from NBS: IA as Conversation

"In the past I've wondered about how taxonomies become navigation and did the taxonomy dance to match the bottom-up to the top-down, and now I wonder if this whole way of thinking about information architecture is flawed. "

Which is why Indi Young's Information Architecture from Mental Models is such a useful technique. It at least helps one see the gap betweenuser design and design.

Though very little is discussed about task based classification vs. topic based classification, and how they might interrelate (though if you've seen something, please post a link.) A navigation system is so much more than the inverted L... related links, shortcuts, contextual linking. And yet the inverted L, or whatever form it might take (stacked X&Y is a common variation) is still the safty net, the freeway for when you want to zoom somewhere, the way to get home when you are lost.

just a thoughtwander, maybe I'll see if I can get somewhere coherent later with this...

but yes, victor, keep pondering.

There's a body of knowledge in sociology about conversation analysis and indeed there were anthropologists at PARC a while back that were knowledgeable about the technical aspects of conversation interchange. Victor's take on IA as conversation is metaphoric but there may be something more in the nuts and bolts, too.

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