An opening keynote: Joshua Prince-Ramus.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn how much commonality there is between “brick and mortar” architecture and information architecture. Joshua outlined issues surrounding limitations of space, resources and differing business goals and provided a glimpse into how his firm pushes for the best solution given these constraints. He had presented a similar talk to TED in February 2006, so seems best to just show you his related talk.

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Tags: [Joshua Prince-Ramus, architect, architecture, Seattle Public Library, TED, IA Summit, IA Summit 2007, Partial Recall, information architecture]

On Saturday May 20, the local chapter of DC information architects got together to recap topics that were addressed and discussed at the 2006 IA Summit. This was a long time coming for me. I’ve been meaning to attend these local meetings, but life has, of course, gotten in the way.

Livia Labate has provided a wealth of useful material, including MP3 recordings of the local DC event, as well as links to material that was presented at the Summit.

Anyway, the following is a brief summary of my notes. Certainly these notes do not codify the entirety of the redux – just my own brain dump based on notes taken at the event. The topics to be addressed are listed below (those in bold are the ones we had time to discuss):

Overview

1. Summit Overview#
2. Tagging#
3. Wireframes#
4. New Technology#
5. Content Management
6. Business and IA
7. Theory#
8. International

Summit Overview

Dan Brown facilitated the DC-IA redux, and one of the things he discussed centered around the format of the Summit. He mentioned that in the past, there was a greater selection of things to attend and a greater variety of topics. On the other hand, he mentioned that there were better opportunities to connect with people outside of sessions this past year. He asked for input on how to create a culture that would both maximize connections outside of sessions and make good use in-session time.

Tagging

James Melzer addressed the topic of tagging, focusing primarily on using the bookmark tool del.icio.us.

Some discussion revolved around making a distinction between a group versus a crowd. A group, James indicated, is intentional, known, and planned. In contrast, a crowd is unknown and not planned. Del.icio.us embraces both, and James noted that sometimes crowds become groups in Del.icio.us because is sometimes ends up being the same people who are the forefront of tagging, and their aggregate work sets trends for other users.

Tagging::Kinds of Tags

• Description (Singular)
• Categorization (plural)
• Opinion
• Action (temporary, personal)
• Relation (for userid)
• Insider Reference (e.g., “enterprise_ia”)

Wireframes

Nathan Curtis discussed wireframes. Apparently, Nathan worked at K12 for a few months just before I arrived. I’ve heard very good things about him – in particular, how he shared some of his wireframing techniques with current K12 IAs.

Wireframes::Techniques

Nathan explained that there was a discussion of using different wireframing techniques/tools, including:

• paper prototyping
• Adobe Flash (interaction)
• iRise
• MS Visual Studio
• XHTML
• MS Visio

Wireframes::Challenges

Nathan mentioned that IAs need to struggle with representing interactions over time. With the advent of RIAs such as Flash and Ajax, IAs need to be able to communicate how information is to be presented, but how user behaviors will affect the feedback and visual representation of a web application. Nathan mentioned Bill Scott at Yahoo! and how he uses interaction storyboards, complete with interaction matrices to document all behavior changes for a given interaction type.

One technique Nathan mentioned was to segment the “modules” that comprise a wireframe. In other words, reusable widgets can be saved as components to be used over and over again. In addition, Nathan commented on Kevin Cheng’s use of comics to communicate HCI usability issues with stakeholders.

New Technology

Nathan briefly discussed how new technologies are affecting the profession. For instance, Laszlo and Adobe Flex make it easier to move from a rapid prototype to a working solution. The web metaphor is moving away from “pages” to “mashups,” so IAs need to be able to embrace change and add new skill sets to accomodate for this change.

The group also discussed game design and the use of incentives as a way to interact with the user.

Theory

Olga Howard took some more time to cover the distinction of “crowd” versus “group.” With regard to tagging in Del.icio.us, the group discussed how there may be a flurry of different tags used to classify objects, but over time, the number of tags flattens to an accepted assortment.

Next, the discussion turned to Morville’s championing of “findability.” The basic questions to ask include:

• Is it useful?
• Is it desirable?
• Is it valuable?
• Is it credible?

