5 Questions to Victor Lombardi

V

ictor Lombardi is the director of Smart Experience, an independent school based in New York City, he is teaching Business & Design at the Pratt Institute and he co-founded and served as president of the Information Architecture Institute. Victor also founded the management consulting firm MIG and worked at the Boston Consulting Group and others. He is a recognized thought leader in the field of information- and experience design. Victor blogs at Noise Between Stations. He is the Keynote speaker at the german IA Conference 2007 (9/10 November in Stuttgart).

Interview in deutsch

1. Victor, Information Architects as a species have entered the scene perhaps around 1998/99 (in the US, with the release of the PBB). Since then they have established themselves an important niche in the process of building websites and web applications or, in the realm of shared information environments, so to speak. "We" argued with designers and architects, with usability professionals, with developers and with clients. Did we miss the most important factor in the equation: business people and the management?

I'm actually impressed with how far we've come in understanding business. The dot come bust of 2000-2001 made it clear how important this is, and the community (at least those of us that had this need) responded by learning what we needed to know.

2. You have written "Great Process Leads to Great Products". How is the IA process changing now that everybody is moving from waterfall to agile? Does the overall IA process need any changes or adjustments?

Absolutely. We've become comfortable with a very basic user-centered design process and it's a de facto standard, but with agile and rich internet applications that process doesn't work well; the products are too complex to wait until a developer starts building to know if the design works. I think we'll see the need for less indirect design (like wireframes) and more direct design (prototyping).

3. We all know the famous three IA foci: user, content and business context. How well do Information Architects really need to understand the business site of this model? How deep do they need to dive into business models, ROIs and revenue streams?

Information Architects can't simultaneously become experts in their field and in finance and accounting. The reverse is also true: people trained in business can't also become experts in design. We need to collaborate. And to collaborate we have to know enough to understand each other, and build respect for each other. Therefore, we should become better at explaining what we do to business people -- now I think we spend too much time just talking to ourselves.

4. You have a lot experience in teaching. You give classes on Business & Design and have founded a school in New York City aimed at working professionals in the Internet and software domain. What do you think should a course of studies (let's say a two years postgraduate program) contain to enable it's students to acquire the hypothetical degree Master of Information Architecture and User Experience?

I'm not sure if the traditional model of going to school for two years will help students keep up with the rate of change in our field. Our field is a craft that also involves theory, comparable in this way to medicine. So we might look at that model for inspiration.

I see three major periods to such an education:

1. a period of time when we learn theory
2. an internship where we learn the craft
3. an ongoing process of continuing education throughout our careers

5. Victor, at the german IA Konferenz 2007 there will be three workshops held in english - yours: "Using Internet Business Strategy", Thomas Vander Wal's: "Building a Foundation for Tagging and the Social Web" and Jess McMullin's: "The Business of Experience" (see the program, PDF). Do you think, for an local community like the german IA community for example, is it a blessing or a curse to have to deal with more then one language? Talking to german clients for example one can use a perhaps established english term or a sometimes cumbersome german alternative...

As a native English speaker it's hard for me to know. But Germans have a great engineering tradition, and I'm told this is partly due to having precise language with which to describe engineering concepts. In Information Architecture there isn't yet much agreement on many terms, so why don't Germans take the lead and suggest more precise language?

TheHotStrudel The Hot Strudel IA Konferenz

5 Questions to Peter Boersma

Peter Boersma has recently been elected on the IAI Board of Directors. He is well known in the IA and UX Scene and though he is very busy, he was so kind to answer the following questions.

Interview auf Deutsch

1. Peter, you are Senior Interaction Designer at the Dutch full-service internet agency Info.nl. You have been working in the user experience (UX) field since 1995, you speak at UX conferences and are hosting the infamous Amsterdam UX Cocktail Hours. When you look back, what were the most valuable lessons you have learned practicing UXD and IA?

I have two important lessons:

Lesson 1: School does not prepare you for client work. At my university I followed 60 classes and only 2 helped me function in a team and only 1 of those involved reading client requirements. In the real world of projects for clients, I have to use skills that I never learned in school. Workshop moderating skills are the most important ones, and I wish those would be taught in school. As a designer you have to be able to ask the right questions about requirements, ask what design direction would be right, present designs, defend decisions, criticize other solutions, negotiate compromises, summarize discussions, distribute tasks, and much, much more.

