Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Ethics

What we’ll cover:

The politics of categories and classification

Issues of intellectual and physical access to information

The ethical responsibilities of information architects

You’ve almost finished the book. You understand the concepts. You’re familiar with the methods. But before you move onward and upward, consider the following questions:

Are you aware that the practice of information architecture is riddled with powerful moral dilemmas?

Do you realize that decisions about labeling and granularity can save or destroy lives?

Will you be designing ethical information architectures?^[1]

If you’ve never considered these questions, don’t worry. It’s not your fault. Blame your parents. Did they ever take the time when you were a small child to clarify that the story of Hansel and Gretel is really a metaphor for the horrors of ineffective breadcrumb navigation? Did they ever explain that Spiderman symbolizes the virtuous hypertextual power of the Web? Without information architect superheroes and archvillains to serve as role models, how you could be expected to recognize your own potential for good or evil?

Ethical Considerations

The truth is that ethics is one of the many hidden dimensions of information architecture. As Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Star state in their book Sorting Things Out (MIT Press):

Good, usable systems disappear almost by definition. The easier they are to use, the harder they are to see.

Large information systems such as the Internet or global ...