Good overview of the growing field of information architecture- its definition(s), its uses, its major concepts and concerns. The analogy Morville gives in the beginning is of the information architect as a builder of structures, just as a physical architect may build structures- shaping the forms to the needs of the people that will inhabit them- functional as well as emotional needs. But as Morville concedes, it’s almost easier to say “What isn’t information architecture” than what it is because the field encompasses so much- its practice is often intertwined with so many other disciplines such as graphic design, interaction design, experience design, software development, usability… it’s an emerging field that has really taken its most persistent shape through the emergence of the internet.
The major “reason” or need for information architecture though that Morville seems to stress, at least in the first chapter, is that information needs to be organized in order to be findable and usable. The information architect as a digital librarian of sorts. But information architecture is becoming much more than that, I believe, as the internet morphs (as web 2.0) into not just a huge repository of information, but into a creative space for information creation. Morville serves up the classic diagram of the 3 areas of IA including content, context and users. With web 2.0, the IA’s job is not just to organize content but to facilitate the content creation of users.
