The Architecture

of Understanding

Peter Morville, World IA Day, Zürich

6

The Library of Congress

“To further the progress of knowledge and creativity.”

FragmentationFragmentation into multiple sites,

domains, and identities is a major problem. Users don’t know which site to visit for which purpose.

Findability Users can’t find what they need

from the home page, but most users don’t come through the front door. They enter via a web search or a deep link, and are confused by what they find. Even worse, most never use the Library, because its resources aren’t easily findable.

8

Web Governance Board

Nature

Isle Royale National Park

Planning

Inspiration

Planning

PlayingPracticing

“With respect to learning by failure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets a larval cyst in the brain.”

“There is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one direction, but in many directions simultaneously.”

“It is the responsibility of the

architect to know and concentrate

on the critical few details and

interfaces that really matter.”

The design and management

of information systems.

Understanding the nature

of information in systems.

Categories

Categories are the cornerstones of cognition and culture.

We use radio buttons when checkboxes or sliders would reveal the truth.

Connections

HyperlinksPages

Web

PathsPlaces

Space

ConnectionsCategories

Mind

ConsequencesActions

Time

“The system always kicks back.”

If you think information architecture hasn’t changed

since the polar bear, you’re simply not paying attention.

39

“Tell me about a day in your life.”

“How can I know what I

think until I see what I say?”

Culture

Double-loop learning in organizations (and individuals) is rare.

The relationship between information and culture.

“There’s a secret about MRIs and

back pain: the most common

problems physicians see on MRI and

attribute to back pain – herniated,

ruptured, and bulging discs – are

seen almost as commonly on MRIs of

healthy people without back pain.”

“If you want to accelerate

someone’s death, give him a

personal doctor. I don’t mean

provide him with a bad doctor.

Just pay for him to choose his

own. Any doctor will do.”

48

Limits

“It is now my suggestion that many

people may not want information, and

that they will avoid using a system

precisely because it gives them

information…If you have information,

you must first read it. You must then try

to understand it. Understanding the

information may show that your work

was wrong, or may show that your work

was needless. Thus not having and not

using information can lead to less trouble

and pain than having and using it.”Calvin Mooers (1959)

The limits of information

“We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.” – Winston Churchill

“Willpower is the single most

important keystone habit for

individual success.”

“A culture of generosity.”Josie Parker, Ann Arbor District Library

“Where architects use forms and spaces to design

environments for inhabitation, information architects use

nodes and links to create environments for understanding.”

Jorge Arango, Architectures (2011)

Daylighting

Daylighting

62

67The l ibrary i s an act of inspirat ion archi tecture and a keystone of cu l ture .

Thank You!IA Therefore I Am