Information Architecture

Long before the Web, the act of organizing and architecting information was in
place. Richard Saul Wurman, author of over 80 books including the acclaimed
Information Anxiety about making information understandable, coined the term
“unformation architecture’’ in 1976, even though the profession really emerged
and matured after people began to struggle with managing information on the
Web.
While the exact definition of the term is still being debated, most will agree that
information architecture is the process of identifying, organizing, and structuring
site content. By my way of thinking, this has to extend to the technical implementation
of site infrastructure needs. A strong infrastructure means a stable,
clean-running, underlying technology, which enables designers to create navigation
and interface designs that are useful and relevant to both the information and
the needs of the user. People working in this field, which is called “IA’’by inside
professionals, are referred to as Information Architects.