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(2014) Reframing information architecture, Dordrecht, Springer.
Dutch uncles, ducks and decorated sheds
notes on the intertwingularity of meaning and structure in information architecture
Dan Klyn
pp. 119-129
On what basis can and ought one assess the relative merits of a given work of information architecture? In 2009, Jesse James Garrett pointed to the non-existence of such a normative theory and the community of practice's consequent inability to indicate "what good means' as evidence that information architecture is not a proper discipline. Garrett's rallying cry was for a wholesale reframing of that community in terms of User Experience Design, with human engagement as its center. In this chapter, I draw from the work of architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi to counter-propose a co-occurring reframing of the mostly-digital sense- and place-making work of information architecture in the normative terms of architecture, where the appropriate interplay of meaning and structural form comprises the basis of what good means.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-06492-5_9
Full citation:
Klyn, D. (2014)., Dutch uncles, ducks and decorated sheds: notes on the intertwingularity of meaning and structure in information architecture, in A. Resmini (ed.), Reframing information architecture, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 119-129.
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