InfoD: Information 'architect' or 'designer'? (2)

[multi-author]

   * Information 'architect' or 'designer'? *   (discussion issue)

     messages by:

     1) Erik Spiekermann
     2) Nathan Shedroff
     3) Paul Kahn
     4) Wes Ervin
     5) Steven Hoskins
     6) Adele Framer
     7) James Souttar


After a very long break InfoDesign is finally back online again.
This posting consists of replies to earlier messages by John
Thackara and James Souttar.

John Thackara had written:

> In any case, even if Americans don't understand history, they
> do understand business. I'm sure this explains Richard Wurman's
> sensitivity about the provenance of the words "information
> architecture". Fortune 500 companies are getting so excited
> about the concept of intellectual capital that "information
> architecture" is a *great* brand name. The words suggest that
> someone knows how to shape, order, control, protect, shelter,
> and provide doorways to, 'the new wealth of corporations'.

And James Souttar had commented:

> I've never quite understood the reasons that prompted Wurman to
> coin a new term, when 'Information Design' adequately covered
> the  set of skills, knowledge and experience required of the
> 'Information Architect'. But the choice of terminology is no less
> perplexing. Architects, surely, are designers who create buildings
> (etymologically the word derives from the Greek archi + tekton,
> 'chief builder'). Using 'architect' to describe someone who
> structures information is a totally redundant metaphor - both
> because we already have the precise term 'designer', and because
> *real* architects also use this noun to describe themselves. [...]
>
> Far from suggesting someone who "knows how to shape, order,
> control, protect, shelter, and provide doorways to, 'the new
> wealth of corporations'", 'information architect' suggests to me
> a poseur, anxious for status above the artisan connotations of
> 'designer'. I can't help but think of the software start-ups of
> the early nineties, which boasted a whole host of similarly
> inflated titles ('architect' was popular ingredient of these,
> too) - generally to try and conceal the fact that the holder was
> a grad student in a Palo Alto lockup, with big ideas, shaky
> finances and a highly improbable business plan.

Here are the reactions that have come in in the meantime:
____________________________________________________________________

1) message by:  Erik Spiekermann <erik@metadesign.de>

Thank you, James! Your assessment hits the nail on the head. You
offer your explanation for the new title of Information Architect as

>  a poseur, anxious for status above the artisan connotations of
> 'designer'.

That is exactly why Wurman introduced the new brand. It gives status
and thus financial clout to a 'new' profession which, of course, is
identical to the old one of Information Designers. A new label has
often resulted in shifting old goods, and this branding exercise has
been very successful.
 
Now that everybody is a designer (from jeans to pizzas), the next
thing is an architect. Once we have Culinary Architects (formerly
chefs) or Image Architects (now called PR people), Richard will 
have to come up with another moniker. By the way: In Germany, I
have already been called the 'Pope of Information Design' (not my
words), so what could top that?

Erik Spiekermann
Designer

= 8-)
____________________________________________________________________

2) message by:  Nathan Shedroff <nathan@vivid.com>

I'm surprised at both the naivete and the outrage of these last two
posts [by John Thackara and James Souttar].

Richard specifically started using the term "Information Architect/
Architecture" not because it played to business better but because
the term "designer" has a common connotation connected with styling
and decoration. "Architecture," on the other hand, has a connotation
of thought to structure that isn't always present in many design
disciplines.

This may not be true everywhere in the world, but in the USA, there
are many designers who do no more than add decoration and "spruce
things up" in a purely visual sense. Some of these are even calling
themselves Information Designers. This has made it difficult to
communicate to people - especially clients - that Information Design
is a discipline concerned with meaning, structure, and understanding
and not decoration. The term "Architect" in the USA (and with
clients) has a connotation that helps distance it from these
problems - certainly not completely, however.

It is simply a change designed to help communicate the role of
information design/architecture better, not a political one.

Nathan Shedroff     http://www.nathan.com
vivid studios       http://www.vivid.com
____________________________________________________________________

3) message by:  Paul Kahn <paul@DynamicDiagrams.com>

I have found the general acceptance of the term "information
architect" to be a very constructive and useful development. I am
certainly not a dis-interested party, since Richard Wurman invited
my studio to contribute to the Information Architects book. But I
think it is a very good thing that Richard has presented the term
and the concept to the public. It has transformed both our own
understanding of what we do and our client's understanding and
appreciation for it.