Conclusion

Since I have not been able to attend the IA Summit yet, I found this redux to be pretty informative. In addition to getting useful information, I enjoyed spending time with other like-minded individuals who have a passion for creating usable intuitive products.

Tags: [dc-ia, dcia, Livia Labate, Partial Recall, brownorama, James Melzer, information architecture, iasummit, wireframes]

Year One included the tagline “The Web Is a Platform” to which Battelle remarks,

“That felt spot on, because the idea of the web as a place you could build on the work of others was a pretty new idea.”

Year Two included the tagline “Revving the Web” to which Battelle remarks,

“…because it was all about the services and businesses and opportunities that arose from the Web – all of which taken together made the web more robust and more exciting.”

For November’s conference, Battelle suggests the tagline “Disruption” by indicating,

“…the year the Web – in all its forms – really flexes its muscle and begins to seriously turn the soil of the global economy in deep and permanent ways. Think of the disruptions in the media and entertainment industries – probably the deepest disruptions so far. But we’re only in the first inning or so of the disruptions in the mobile and communications space (how excited do YOU think AT&T is about Google offering free Wifi, for example? Or eBay buying Skype?). And the disruptions of search and clickstreams on commerce is only now beginning, and the same is true for the massive IT industry (Microsoft Live, anyone?). And the disruption on our cultural life – in government, for example (can you say warrantless wiretaps meets the Database of Intentions?) – is only beginning to dawn on all of us.”

I’m not sure I follow Battelle’s logic here. “Disruption” is just another name for change, and the technology industry, which affects other industries like media and communications, only survives through innovation. I do understand that some industries are grounded in consistency rather than innovation, but for every example of IT companies becoming more immersed in other industries (i.e., Google offering WiFi, eBay buys Skype, Yahoo streaming television content), there are examples of these industries embracing IT (i.e., Verizon offering integrated internet, television, telephony,etc. services) . I’ve even seen telephone companies now offer VoIP so that they are offering more than one service.

Certainly Web 2.0 may be disruptive to some companies from some industries, but what about the consumers? Are they disrupted by the new technologies and philosophies that have emerged as a result of the Web 2.0 dialogue? I do not think so. Web 2.0 cannot be just about how it affects industry and commerce but how it affects the end user, and part of what makes Web 2.0 the current buzz is because as the web becomes more social, so too it becomes more universal and needs to become more usable. Usability is much more critical when we focus not on the needs of a target audience, but on the universal web population.

Last September, Tim O’Reilly fleshed out his definition of what Web 2.0 really is. The focus covered both the economic implications and the social components that seem to define this concept. I’ve tried to respond to John by suggesting that the next conference include a tagline inspired by one of my following contributions:

• “Web 2.0 – Egocentrically Altruistic”
• “Web 2.0 – Egocentrically Altruistic Web for the World”
• “Web 2.0 – Findable, Usable, Portable and Universal”

Egocentrism and Altruism

You see, I am noticing that Web 2.0 encapsulates both egocentric needs and altruistic ones. Thomas Vander Wal discusses Web 2.0 and concludes his post by referring to a recurring theme he has been evangelizing:

“In this past year I frame the need for it as a change from the “I go get web” to the “Come to me web”

Thomas points to some of the egocentric components of Web 2.0. The internet is becoming more portable and personal – customizable portals, RSS feeds, rich interfaces and the like draw people because they can make their Internet experience their own. This is the lure from companies who are offering free services to customers – offer a rich personalized experience to draw people to sites driven by advertizing revenue.

But Web 2.0 is also defined by its altruistic qualities. The other side of the coin that is offering free personalized services for intended revenue is that the software and web developers tend to embrace the credo of making the world better – that means some are offering services for free out of an altruistic spirit (okay, so some hope to make it big and get bought out by Yahoo or some other IT conglomerate). We are currently seeing an explosion in collaborative and social web services. The altruism that partially defines the Web 2.0 generation is that the web collective seeks to help and connect with each other.