Lesson 2: Everyone benefits from a review. I used the review process as an example of a process pattern in my presentation at EuroIA 2007 partly because I think reviews, of any kind, are very important. There are many steps that go with a full-blown review: prepare the review, invite reviewers, distribute the deliverable, perform the project review, technical review, team review or client review, distribute review-notes and re-distribute the deliverable. But the most important aspect is that the maker of a deliverable hears what someone else sees in his or her work, what is missing or unclear and hopefully what could be done about it. And the second most important aspect is that someone else (but hopefully more) in the team knows what you have done and what the status is. I have learned that both aspects are crucial to deliver good work consistently.

2. UX as I understand it, is related to the field of ergonomics (which emerged as a discipline in the 19th century). I think Information Architecture on the other hand leans more toward the form follows function principle Louis Sullivan was talking about. How would you describe the relation between UX and IA?

My definition of ergonomics is that a designer creates or adapts an artefact (based on knowledge about humans) so that a human user doesn't have to adapt him/herself. This can be applied to anything from heavy machinery to information workspaces. When I combined computer science with ergonomics into information ergonomics, I studied the human body and the human mind, as well as how computer technology can help people and organizations become better users and suppliers of information. Information Architects, especially those who design information structures for end users, can become better IAs when they empathize with their users and know about their possibilities and limitations. When they consider all aspects that deal with usage of the information they structure, they consider humans and their needs, wants, quirks and oddities.

User Experience practitioners define situations where end users can have experiences. At the highest level of design, the designer needs to know all kinds of things about the users: what are their goals and expectations and why, what have they done elsewhere with the brand, who do they talk to and what words do they use,etcetera . How users use the information that a company supplies is just part of the problem but it is a good idea to have someone with an ergonomics background on the user experience team to focus on those aspects.

3. Eric Reiss and you framed the T-Model of Information Architecture in 2004, which later became the Shoulder Model. Could you explain a little bit what that model is all about and what is the status quo right now?

In 2004, Eric had just become part of the leadership team of the Information Architecture Institute (then still called Aifia) and when we had dinner after a Cocktail Hour he wanted to know what I thought the organization should do for its members. In the process I started sketching my ideas of what IA was all about and how I thought it related to other fields. That sketch, on the back of a beermat, later became the T-model for User Experience.

The model basically describes how each field under the UX umbrella has its own specialities, its "deep" subjects that no-one else knows much about. In IA for example, those are search, metadata and controlled vocabularies (which is why our field owes so much to librarians). In addition to those deep subjects, each field has subjects that can also be found in one or more other fields. Again, for IA, those could be content, navigation and labeling (which we share with people like copywriters, marketing communication experts, and interaction designers). And, as I later realized, there's a third layer that deals with management of the practitioners, for example subjects like Return On Investment, IA processes, and the impact of IAs on an organization.

Every now and then I refer to the model in online discussions, as do others. And I have presented it as a poster at Euro IA in Brussels. But that's about it; I think it is finished :-)

4. In your experience, what are the most approved IA deliverables and methods? Could you please sketch a typical basic IA workflow?

"most approved"? As in: approved by clients? In that case: the final design! :-)

But I assume you mean the best-known deliverables, or those considered by designers as standard IA deliverables, and in that case I am afraid it is the sitemap. I say afraid because a sitemap it often produced too early in the process and in a way that determines what types of pages will be created and what the exact main navigation will be. I would much rather wait until all functionality is designed (probably by people with interaction design as their specialty) and all user flows are designed. Then designers can determine whatfunctionality fits best together on what types of pages, and how these can best be connected with types of navigation.

What I'd love to see IAs deliver in a project are: user experience requirements, content requirements, a high-level content inventory, a functionality inventory (all compiled through research and analysis workshops), the IA elements of the system's concept including content and navigation principles (created with the UX team), a new content inventory, wireframes, the navigation design and rules for user flows, and finally a sitemap (all presented to and reviewed with the client). Oh, and IAs should help with the preparations and execution of a usability test on a paper prototype and/or an early semi-functional prototype.

5. Do you find it hard to sell IA services to clients that are more focused on their business objectives than on end user needs? What is a good argument for integrating Information Architecture in the overall website-building process?

In initial meetings with client representatives I always tell them that I will defend the rights of the user, that my mind always goes to the users. It is okay for them to have their business in mind; that is their job and I will ask them all about it. But I will always translate it to what users need from the company. They always seem receptive to that idea, as long as they don't have to do it themselves :-)

As for integrating IA in the rest of the design process: I sometimes say that the definition of IA is to help people find what they need, get there, and get away from there; what happens in between is the domain of interaction designers. And of course the whole idea of a user experience is that all elements work together, from the business model, via communication design, visual design, interaction design, copywriting, IA, software design, training, packaging, branding, and the list goes on!