Kris Lenk and I began our studio under the name "information design"
because we are interested in the information that is below the
visible surface. This visible surface is the common focus of graphic
design - the designer communicates by manipulating the visual
information that people see. We also took for ourselves the phrase
"consultants in visual logic" to try to explain our emphasis. I
would say that very few clients knew what to make of us. Were we
graphic designers? user interface designers? multimedia developers?
packaging designers? instructional designers? documentation
developers? icon designers? For several years the answer was, Yes.

The term "information architect" is both pretentious and clarifying.
The pretense is not Richard Wurman's, since he is after all an
architect and has done major work of many kinds in the field of
architecture, and in the field that I would call information design.
He knows what he is talking about. The pretense is that "architect"
sounds a bit grander than "designer" - someone needs a license to be
an architect, architects manage enormous projects, etc. A little
pretense for the field I love and work in doesn't bother me. After
all, I have also been part of the Hypertext community for over a
decade and there are many characters in that crowd that think
hypertext will transform mankind. It is nice to have unrealistic
ideals at the party, it keeps things lively.

I find that I can explain our work to a client by using the metaphor
of architecture. We are called on to design an encyclopedia, or a
web site containing several publications and services, or a sequence
of visual diagrams to visualize a process or product. First we have
to do the information architecture, create a plan of what the parts
are, how they relate, where they go in relation to one another, why
they are there, what they will be used for. If the kitchen is placed
next to the bedroom, how will that effect the user's experience of
the space? The front door and the view from the foyer will invite or
repulse or intimidate or excite the potential visitor - which of
these does the client want to do?

The pretense is that an information architect has to create a plan
for the "building" before it can be built. Before this, many clients
wanted to treat us like advertising agencies.

Old Client: Put together five "looks" and show them to us and we
will pick the one we like and then you develop that. We will tell
you what we don't like once you have done it and you will fix it
immediately.

Now we can get them to play for a complete set of plans, review a
visualization of the structure they have requested, point of the
implications and relationships, modify the design based on the
information.

Then we do the design. The client has a better idea of what they
have asked for. The difficult problems are not left for the last
minute (imagine trying to figure out how to get air ducts into a
room AFTER the entire building is constructed!).

I don't have anything to say about who owns or has permission to use
or not use the label "information architect". Richard Wurman coined
the term. Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext, a neologism like
docuverse that came from Ted's fertile and poetic brain. I asked my
design students at the beginning of this semester what "hypertext"
means. They all had no trouble answering: hypertext is stuff on the
web. I don't think that Ted would agree with them, but I don't think
he would sue them either.

Paul Kahn
Dynamic Diagrams, Providence, USA
http://www.DynamicDiagrams.com
____________________________________________________________________

4) message by:  Wes Ervin <wervin@interport.net>

Before we beat up on the trendy new term, "Information Architect,"
consider the alternatives. "Information Designer" has at least as
many problems. Ask ten "information designers" to define it,and
you'll get (at least) ten different answers, all of which in my
opinion are very partial at best.

One benefit of "Architect" over "Designer" is that it conjures up
the image of someone who creates an intellectual workproduct that
someone else builds. That works well for those (like me) who design
for template or production software systems or business document
designs which get implemented in production software. The
programmers (builders) follow our specifications (blueprints).

The big drawback is that we're creating customized, interactive, or
conditional constructs, not static, fixed, and solid buildings.

When the US Supreme Court once debated the issue of what constituted
pornography, one Justice famously quipped, "I can't define it, but I
know it when I see it." Unfortunately, that won't help you tag your
name on your business card or position your business.

Wes Ervin
Information Design Associates
New York City
____________________________________________________________________

5) message by:  Steven Hoskins <slhoski@ibm.net>

James Souttar wrote:

> [...] we already have the precise term 'designer' [...]
> [...] 'information architect' suggests to me a poseur, anxious
> for status above the artisan connotations of 'designer'.

Few job titles are as imprecise as the term 'designer', with and
without artisan connotations.

Data becomes information in context to who you are informing.

Information design has a long history which, while essentially the
same as information architecture, has become associated to certain
types of design products.

Using the name 'architecture' is appropriate since the planning of
complex information and transaction environments requires much of
the same perspective as planning complex structures and environments
people use.

As far as your description of what this term 'suggests' to you, my
belief is that your suggestions say more about you and less about
what you intend to discredit.

Steven Hoskins
non-artisan designer.
____________________________________________________________________

6) message by:  Adele Framer <Adele_Framer@cc.chiron.com>

I agree with James Souttar that "architect" is somewhat grandiose,
but I've had to resort to calling myself an "information architect"
because information technology people seem to think I'm a graphic
designer when I called myself "information designer."
     
