Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

What Isn’t Information Architecture?

One of the most effective ways to define something is to identify its boundaries. We do this all the time. This is my property. That’s your property. This is England. That’s Scotland. She’s a brain surgeon. He’s an ophthalmologist.

Sometimes it’s very easy to explain the differences. Mammals breathe with their lungs and give birth to live young. Dogs, cats, dolphins, and humans are all clearly mammals. Fish live in water, breathe with their gills, and lay eggs. Salmon, bass, and guppies are all clearly fish.

But as with many classifications, you quickly run into problems. What about fish with lungs? What about fish that don’t look like fish? Are sharks, skates, eels, and sea horses really fish? (Yes, they are.) And where do we put that darned platypus?^[4] Biological taxonomists have argued about these classification issues for centuries.

Mapping the boundaries of information architecture is even more slippery. Some things are clearly not information architecture:

• Graphic design is NOT information architecture.

• Software development is NOT information architecture.

• Usability engineering is NOT information architecture.

Makes sense, right? But as soon as you start working within the messy reality of web site design and construction, you find yourself in the gray areas between disciplines. For example, consider the ubiquitous global navigation bars in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3. Top and bottom navigation bars on the United Nations web site

The navigation bars ...