What is Information Architecture? - Part 3

Part 3 - What is an Information Architect?

A. Information Architecture knowledge elements.
B. Information Architecture experience elements.

A. Knowledge elements can be described as technical skills based in process or tool usage.

B. Experience elements can be described as acquired or interpreted elements drawn from specific instances and relate directly to research, problem solving and concept creation.


I'm sorry if this is a bit dry, it’s about to get very interesting.

What is an Information Architect? - Part 2

What is Information Architecture? - Part 2

There are really two questions here.

A. What is an Information Architect?

B. What does an Information Architect do?

A. An Information Architect can be any number of different linked or unlinked things just like any other person. However the elements of knowledge and experience of an Information Architect define what they can do.

B. What an Information Architect does is not unlike an Architect who builds a building.

• An Information Architect creates a concept, defines a structure and progression.


• Information Architects recognise other influences from technologies, incumbent systems and vendors.


• Information Architects carry out location, community, sector, market and business research to find best practice and where there is none they define it.


• Information Architects make a space for their clients and the client’s user audience to interact through information, activity or product transfer.


• Information Architects simplify or reinterpret existing complex systems to ease the flow of interactions on existing systems, or they create new interactions that support audience goals.


• Information Architects help clients to respond to the changing needs of their audience so that the client maintains a responsive relationship.

So to really understand what an Information Architect is, I'm going to have to try and define what makes up knowledge elements and experience elements in Information Architecture.

Information Architecture History

What is Information Architecture? - Part 1

The History of Information Atchitecture

Information Architecture is derived from the need to index and relate complex informational structures and is derived from military logistics where the specific definition and location of stores, munitions, personal and other material were required for successful campaigns.

For hundreds of years Information Architecture has been the domain of the military, scientific, civil government and librarians to support complex indexing systems.

So Information Architecture is several hundred years old, but has not really been recognised by this terminology until recent times. Information architecture is one of the cornerstones of the invention of the internet (carrier technology - network of networks) and latterly the World Wide Web. Vannevar Bush saw the need for a ways to make machinery help people in dealing with information “selection by association, rather than by indexing” alone. His vision of the “Memex” which would augment human intellect by operating as vast data storage fulfilled the vast logistics problems he was facing.

Information Architecture has only in the last 30 years become involved in enterprise systems, intranets and internet systems as their complexity and size has made them less and less understandable and useable. This is also the reason for commercial websites usage of information architects so that customers are able to quickly understand, use and purchase.

Information architecture now covers a multitude of activities and as such is a hybrid. The real problem is that so many people call themselves IA's but mean different things.

Can Web Analytics help my business?

I am not involved with any web analytics company so I can express some helpful information here. I have been working with web analytics data since 1996.

Can Web Analytics help my business?

The answer is Yes and No, I'll explain.

Web analytics programmes are stupid they only tell you what you ask them to. They have evolved from server side analytics and generally produce a standard set of results.

• How many visitors to the website - any hit (opening) to any page


• How many unique visitors - any individual during a given time frame


• How many returning visitors - if cookies (small data collections on user’s computer) used


• How many new visitors - provided they have not deleted their cookies


• Where the visitor is from


• How long the visitor is on a page, the site


• Where they enter the site - unique visitors can be tracked as to where they leave the site

Plus quite a few other things.

So all these things come pretty much as standard and can indicate what is happening on your website. The limitation on web analytics programmes is they can tell you who (Hitwise), what and when (WebTrends, NedStats, etc), but not why.

You could say that 'the journey is as important as the entry and the result'.

So while you can get lots of data it may not tell you any more than who came and if they bought. The real problem comes when you need to get tangible knowledge for changes in your marketing or website design. You really need a person who can interpret the data and offer solutions, even if you still lack the journey details.

So web analytics can help and are better than nothing but they do not tell the whole story and you will need a pretty gifted person to read, understand and create new ideas for your business from them.

One last parting shot;

Web Analytics should not be confused with Advertising Metrics; they are in no way the same thing. They look very similar but their specific purpose underwrites how they collect, distribute and define information from your website.