image credit: Kate loves Bar Pt
I recently came across an article that had me questioning the validity of my position as an Experience Architect. A San Francisco-based Interaction Design Firm, Cooper (a la Alan Cooper) asked “Is Interaction Design a Dead-End Job?”
In fact, discussion around these topics has heated up of late. Jesse James Garret, the infamous experience designer who coined the term “Ajax,” recently made the bold statement that Information Architects (IAs) or Interaction Designers (IxDAs) do not exist. So where does that leave people like me who hold title of Senior Experience Architect on our business cards?
Both Cooper and Garrett arrive at the same conclusion. We’re User Experience Professionals with titles such as User Experience Designer/Architect/Planner … However you spin it, we think about the experience.
So what exactly does this mean?
Interaction Design as function is certainly not dead. Information Architecture as a function is also alive and well. The scope, however, has changed/expanded, and the functions are performed by more than just IAs or IxDAs. As a Senior Experience Architect, I work closely with and am sometimes mistaken for an Interaction Designer. An Experience Professional considers a task and all the touch points between a user and a technology. Our goal is to plan a seamless, intuitive experience from beginning to end. This entails structure, flow, and navigation. We also look at any interactive elements and try to make them obvious.
Lately, I’ve been following Dan Klyn who, among his many interesting observations, compares our architecture craft to that of a real architect. He quotes Walter Gropius who says, “Architecture is a mastery of space.” So, the question Klyn asks is, “User experience design implies a mastery of __________?”
I submit that it still implies a mastery of space, but the definition of space is expanded. Good architecture considers the structure, the space, how one enters and what one experiences in the space. Emotion and art is involved. Comprehensive architectural design affects the structure, way finding, interior design and emotion.
A writer might see my role differently than a designer. An engineer surely sees my work differently than a project manager. But, when done successfully, experience architecture serves all of their needs.
How do you define Information/Experience Architecture? Do you think it’s here to stay?
Anthony Viviano
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In my opinion, information architects is most involved in linguistics and content strategy matters in order to call action and drive website succes. IA will not die.
Interesting question! FYI, “Is Interaction Design a Dead-End Job?” links to Flickr, is that normal?
Georges: No, that was mis-linked on my end. It’s supposed to link to an article on the Cooper Journal (fixed now). Thanks for pointing that out and thanks for commenting.
In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I mention Dan Klyn in my article but fail to link to his inspirational blog – http://wildlyappropriate.com/
I think just like you point out in your post, Anthony, interaction design and information architecture are certainly not dead – instead, they’re becoming more important than ever as ‘experience architecture’ or ‘experience design’. The scope has expanded. But also, ‘user experience design’ was never an area that should belong to one subject matter expert alone, but to the whole team who create the product. We all contribute to the total experience. That’s why I question the place of information/experience architecture as a separate role, where it’s often at risk of getting marginalized. It should be embedded in all of our thinking. That may sound like simple logic, but I think many design processes still don’t recognize that.
The question could also be, “Is the design process changing?”. The role of IA/IxDA in a digital agency fits somewhere between a strategist and visual designer, in a process that pumps out sites like Ford’s assembly line made cars.
10+ years ago, the Web still felt like a novelty, the notion of usability rose in importantance, and hiring multi-talented people got more difficult because few had real Web experience. The title of “Webmaster” was dead (remember that?). The role of IA’s became a necessity, and they filled the responsibility of Usability Expert and Strategist.
Now multi-skilled veterans with 10 or 12 years of experience are everywhere. The roles still exist. It’s the people who are changing. Stand alone IA’s and IxDAs now need to specialize in niche skills and/or diversify in order to remain as competitive.
Teams should be (and now probably are) more like space shuttle crews, or Antarctic science expeditions, where people hold dual expertise (doctor and software technician, or geologist and mechanic). This makes agencies small and nimble, and produces smarter work.
On a related note, I think the tools of IA, interaction design, and even visual design are holding back the field
Interactive technology is moving rapidly towards some sort of giant collision of brand centric 2D, 3D space, multi-touch, video, AJAX, COMET, geo-aware, dynamic content. There’s so many moving parts, so much richness, so many possible dimensions of website “space and time” to innovate within.
Yet software like Visio exist in linear 2 dimensional space and encourage use of GUI libraries, reuse of elements from past projects, and tree and branch thinking. Photoshop is cumbersome and slow to use, and doesn’t scale well for large multi-page web experiences. Even while striving to keep designs simple and efficient, to keep things familiar and usable for the masses, there’s opportunity for better ways to concept, better ways to organize, than what we have now.