Section 21.5. The Un-Information Architecture


21.5. The "Un-Information Architecture"

Despite these concerns, evolt.org and its information architecture are impressive and successful. We should celebrate its very existence and also congratulate its founders on developing a flexible model that is likely to survive through the next generation of administrators.

Yet the process by which evolt.org took shape is anathema to "traditional" information architecture; there was minimal planning, formal process, or methodology. The whole approach has a "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" flavor to it.

And you know what? That's OK.

When a site operates on the goodwill of volunteers who create its infrastructure and populate it with content, it's hard to get them to follow a plan. Nothing about evolt.orgincluding its information architecturecan be forced. Accommodation, flexibility, and the willingness to experiment (and to live with those experiments!) are what drive the information architecture, not the other way around.

So, like the site itself, the architecture is a work in progress. Someone comes up with a good idea and floats it, others encourage him to try it, and suddenly there's a new section of the site. Integration with the rest of the site comes afterward, if at all. This constant morphing is the case with more than just the actual site architecture; it applies to the people involvedthe volunteers and decision-makersand the policies as well.

Transitional architectures can succeed only if the community is true to its goal of broad participation. In an environment where ideal methods such as contextual inquiry and content analysis are too expensive to be practical, volunteers must be counted on to take an active role in coming up with ideas that contribute to a better information architecture in their own way. Members ultimately design the information architecture for one another. Like the participatory economy, participatory information architecture will ultimately be the reason why sites like evolt.org survive and prosper.




Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
ISBN: 0596527349
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 194

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