There are very, very few projects where an IA can do all of the work; we have to work together with other user experience practitioners!

TheHotStrudel The Hot Strudel Peter Boersma

5 Questions to Tomy Lorsch

Tomy Lorsch (UX Zeitgeist) is well known in the IA scene, with lot of international experience in Information Architecture, SEO and SEM. Recently he became partner and Content Director at Eventos OME, Spain’s leading interactive marketing event producer. He took some time to answer my following five questions...

(Interview in deutsch)

1. Tomy, you are the EuroIA Country Ambassador for Spain - how would you describe the Information Architecture movement in Spain, right now?

First of all, thanks for having me sharing your Strudel with your readers :) IA in Spain has blossom in the last couple of years. There are number of sites and events covering the discipline. The CADIUS community has many members and they meet on regular basis for some cocktails.

I have seen an increasing number of job opportunities seeking for experienced IAs.

2. The EuroIA 2007 Motto is Translating Information Architecture. Regarding your Experience in the field of Consulting, what would you say is the hardest part in translating Information Architecture?

It is very common to see poorly translated websites. Even for sites serving foreign markets. It used to be really hard to get clients to pay for a professional translator.

Interestingly enough, the need to rank well in the search engine results is turning the translation problem upside down. If the client wants to rank well, he'll need a good SEO job and this of course means choosing the right keywords in any language. But that is only the beginning of the story. How well does a foreign client convert, if he comes to a poorly translated website? At the end of the day, it is all about conversions. We got the arguments. What else can we say?

3. Tomy, you are very involved in the SEO business. If you regard a basic web development workflow, when would you say a person in charge has to start thinking about Search Engine Optimization? Is it before IA kicks in? Is it something an IA has to consider?

It depends though. It makes a huge difference whether your question is related to a new project starting from scratch or if it is about a redesign. It also differ from market to market. There are different strategy needs for a travel site than for a newspaper website.

In my experience SEO is about defining goals. How many keywords do I want to target? This may define if SEO comes before or after IA. Ideally, the IA project manager role should be leading the SEO too. But this is not always the case. There is no doubt that any IA methodology and know-how helps a lot when it comes to optimizing a website for the search engines.

4. Barcelona, Gaudi, Art Nouveau (or Modernisme as they say in Spain) - is there something IAs can learn from the organic, floral and plant-inspired elements of Art Nouveau?

Wow. This is probable the toughest question I have ever been asked! :) My guess here is that Gaudi and Art Nouveau will never expire, he will be never outdated. It would be really nice if IAs could design information architecture able to survive the pass of the time.

5. Can you tell us, whether there will be a Pre-Conference Happy Hour kind of Get Together on the evening before the EuroIA? You live in Madrid actually, but what would you say is the best area for after-conference evening events?

I love Barcelona even though I live in Madrid. People in Spain tend to be a bit more spontaneous than in the rest of Europe, which is good! I am sure we are having a Pre-Conference Happy Hour. Where? We'll see!! :) Probably Ariel Guersenzvaig can help us choose the location. He has been living in Barcelona for over 5 years now.

TheHotStrudel The Hot Strudel Tomy Lorch Information architecture SEO

Five questions to Eric Reiss

On the occasion of the approaching EuroIA 2007, I have asked Eric Reiss the following 5 questions:

(Interview auf Deutsch)

1. Eric, you are one of the co-founders of FatDUX, a user-experience design company in Copenhagen. Just like last year in Berlin, this EuroIA Konferenz in Barcelona is co-sponsored by FatDUX. So why are we all flying to Barcelona and not to Copenhagen?

First of all, Jan, thanks for inviting me to share your strudel  Your group of IAs in Berlin are to be congratulated for their many, valuable local-group initiatives.

So, why are we flying to Barcelona instead of Copenhagen? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Summit committee wanted to do more to get the Latin portion of Europe involved in the Summit. Last year in Berlin, we had terrific presentations from Italian and Spanish IAs and we want to build on this momentum. This year, we’re hoping we can get IAs from Greece, Portugal, and France more actively involved, too. These are fairly mature markets from an IT point of view, but still quite insular when it comes to pan-European networking. The whole point of EuroIA is to help build an international community.

And as to Copenhagen, there are already a lot of conferences here. We didn’t think there was a need for yet another. For example, we have Reboot and Mark Hurst’s EuroGEL. And there are a bunch of others, including commercial events such as the Nielsen-Norman usability lectures and the IntraTeam intranet conference. FatDUX is working on local events, too.

But who knows? Maybe we’ll go back north for the next EuroIA.

