“In France, IA will probably never take off, at least the current style of US-centered IA. In Belgium, there are a few companies doing interesting IA/UX work, mostly for large clients like J&J and such. But as a field it’s pretty unknown. I blame Belgian’s lack of self-promotion. In Holland, there is a bit more awareness (and historically more ‘design’ awareness) around IA, but also some confusion about what IA really is. There’s another Dutch ‘IA’ organization with a very different take on what it means. I’ll report back on Spain later, but I have noticed there is a bit of a UX scene there.” (Peter van Dijck)

“Card sorting is a powerful technique for assessing how users group related concepts together. In its simplest form, a researcher would write concepts – usually menu items for interaction design – on cards and ask users to group related items together. In a closed card sort, the number of groups and their names are fixed. In open card sorts, the number and names of groups are determined by the participants, although the researcher may specify limits (3 to 5 groups, for example).” (William Hudson – Syntagm) – courtesy of cityofbits

Search results on Information Architecture from Brainboost: Question everything. (Brainboost Answer Engine) – courtesy of iaslash

Select the session title to download a presentation. (IA Summit 2005) – courtesy of donnam

“It’s certainly good news for the field, but are we simply in for another boom and bust cycle? Surprise: I’m optimistic. The field seems healthier than it was four years ago for at least a couple reasons: (…)” (Louis Rosenfeld)

IA Summit 2005 Presentation in Montréal – “information architecture experience” (CD Evans – infostyling)

“I am at the Information Architecture Summit, blogging the sessions I’m attending.” (Sébastien Paquet)

IA Summit 2005 Presentation – “It’s the dawn of an age where interactive functionality and information is available and intertwined everywhere. The past two decades have been a pre-dawn period where products, software, environments, functionality, and interaction with information have gradually converged. What lessons have been learned within a single consulting design career during this period, pursuing from the beginning, convergence in these areas?” (James Leftwich) – courtesy of functioning form

“(…) a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to advancing and promoting information architecture. Founded in 2002, the Institute has over 600 members in 40 countries. Learn more or join now.” – (previously The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)

“Design is a valued industry in many fields, with professional support systems to match. Without adequate support systems in IA we will be awkwardly bound to the current design process out of fear of improvement. The nature of software design should be integrated and brought into the design process in a much more sustainable way, and I see support systems as the only way to provide the stability needed to develop through specialization.” (Clifton Evans – Boxes and Arrows)

“An information architecture project will uncover the very heart of internal politics in any organisation. In most cases, content owners, department heads and product managers all fight for prime ‘real estate’ and prominence within the website structure – resulting in a site design that looks like a ‘truce’ rather than an effective solution.” (Hurol Inan) – courtesy of digital web magazine

“The answer is Yes, we can. But you knew that already. How do we run the company? That answer has many, complex answers. My goal here is to offer a point of view and some new ideas and hopefully give you a new framework to think about the question more.” (Victor Lombardi – Management Innovation Group)

“(…) the line between Web design and information architecture doesn’t have to be as clear as we may have imagined. There are many opportunities for Web designers to fill the role of information architect in every project. This is not to say that information architects are no longer needed. On the contrary, with Web sites becoming more dynamic and complex every day, information architects are needed more than ever. But as an information architect who transitioned from a Web design role, I can assure you that information architects aren’t the only ones who can organize things.” (Joshua Kaufman – Digital Web Magazine) – The recurring theme of structure and presentation, of cognition and perception, or of architecture and design.

“Scaling up the numerous devices and information architectures competing for my diminishing attentional resources makes me wish there were some way for us to talk at a more macro level when discussing information. But this is not just a matter of ubiquity or usability, this is really about the human rhythm of information use, the coupling of person and process.” (Andrew Dillon – ASIS&T Bulletin Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005)

“Information architecture is more widely applied than ever. Decisionmakers now accept IA as critical to well-designed electronic information spaces. Practitioners use IA approaches and methodologies, and routinely include IAs on cross-disciplinary teams. There is a growing demand for IAs and greater pressure on managers and non-IA practitioners to understand IA principles. To support these needs, this year’s Summit focuses on key topics, cutting-edge issues, and core competencies.” – Pre-Conference Program, Main Conference Program and Poster Sessions (ASIS&T 2005 Information Architecture Summit)

“Thoughts about sitemaps, navigation, IA deliverables and the root problems with organization and content on the Web.” (D. Keith Robinson)

“The Visio stencils on this page are free for downloading and using. They are designed to aid the work of Information Architects. In short, they are not for everyone, you may want to familiarize yourself with common IA practices before trying to use these stencils.” (Nick Finck)

“What happens when you run a site in multiple languages/locales and need to manage the information architecture of that site? Can you just translate a taxonomy from one language to another? We are gathering a lot of material, and we’ll start sharing that and opening up the conversation. Me, I plan to write a series of blog posts on international or global IA, of which this is the first.” (Peter VanDijck – Guide to Ease)

“The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides maps for assembling topics into deliverables. By specializing the map elements, you can define a formal information architecture for your deliverables. This architecture provides guidance to authors on how to organize topics and lets processes recognize your organizing principles, resulting in a consistent, clear experience for your users.” (Erik Hennum et al. – IBM developerWorks XML DITA)

“The greatest danger is waiting until we have the wrong skills for our particular market. If we actively seek out the future opportunity that exists, if we actively continue our educations, if we actively pursue research and development of new ideas, we can all thrive in the future world economy.” (Victor Lombardi – Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture)