are you trying to communicate with the book that is different from the original diagram? JJG: The big difference is that the book doesn’t make any assumptions about what you already know. The diagram assumes some familiarity with concepts like HCI and the work of Edward Tufte. The book starts from scratch, assuming only that the reader has some experience using web sites. This was a big reason to keep the book so short—so that newcomers to the field wouldn’t get overwhelmed with procedural minutiae, and so that experienced practitioners wouldn’t get bored silly as I recount all these details they already know. B&A: Who is your primary audience for the book? Once they finish that book, what do they read to learn more? JJG: I’ve got two main audiences in mind for the book: newcomers to the field, those who may have web design or development skills who want to know how to bring a user-centered approach to their work; and decision-makers, the people who have to decipher what the heck these web people are talking about. Each of the main chapters has a list of additional books for those who want more detail on a particular topic. In addition, I’m putting together a resource page at jjg.net/elements/resources that will point to further reading on the web. B&A: Can senior practioners benefit from the book? JJG: The main benefit of the book for the more experienced practitioners is as an evangelical tool. The book will give you some ways of expressing the value and importance of your work that you may not have had before. B&A: Where did the idea for the original diagram come from? JJG: Well, the whole story is in the book, but the short answer is that I was the first information architect in an organization that was traditionally design-oriented, and I felt I needed a tool to help me gain the trust and support of my colleagues. I toyed with the idea some, couldn’t make it work, and gave up on it entirely—or so I thought. My subconscious had other plans. B&A: Did your series of articles, ia/recon, influence the book? JJG: There’s one section of the book, in which I talk about the relative value of generalists versus specialists, that’s strongly reminiscent of ia/recon. That part probably would have been different, or maybe not in the book at all, if I hadn’t done recon first. But overall, the book covers pretty different territory; ia/recon is very much inside baseball—you have to be familiar with the issues facing the community to get the most out of it. The book is very much directed at outsiders to our community, people who may not have much interest in the issues covered in the essay. B&A: Has your work with Adaptive Path affected your perspective on User Experience? Are the roles more fluid or more defined? JJG: I now have a broader understanding of the different ways of looking at a user experience problem than I had before we started Adaptive Path. Within the partnership, we’re more or less interchangeable—we’ve really gone out of our way to make sure that knowledge doesn’t get compartmentalized. B&A: What's the hardest project you ever worked on? What made it so challenging? JJG: The most difficult projects I’ve faced have been cases where I didn’t have direct access to the people making the final decisions about my work. Many an information architecture has run aground on the rocky shoals of corporate politics. As much as we may want to withdraw into a world of pure problem solving, we have to acknowledge that the most successful architectures are the ones you can actually convince someone to implement. B&A: Do you have to do IA on every project? Is usability needed on all design projects? JJG: People get hung up on specific techniques too easily. Look past the technique to see the problem the technique is intended to address. If “doing IA” means diagrams, nav specs, wireframes, then no, you don’t always have to do IA. But if “doing IA” means thinking about the structure of your site, then absolutely, you need to do IA every time. B&A: If you had to hire an IA or an interaction designer for a typical ecommerce site, who would you go with? JJG: One big frustration that I have with the current state of our discipline is that I can’t identify the people doing the best work. Everybody says Amazon’s interaction design is a big factor in the company’s success—why don’t I know the names of any of the people responsible for it? Why do most consultancies hide their talented staff, whose expertise makes their success possible, behind a faceless corporate identity? B&A: If you had unlimited budget to redesign a giant site—say Amazon—what would your ideal UX group consist of? What would your process be? JJG: Mmm, unlimited budget. There a few things I’d include in the process. Deep research—really get inside the heads of users. Controlled real-world deployment of alternative approaches to defined segments of the user base, gathering detailed metrics on actual user behavior. Constant iteration, creating a steady stream of incremental refinements. B&A: Should designers learn usability? What about ID and IA? JJG: The more everybody knows about all aspects of the problems we face, the better off all of us will be. Less time spent explaining things means more time for coming up with creative solutions. B&A: Are there some roles better filled by consultants and some by in-house folks? JJG: I’m not sure that you can say definitively that some roles are better filled by consultants, but I would say that some projects are better handled by consultants. If you need to take a step back from day-to-day operations and plot out the long-term direction of your user experience strategy, consultants can give you a perspective you can’t get on your own. B&A: Has your perspective/definition of the different elements of user experience changed since the creation of the original diagram? Did the work on book change any of the original definitions or did you just refine what was already defined? JJG: There are some aspects of the diagram that I wish I had expressed a little more clearly. The book has given me the opportunity to elaborate on and refine those definitions. The underlying ideas remain the same, though. I toyed with the idea of updating the diagram to more precisely match the book, but in the end I decided it would be best to leave it intact. The document’s flaws are not worth fussing over, and anyway the execution always falls short of the conception. B&A: Do you consider yourself an information architect? JJG: Absolutely, though I wouldn’t suggest that my job description should be applied to all IAs. My job involves a lot of different skills now—I’m as much entrepreneur and management consultant as anything else these days—but IA is still my favorite part of the work I do. The information architecture community is my home turf. Plus, I figure that if enough of us keep writing “information architect” on our tax forms, somebody will sit up and take notice. B&A: If you could ask Jakob Nielsen one question, what would it be? JJG: What would you do if you had to create an interface without being able to test it? B&A: Microsoft uses your document “EOUE”—does this scare you? JJG: It doesn’t scare me. It should scare Microsoft’s competitors. B&A: Why did you use Fisher Price people instead of Weebles in your book diagrams? You know, “Weebles wobble but they don't fall down...” JJG: Any resemblance between my illustrations and any toy figures, past or present, is purely coincidental. Besides, Weebles are too hard to draw—they just end up looking like eggs, not people. B&A: How did journalism influence your brand of user experience design? JJG: A journalist and an information architect face exactly the same problem—how to give shape to the pile of information in front of you in a way that will make it easy and natural for people to comprehend. I can’t imagine any better preparation for the work I do now. B&A: Do you own any color of clothes other than black? JJG: No. It makes clothes shopping easier. B&A: Now that the book is here, what’s next? JJG: Right now, I’ve got to make it up to my partners in Adaptive Path for letting me take time off to write this book. We’re cooking up some ideas for 2003 that I think the community will find very exciting. In the meantime, I’m eager to get back to doing some IA work. That’s what it’s all about for me.

