If you want to know why IA is needed, think of any huge organically evolved website, then go visit the Winchester Mystery House. Much like Sarah L. Winchester, many companies seem to feel that the "building must never stop." Sarah was afraid of ghosts who were held at arms length by the sound of hammers; companies are frightened by the market. And their websites have the equivalent of stairs that lead to nowhere (404) and doors opening to two story drops (fatal error)...

"Mrs. Winchester never had a master set of blueprints, but did sketch out individual rooms on paper and even tablecloths!"

Eerily enough I was just chatting with a fellow IA who told me about a client who sketched out the IA on a cocktail napkin, and off it went to production! It's true!!! Tours at 3, 5 and 7. Children under 12 admitted half-price.

I like this. I work with people who "manage" a site with 17k active pages, no content management, no server side includes and nobody to say that can be archived, just keep building. How Winchester.

Wired is running an article about Jeremy Blake's artistic interpretation of the mysteries of Sarah Winchester and the house.

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