Regarding FatDUX sponsorships, we actually sponsor a lot of stuff that isn’t of any direct benefit to us in Denmark. In addition to EuroIA, we also helped sponsor the UPA conference in Austin, Texas and will be a sponsor at OZ in Sydney, Australia. But since we have clients based in the U.S., Germany, and elsewhere, we don’t really view Denmark as our home market. We’re a fairly international organization when all is said and done – and we hold a lot of telephone conferences in the middle of the night to accommodate clients and associates in various time zones.

Earlier this year in Las Vegas, we sponsored six student registrations and we’ll be doing something similar in Barcelona. We’re firm believers in the importance of education and spend a lot of time and money creating and supporting educational initiatives. And we like to drink, so we’ll be sponsoring the EuroIA cocktail hour again this year along with our good friends in Amsterdam, User Intelligence.

2. The EuroIA 2007 theme is Translating Information Architecture. What kind of translations do Information Architects face on a regular basis?

The title of this year’s event has two meanings. First, there is the obvious issue of sharing knowledge among people who do not have English as their first language. So it’s a question of literally translating concepts. Second, we also know that concepts need to be adapted to local markets – some markets are mature, some are just learning the value of the internet and the importance of IA. This is also a kind of translation.

In fact, both of these interpretations are closely related. If you examine internet usage and the “state-of-the-art” in nations across Europe, you’ll usually find a correlation between those countries that feel comfortable using English and the level of IA maturity. In general, in countries where films and TV programs are subtitled rather than dubbed, and where English is introduced in school at an early age, you will often find more active internet communities. I realize that this is a huge generalization, but there is an undeniable link.

Sadly, most of the IA literature is still in English (with only a few notable exceptions). Most of the conferences are in English (but this is changing – this year there will be both a German and Italian IA conferences). Most of the discussion lists are in English. And a surprising number of IA blogs are in English.

So, our task at EuroIA is to help individuals become more comfortable meeting colleagues from other countries and to help them find common ground. And in those countries that have been been isolated because of politics and language – Hungary and Poland to name just two – our job is to help bring these IAs into the mainstream of thought. And to let them know that good ideas are always more important than good pronunciation.

A case in point: a few days ago, I had a great conversation with a fellow from Stetin, Poland. He spoke no English and I speak no Polish. But we discovered that we both knew some Swedish – so this became our common language. And we had a great exchange despite our limited vocabulary.

As you know, the Information Architecture Institute recently relaunched their website, which includes translations of key IA-related articles. And we are also working to create a multi-language glossary. Unfortunately, the woman who was coordinating the glossary initiative has become very ill. So we’re looking for volunteers who can continue this important work. And I will be actively recruiting in Barcelona.

3. In the field of genetics, “translation” means the process by which a certain messenger molecule specifies a concept for protein synthesis. It's a very important process. How important do you consider IA within Website "synthesis"?

Well, this is really a standards discussion, isn’t it? Or perhaps even a definition question. Personally, I really don’t care how people define “information architecture” because each definition invariably reflects a person’s own work situation. In other words, an IA on a small project, who is also the main content provider, and maybe even the programmer/designer, has a very different job than a thesaurus developer for a huge corporation. Often, people confuse the definition of IA with a job description. These are very different things.

What is the definition of a “mechanic”? If you fix cars, your job will be very different than if you fix washing machines. But both jobs probably require wrenches and screwdrivers. Just like the peptides and ribosomes in protein synthesis, our tools – persona, use-cases, contextual enquiry, card-sorting, focus groups, etc. – help create uniform high quality across projects. The tools are our amino acids. And you can put them together in countless ways.

Over the past 10-15 years, we have developed many tools and processes that are now widely used. They make it possible to synthesize across geographical, cultural, and political boundaries – and from project to project. I’m particularly proud that the Seven A’s process outlined in my book on IA back in 2000 has been adopted by so many, as well as the Web Dogma `06 I introduced in Vancouver last year. The dogma, in particular, is now available online in several languages.

4. Information Architecture is a very interdisciplinary discipline. Very much like Cognitive Science for example, where you have influences from psychology, philosophy, computer science, anthropology and linguistics. Being such a mixed Science, does Information Architecture have internal translation challenges, too?

Oh, absolutely. That’s why our glossary project is so important. What is the German translation of “contextual enquiry”? There are probably several terms. And in France, there are at least three different terms used to describe “information architect”. So, the glossary also helps us create a baseline for the development of IA in individual countries. I often see this happen in a more ad hoc fashion at international conferences. People with very different titles say to one another, “Gosh, that is exactly what I do, too.”