The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett, New Riders, 2002
The one-page diagram (PDF)
Additional resources [jjg.net/elements/resources]
ia/recon, six-part series
Adaptive Path

Erin Malone is currently a Product Design Director at AOL in the Web Properties division. She has been a practicing interaction, interface and information designer since 1993. She can be reached at .

Coming of Age

Erin Malone — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 22:03:57 GMT

“Our future colleagues will not remember a time when the field of ‘information architecture’ did not exist.”It seems like a lifetime ago when I asked my boss if I could adopt the title Information Architect. After all, according to the definition from the Richard Saul Wurman book “Information Architects,” that is what I was. He laughed at me and said Information Architect isn’t a title, or a role. It’s not a job. He had never heard of information architects, therefore they didn’t exist. That conversation took place only four years ago. We have come a long way since then. Individuals in companies have passionately championed the need for IAs in the development process. Some have even succeeded in building a discipline, a practice of people, a foundation for others to build on. Despite the dotcom bust, where it has been difficult for even the best of us to persevere in championing this role, many of us are thriving and succeeding. We have been nurtured within the halls of ASIST, AIGA-ED and SIGCHI. We have discovered that in spite of our original backgrounds, we have far more in common with each other than with many in the organizations that fostered us. We are beginning to see leaders emerge; think back to the last conference you attended and the voices that resonated with you long after you returned home. We now have conferences dedicated exclusively to the field — the field of information architecture. We are emerging as a profession. We are being taken seriously. As the information glut moves more and more online, our skills and expertise are fundamental to the success of an audience intent on finding the information they seek. The need for structure around our profession is becoming clearer. Most of us come from other fields: library science, technical writing, graphic design, among others. We have the responsibility now to establish a body of knowledge, a legacy for those who will practice information architecture after us. Like the generation of kids who have grown up with computers their entire lives, our future colleagues will not remember a time when the field of “information architecture” did not exist. The last several months, culminating in the last few weeks, marks a milestone in the evolution of information architecture as a profession. Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville authored a second edition of the famed Polar Bear book, “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.” Christina Wodtke’s “Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web” and Jesse James Garrett’s “The Elements of User Experience” were both released the same day. New IA textbooks are being published every year, adding to the ever-growing list from which educators build their curricula. In fact, an excerpt from a recently released textbook, “Information Architecture: An Emerging 21st Century Profession,” can be read here this week. While publishers invest more money in publishing and promoting new books for and about the field of information architecture, new voices, more voices are added to our foundation. This is a good thing. Diversity of experience makes us stronger and in turn, the profession richer. As companies, corporations, governments and other organizations move more and more of their information online, the role of the IA becomes increasingly critical to the development of web applications and websites . The act of finding information goes from a casual, personal endeavor to a necessity, to a way of doing business. In some cases, quick, efficient information retrieval can even mean the difference between life and death. As we head into the holiday season and the end of 2002, we witness the birth of a new organization. One devoted solely to information architecture and its practitioners. No longer the little special interest group, the stepchildren who never quite belong, IAs will find a home within the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (AifIA). Placing emphasis on education, research and advocacy, the AIfIA is stepping up to the challenge of creating a strong voice for IAs in the evolving information age. As a profession, we are coming of age. Over the last several years a solid foundation has been laid, upon which we will all continue to build. Tools and organizations and leaders have emerged to help us do our jobs with confidence and expertise. We have become a strong community of both practitioners and innovators. We are standing on our own, ensuring that our profession is recognized, our skills appreciated, and our voices heard.

Erin Malone is currently a Product Design Director at AOL in the Web Properties division. She has been a practicing interaction, interface and information designer since 1993. She can be reached at .