The implicit process

We build information architecture to use it

Orientation

Understanding where you are within a context.

Think of it like “you are here X” on a map, or “reading a room”.

Findability

Recognizing what you’re looking for.

Think of it like keeping “red” in your minds eye while looking for a red book.

Getting from where you are, to where you want to go.

Think of it like following a scent, or walking towards a distinctive tree in the distance.

Information architecture has been around as long as we’ve been sharing information. It’s in how and why we map our environment, in our language, and even in our expressions. 

Information isn’t something we stumbled upon with the advent of science, or library organization, or information technology. It’s in the foundation of what we tend to mark as the beginning of human civilization: farming. 

We can’t understand that a seed grows into something we can eat without connecting dots of information and time. We can’t decide to put a whole bunch of seeds in one spot so we can know where to go later to eat really well without information architecture.  We have to know where we are (orientation), recognize what we’re looking for (findability), and get there (navigation). With planting a seed that is the geographic markers; the seed; and an idea of when to come back.

When chimpanzees are defending territory because there are currently fruitless trees, but which they know they’ll depend on later for the fruit that will be there: they are showing information architecture.

The process of using information architecture is very simple: figure out where you are, find what you’re looking for, and get there. 

Implementing it is complicated. The variations are infinite. The single process that is implicated in every use is simple, cross-cultural, and even cross-species.

The disciplines that fed into my understanding of this process were language studies (e.g., Noam Chomsky), anthropology (development of civilization, ethnographies, and culture shifts), and library sciences. There’s probably more, but these are the areas that I have found to approach this idea most head-on.