Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

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.org—including its information architecture—can 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 involved—the volunteers and decision-makers—and the policies as well.

Transitional architectures can succeed only if the community is true to its goal ...