IT seems to understand the strategy and planning characteristics
of "information architect" better, I presume, since there are many
"architect" titles in the IT field.

I'm getting much better response when I present myself as an
"information architect." So I guess this is empirical evidence of
Richard Saul Wurman's point.
____________________________________________________________________

7) message by:  James Souttar <ancient@urizen.demon.co.uk>

On reflection, I did wonder whether my censuring of Richard Saul
Wurman's use of 'information architect' wasn't a little too severe.
After all, I thought, 'architect' still preserves some sense of the
humanity and culture that the practitioner brings to the discipline.
It's not as if he had come up with the soulless and mechanical
'information engineer'... surely the nemesis of design.

Well, imagine my surprise to discover that the people who brought
us the lovely 'you can't not communicate' have decided to call
themselves 'visual engineers'! Of course, being German
Mittelstanders, it *might* be possible to forgive them (after all,
this is the country that helpfully informs motorists of the length
and height - and no doubt the stress bearing capacities as well - of
the road bridges that they pass at speeds too quick to be able to
read the signs). But the inference I take from not not being able to
communicate - which seems only a breath away from the equally
Germanic but more gently philosophic sentiments of Gadamer's 'being
that can be understood is language' and Heidegger's 'what bestirs in
the showing of saying is owning' - is that graphic design is
concerned with culture, not machinery.

In part, these thoughts were prompted by seeing an advertisement in
the UK MacUser which started 'Clement Mok is an Information
Architect. He has created identities for...' (or something like it).
In common (apparently) with Mok, and also - actually - our Deutsche
Information Engineers, much of my work is concerned with the visual
aspects of identity. And the more I discover about the murky depths
of organizations through the portal of identity, the more I
appreciate that corporate communications are not about communication
at all (certainly not about encoding, transmitting and decoding
anything precise or specific), but about a much more fundamental and
anthropological principle that could well be described as 'the
showing of saying that is owning'. Organizations can't not not
communicate because they've got things that are burningly important
to say, but because they are made up of a curious species that has
evolved speech as a means of continuously affirming - and
negotiating - a sense of personal and group identity.

Not that I'm taking it back - I still think that 'information
architecture' is an affectation - but when faced with the idea of
the designer as engineer, precisely assembling and calibrating
communication mechanisms, I can't help but think that the building
metaphor is the better one. After all, the 'machine a l'habiter' was
only a brief, transient phase - for most of the rest of history
buildings exhibited all the less than rational, cultural priorities
of the societies that created them. Even today, nobody expects a
shiny new headquarters building to be other than an expression of
the corporate ego - and its transformation from 60s phallic tower to
90s folksy laager speaks volumes for the subtle cultural shifts that
have taken place within organizational life over the last 30 years.
The idea that a document is in some way 'engineered' horrifies me,
because it seems to deny that it is basically a cultural artefact
and to insist instead that is some kind of precision instrument - a
program intended to run in the wetware of the human brain. However
conveniently this fits with the over engineered myth of the
'information society', it would seem to be the exact opposite of
what really happens.

Anyway, lest it be thought I'm expressing any antipathy to the
Germans, I'd like to finish with some beautiful lines of Hoelderlin
(with the original, for those who can understand it ;-) which seem
to point to where graphic design really comes from - and perhaps
also, where its true destiny lies...?

Viel hat von Morgen an,
Seit ein Gespraech wir sind und hoeren voneinander, Erfahren der
Mensch; bald sind aber Gesang (wir).

Much, from morning onward,
Since we became a conversation and hear from one another, Have human
beings undergone; but soon (we) will be song.

James
____________________________________________________________________

Finally, unrelated to most of the above, Rose Zgodzinski 
<rosez@total.net> has a question about the 'arrow':

Dear List,

I am looking for a history of the arrow.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Rose Zgodzinski
Information Graphics


____________________________________________________________________

    InfoDesign moderator:  Yuri Engelhardt <yuri@wins.uva.nl>
    To (un)subscribe, send an email to:  majordomo@wins.uva.nl
    saying:  subscribe InfoDesign   (or: unsubscribe InfoDesign)

    Information design organisations:
    IDN: http://www.csad.coventry.ac.uk/IDN
    IDA: http://www.ideography.co.uk/IDA/index.html
    IIID: http://www.simlinger-iiid.magnet.at/simlinger-iiid
    IDSIG: http://stc.org/pics/idsig
____________________________________________________________________