Understanding Context

Foreword

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND context. There’s always something we’re missing. Not long ago, during a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, I was thinking deep thoughts about two-billion-year-old rocks. They made me feel small. Although we’re more stable than a tornado or a sandbar, we belong in the same category. We are delicate, imperfect patterns that come and go in the blink of an eye. Yet, we’re also more ancient than rocks. We are made of stardust, indestructible matter as old as the universe.

That’s when I heard the rattle.

Lost in thought, I nearly stepped on a snake. In unfamiliar territory, it’s impossible to understand context, but it’s still vital that we pay attention.

In the 1990s, I helped to grow a company called Argus. Over the course of seven years, we pioneered the practice of information architecture and bootstrapped our way from two to forty souls. Unfortunately, when the tech bubble burst at the end of the decade, we sunk the ship. We didn’t see it coming. Later, while packing books into boxes, I suddenly realized what I’d lost. It wasn’t just a company; Argus was a part of me. We’d built an organization of people, systems, and information that embodied and extended ourselves. That’s the thing about context. It’s impossible to see until it’s gone.

A year after we closed Argus, I met Andrew Hinton. A group of us were gathered on the beautiful conference grounds of Asilomar to discuss how we might advance the practice of information architecture. At the time, ...