Design Template by Anonymous
A Brief History
Although it's a concrete concept in todays modern age of development, the idea of IA originated in the mid-1970s from Richard Saul Wurman during his infamous address at the American Institute of Architecture conference of 1976. Mr. Wurman at the time would describe the concept as “ the conceptual structure and functional behavior, distinguishing the organization of data flows and controls, logical design, and physical implementation. ” 4 years later at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) a group of indiivudals specialzed in information science was tasked with the responsibility of developing technology that would support the ideology adapted during Mr. Wurmans conference. What the group of individuals would later create would serve as one of the most important contributions to the HCI space to date as they would implement ideas that still hold value today like the first personal computer with a user-friendly interace.
Information Architecture vs Infomation Design
Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, authors of the renowned Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, had a different outlook as to what information architecture as appose to Mr. Wurman. In the eyes or Morville (2004), what Mr. Wurman was describing at the convention was not information architecture but rather information design. Given the drastic differences in technology Morville insight was not misplaced as Mr. Wurmans traditional ideology was beginning to turn outdatted with the recent rise of the World Wide Web. The two would later elaborate on this difference in ideas a few years later by stating that for them information architecture revolves around the design of what is between the pages of web site like the links and connection whereas Mr. Wurman would believe that it is the actual design of the webpages themselves. Rosenfeld and Morville approach to Information Architecture would prove to be more suitable and adaptive for an ever-changing world that did not coinside with Wurman's original vision.