One of the outcroppings of Web 2.0 has been that of organizing information for easy retrieval – concepts including information architecture, findability, oncology, taxonomy, and folksonomy have become en vogue. Folksonomy, in particular, has intrigued me because it encapsulates both the egocentrism and altruism components that appear to define Web 2.o. Thomas Vander Wal explains that “in short a folksonomy is a set of uncontrolled tags provided by individuals for their own retrieval purposes of that object and these tags are shared publicly.” Therefore, although Thomas appears to focus on the egocentric components of folksonomy, I would argue that there is both an egocentric component (tagging for myself) as well as an altruistic one (I’ll share my tags for others and see). This is Web 2.0 in a nutshell. Yes, from an economic perspective, the outcropping of technologies and services is for revenue, but Web 2.0 is much more – it is a movement, a philosophy…

So, will O’Reilly and Battelle embrace my tagline for the Web 2.0 conference? I doubt it – it’s not flashy and it isn’t aimed at the bottom line: the almighty dollar. However, at the end of the day, I think true Web 2.0 is more than a technology, a company, a concept, or a service. Web 2.0 is simply providing an intuitive rich user experience that can be both egocentric and altruistic.

Tags: [Web 2.0, Web2.0, VanderWal, Thomas VanderWal, Vander Wal, Tim O'Reilly, John Battelle, longtail, folksonomy, taxonomy, findability, tagging, AJAX]

Thomas talked about a variety of topics, but some of the things that struck me revolved around his discussion of folksonomy. Thomas says that he does not like the definition included in Wikipedia because the site allows users to constantly add or remove content to define the concept. He provided us with the following descriptors:

Folksonomy:

• Actual vocabulary used for objects in a community and across communities;
• Network-based selfish bookmarking;
• Free-tagging;
• Socially shared; and
• Externally structuring content

There were a few concepts that clicked in place and resonated with me. First, something clicked when Thomas explained that folksonomy is the “anti-Google.” Essentially, Thomas argued that search tools build algorithms to help you “find what you want.” However, the concept of folksonomies, manifested in collaborative bookmarking tools (such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, etc.), help you “find what you don’t know you want.” He explained that while a majority of people might want results that are in the mainstream, folksonomies let users find information that might be in the long-tail:

Secondly, I really got hung up on the idea that folksonomies involved “selfish bookmarking.” For instance, when my wife bookmarks an article about Apple’s iPod, she might only use the term “ipod” to tag her bookmark, because she only cares about classifying her article so she can find it later. On the other hand, even though I know I can later find the article by searching for “iPod,” I might try to use multiple tags to help others locate my article. I might additionally use the terms “Apple,” “mp3,” “music,” and so on. However, Thomas cuts through this by explaining that if you choose to assist others this way, then this is really your selfish method of bookmarking.

Thomas’ concept really involves no moral, ethical, or “responsibility of the user” argument when it comes to practicing folksonomies. However, as I’ve argued before, for some reason I am stuck on the responsibility of the social tagger. My ideal would be that taggers use multiple tags to describe the content that they choose to bookmark. That way, it becomes easier for other persons to find their content. This does not negate the concept of folksonomies. The social component to this phenomenon is such that we learn to trust others and the tags they use to describe content. Therefore, I still propose that other services that incorporate folksonomies into their systems provide a mechanism for rating taggers on a “trustworthy” scale.

Tags: [Vander Wal, Thomas Vander Wal, VanderWal, folksonomy, tagging, MIM, UMCP]

As an American, I am profoundly aware that I am living in a “me” culture, one that took off during Generation X. Here are a few examples of cultural/technical changes, partially influenced by this “me” philosophy:

Television

There used to be 4 main television channels – ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. From these sources, consumers were entertained, informed, and marketed to. Today, it is not uncommon for the typical consumer to have hundreds of cable or satellite choices to satisfy their specific interests for entertainment or information. Consumers with these advanced pay services can also choose to see selected movies, sporting events, music events, etc. with on-demand-like features.

Music

Services like iTunes and Napster allow consumers to pick and choose the individual songs they would like to purchase (or “rent”). Even radio formats such as Jack tries to broaden its appeal to many people, so at least they can hear some tunes off the beaten path.

Web Services

I made the mistake a few years ago when my contracting company planned to implement the portal concept to its web applications. I thought, “Why waste all this time and energy collapsing customized information for people when they can go to individual sites on their own?” I made the mistake of forgetting where I was (America – the “me” culture) and two other critical variables.