As you point out, IA is very cross-disciplinary. Even the term “concept” means very different things depending on who you talk to. An advertising agency will think of “concept” as a big idea, often visual. A programmer might assume “concept” to refer to “concept-oriented programming”. And an IA will probably think of “concept” as the site’s functionality rather than how it looks or how it was programmed.

In time, we’ll probably straighten out the internal definitions. Externally, I don’t think we ever will. After all, the building architects don’t even want us to use the word “architecture”, which to them refers to a very different discipline.

5. Eric, you serve currently on the Board of the Information Architecture Institute and are its President. You are also Chairman for the EuroIA Summit committee and are on the steering committee for the 2008 IA Summit in Miami. Regarding Information Architecture from a global view, what are the hot topics within IA right now?

Good question, Jan. Actually, the “hot topics” depend on whether you’re looking at these internally or externally.

Within the community, we’re concerned about the IAs who no longer consider themselves IAs. They are now “consultants”. Personally, I think it’s vitally important that the link between strategic and tactical IA is maintained. Otherwise, we will be giving away this part of our work to the business analysts at the big consulting houses and ad agencies. This would be disasterous. When we do the tactical work – thesaurus and taxonomy development, SEO etc. – we need more than just basic verbal support from top-level executives – we need them to understand the “why” of our work, not just the “what”. This is why IA representation at top-level meetings is so critical. The strategic IAs usually have easier access to these executives, especially since web operations are finally becoming an integral part of the business plan; they are no longer ill-conceived subsidiaries in cyberspace with no real accountability.

Externally, we also need to get people to understand who we are and what we do. During the summer of 2007, the magazine National Geographic, had an article on the Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus. He was named as the world’s first “information architect”, which shows that our profession is gaining recognition. But we’ve still got a long way to go.

On a more global level, we have got to figure out how to deal with multiple languages. This is particularly true when it comes to intranets. What information should be available in all languages? What information is strictly local? What local information is relevant for neighboring markets (for example Spain/Portugal or a region such as Scandinavia, but not for all markets?) Even with sophisticated publishing procedures, how does one make sure that regional information is appropriately incorporated into all relevant local sites? Can we find out how to accomplish this without the necessity of translating everything to the lingua franca of the web, English? Here, we see a business problem that is also a usability problem, that will quickly become an IA problem. And we’re going to have to find an answer pretty soon.

A couple of years ago, I attended a Nielsen-Norman seminar in Amsterdam that was going to review of 14 “international” intranets. As it turned out, 10 were from the U.S., three were in London, and one was in Australia. Many of the attendees asked about multi-language problems but there was no immediate answer. Instead, we were encouraged to sign up on a special-interest mailing list. This was in November 2004 – and I haven’t heard a word since.

So, the problem remains – and is getting more critical all the time.

And, of course, the really hot topic is search engine optimization – which is also one of my least favorite subjects. I’m bloody sick of the SEO consultants who peddle bad solutions at inflated prices.

The truth is, SEO isn’t black magic: you create good content, you add relevant metadata, and you write clean code. It’s hard work, but there isn’t anything mysterious about it.

And the “success stories” aren’t always happy…

We had a hardcore business-to-business client last year that was convinced that their company would not prosper unless they got at least 1000 hits a day. Even after they learned the difference between “hits” and “user sessions” they still wanted lots of site traffic.

I asked them what they would do if they got just two solid requests for proposals each month. Since they were in an incredibly specialized industry, a serious answer to an RFP took almost a week to formulate – and several senior people were involved in each one. As such, our client concluded that they didn’t really have the manpower to answer more than one serious RFP each month. So, the natural next question was, why did they feel the need to get so many site visitors? After much discussion, we were allowed to create very specific metadata that virtually eliminated “accidental” visitors.

And the conversion rate improved. Markedly.

Within a month, they actually started to get more meaningful visits to their site – perhaps 100 a week – all from companies specifically interested in their services. I guess our work must have been successful – when I checked their site last week, they’d pulled most of the metadata out of their code.

In a couple of months (or a couple of Google indexings), their conversion rate is going to be back to nil. I’m curious who’s going to get the blame. The silly webmaster who deleted the metadata or us.

I keep hoping that at some point the education will kick in and our clients will get smarter. But there is no light at the end of the tunnel…yet. We’ve got lots more work to do.

In the meantime, Jan, thanks again for giving me this opportunity to share my views with you and your colleagues in Germany. Grüß aus Kopenhagen. Véale en Barcelona!

TheHotStrudel The Hot Strudel Eric Reiss euroia