The point of view in information architecture
I really did think I could get away without dipping a toe into the people-y aspect of information architecture by sticking to the fundamentals of information structure. This one is last on the list because I finished everything else, almost published, and I couldn’t because without lensing, we don’t know where to look, and the bets made at every other step falls apart. In fact, I usually lens so early and often in an information architecture project that it’s almost like the paper or canvas the structure is marked on.
It’s not. The lens is the reason we’re marking to begin with, why the time and effort is worthwhile, and what we’ve decided needs to have a focus. And while the lens incorporates many, if not all, of the narrative elements of a good story, the pre-eminent reason is who. The lens is the viewer — not the information architect, nor subject matter experts, but the person intended to spelunk in the architecture we’re developing.
If we gaze into vasty seas of data, do we start looking at orbital mechanics to figure out how to sew a dress? Do we consider color theory at a first step in understanding quantum mechanics?
No. We start much closer to the likely data according to what is being done and who is doing it. The who can demand mountains of difference.
A five year old asking about the moon will need far different access and connections to information about orbital mechanics than someone what-iffing trying to get to Mars with near-term technology.
Someone wondering hey, can I make a dress? will have different questions — and understanding gaps that they don’t even know how to question — than someone making their 10th dress, or 100th dress pattern.
Taking the rolling-sky idea of data connectivity to a presumed outlier, for all we really understand right now about quantum mechanics there might be a future where color theory is pivotal for certain studies. Too-stridently over-defining is something to watch for, too.
We develop information architectures to help share understanding. If those architectures don’t share, and our intended audience walks away more frustrated or confused than before, we fail in our primary directive. Information architecture isn’t about how we wish the world worked, or an idealized median that makes everyone uncomfortable (at best); but getting as close as we can manage to useful, working, real-world, real-people information transference.
To effectively share information, it’s gets both easier and more useful as we gain awareness of who we’re sharing it with, our own cognitive and behavioral patterns, and the cognitive and behavioral patterns of our experts and teammates. Each of these people have their own point of view. Every point of view is a lens.
Think of it like trying to decide from what angle to draw a flower.
This is one pieces of Why learn the fundamentals of information architecture structures?