1. Information Overload

First, we are now living in the information age – more information is not necessarily created, but more information is available through technologies such as the Internet. Because there is so much information to wade through, it’s as if someone has thrown a deck of cards at us and we must quickly try to catch only the face cards (information that is considered important by us) before they hit the floor. Thomas Vander Wal elaborates on this idea with his Personal Infocloud and Model of Attraction theories.

2. Time – Not Enough of It

Time is a precious thing. Often, in order to achieve our desired results, we do not have time to start searching for information from scratch, heavily weighing the source of the information and considering alternatives. Instead, we must satisfice. In other words, in order to maximize our available time, we need just enough (trusted) relevant information readily available so we can quickly make a decision or pursue a course of action.

Why It’s Good to Be Like Matt Drudge

I’m learning that, although our culture is extremely egocentric with “me-first” attitudes, this philosophy probably positively influenced this technological focus on personalization. It’s a good thing to have services and solutions that essentially tivos your need for personalized information (if only temporarily).

I think folksonomies and subscribing to RSS feeds is an extension of this need for personalizing information that is collected. Just as cable news has become a viable alternative to the big 4 mentioned earlier in this post and weblogs and internet sites have replaced many traditional periodicals, tagging gives every consumer the opportunity to be their own Matt Drudge – to find, make readily available, and to potentially share information that’s important to you…

Tags: [folksonomy, tagging, Thomas Vander Wal, Information Management, Knowledge Management, Personal Infocloud]

1. The “social” aspect of collaborative tagging allows users to find other users with potentially similar interests. On the surface, for example, this may seem no different than finding like-minded people at a sports-related bb or finding a romantic connection at Match.com. However, this form of collaboration is about sharing information, not making a love connection.
2. More importantly, leveraging this collaborative culture provides personal information managers with exponential power to filter the information universe and make better sense of their own personal infocloud.

I liken this to a professor with multiple research assistants. This professor must divide his or her time wearing many hats: teacher, researcher, and presenter (and parent, spouse, etc.). The research assistants save this professor valuable time by doing a lot of the gruntwork – thereby giving the professor more time to easily assimilate this information and focus on pioneering new research initiatives.

For instance, Mark Woodman describes how users can leverage others’ del.icio.us bookmarks as a way to better manage your own personal infocloud.

Social software such as flickr, del.icio.us, and more are powerful because, not only do they let people collaboratively categorize information, but they allow users to bookmark these categories, either directly or through RSS / Atom feeds.

Collaborative filtering certainly makes my life a whole lot easier.

Tags: [del.icio.us, infocloud, folksonomy, Flickr, tagging]

Certainly one of the beautiful things about tagging is that it now allows users to disseminate, locate, and share information in an efficient manner. Moreover, we tend to rely on the classification of information by persons we learn to trust.

Therefore, if it does not already exist, I suggest that as the social software [flickr, del.icio.us, etc.] scene grows and grows, there should be a rating system that each of these social software services enables so that the information consumer can rate the taxonomist. For example, use Amazon as a model. They use a rating system so customers can assign a “was it helpful” ranking to layperson reviews of products and services. Then as a consumer [in this case of products and services] I can decide whether or not to trust this review based on the feedback this person has received. Why can’t we use a similar system to help consumers of information?

I liken the tagging phenomenon to a filter of sorts. Why scan the entire Internet when I can apply a filter and search for information that has already been classified for me? However, since now all laypersons using social software wield this power, could this filter become distorted? You bet. However, if we can rate this growing group of taxonomists (myself included), then we are provided with an even richer piece of metadata that will aid us in our quest for information retrieval. I propose we introduce a new term and feature set to social software – “Thumbing” – a term that describes a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” approach to rating these social taxonomists.

UPDATED 04/14/2005 – Not sure if I like the “Thumbing” term. Perhaps in a nod to folksonomy – combining folk and taxonomy, the term “Ragging” – combining rating and tagging, might be a better term…although the term is already a colloquialism for teasing…

Tags: [thumbing, ragging, tagging, rating, folksonomy]