Information architecture (IA) & Document architecture (DA)

The term, "information architecture" (IA), was coined by Richard Wurman in 1975 to describe the need to transform data into meaningful information for people to use, a not entirely original idea, but certainly a first-time conjunction of the terms into the now common IA label. Building on concepts in architecture, information design, typography, and graphic design, Wurman's vision of a new field lay dormant for the most part until the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, when interest in information organization and structures became widespread. The term came into vogue among the broad web design community as a result of the need to find a way of communicating shared interests in the underlying organization of digitally accessed information. (Dillon & Turnbull, 2005).

Architecture is a metaphor used about, for example, document and information structures and designs.

Information architecture has been defined as: "The art and science of organizing information to help people effectively fulfill their information needs. Information architecture involves investigation, analysis, design and implementation. Top-down and bottom-up are the two main approaches to developing information architectures; these approaches inform each other and are often developed simultaneously." (Argus Center for Information Architecture, 2000).

"With document architecture (DA) we mean several things implied by the metaphor architecture, besides the formal definition of ISO 8879:1986 which reads "Rules for the formulation of text processing applications" (ISO 8879:1986 clause 4.97). We believe that as the architecture of a building discloses a lot of e.g. the architect, his skill, the architectural style and its underlying truth-holdings of a functional and aesthetic building, DA discloses a lot of the practices and underlying theory of the production of the document.

DA as a concept is closely connected to a certain kind of "text processing applications", general markup languages (GML), where content is separated from presentation." (Dahlström & Gunnarsson, 2000).

Literature:

Argus Center for Information Architecture (2000). The Information architecture glossary. Available at: http://argus-acia.com/white_papers/ia_glossary.pdf

Dahlström, M. & Gunnarsson, M. (2000). Document architecture draws a circle: on document architecture and its relation to library and information science education and research. Information Research, 5(2) Available at: http://informationr.net/ir/5-2/paper70.html

Dillon, A. & Turnbull, D. ( 2005). Information Architecture. (Pp. 1-9). In: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York: Marcel Dekker. Pp. 1-14. Online:http://www.dekker.com/sdek/abstract~db=~content=a713609832?words=&hash=

Mahon, B, Hourican, R & Gilchrist, A (2001). Research in information architecture. London: TFPL.

Morrogh, E. (2003). Information Architecture, an Emerging 21st Century Profession. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc. 

Morville, Peter & Rosenfeld, Louis (2006). Information architecture for the World Wide Web. Third edition. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc. 

See also:  Composition Studies

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 13-05-2007

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