Like any relatively new field of study Information Architecture is still trying to define itself. Is it a practice in and of itself? Or is it/should it be part of a broader field that uses other tools and produces additional artifacts? The IA Summit endeavored to create a dialog around what this practice can actually encompass when considering users' interactions with information. The summit itself intimated at our need to begin bridging the gap between traditional IA (links and pages) and the burgeoning social and semantic web (contexts and connections). First, the theme of the summit was "Expanding Our Horizons," suggesting the practice look beyond those tools and techniques we've come to know and love (hi sitemaps). Second, the opening keynote address by Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist who is well known for his video "The Maching Is Us/ing Us", highlighted the fact that a multitude of media and communication forms are shaping both our identities and our society. His highly engaging presentation made it clear that these are phenomena that can't be easily mapped, organized or, at times, anticipated. He spoke of the current "reality" generation and its need to be heard and acknowledged and how this is shaping interaction, culture and media. His presentation was funny, touching, and poignant. It included pieces from some of his previously produced videos including:

• A Vision of Students Today
• The Message

This guy is really amazing. Third, Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path argued in his closing keynote address that we are not Information Architects, but User Experience Designers and that IA is simply part of what we do. And although about 30-40% of attendees were first timers, it was clear from his remarks that there has been a little tension among the ranks about titles, responsibilities, and measuring performance over the last tens years of this summit's existence. Nature hates a vacuum and project roles get filled regardless our where the IA role begins and the experience designer/content strategist/interface designer/usability professional role ends. Defining ourselves for its own sake isn't necessarily useful, but what is useful is being able to measure the impact and success of our field with users who use the products we touch.

Oh, and Content Strategists too

And lastly there was a visible contingent of content strategists who held a consortium and hosted a lunch table to help unravel exactly what this emerging job title encompasses and how it intersects with IA/UXD. I sat at the content strategy lunch table and there were a number of folks who are full time content strategist who do various things including write content, shape editorial policies, work with information architecture on labeling and taxonomy/vocabularies, and more. Razorfish has started a Content Strategy blog:. Rachel Lovinger, a content strategist with Razorfish, blogs about content and participated in the consortium and round table. She wrote a great piece about content strategy on BoxesAndArrows in '07. We've written about Content Strategy in our series on Creating and SEO Strategy late last year.

Favorite Sessions at the IA Summit

In between the opening and closing keynotes was three days of presentations ranging from the mildly academic ("The Adoption of Web Standards into Web Design") to the highly poetic ("Creating Magic Kingdoms: User Experience Lessons from Disney's Imagineers"). Of the sessions I attended my favorites were: Creating Magic Kingdoms: User Experience Lessons from Disney's Imagineers, presented by Michael Atherton. Michael used examples from the building of Disney World to illustrate principles of creating engaging user experiences. These include: Build a creative culture, Tell stories, and Have attitude. "Projects need emotional specs – how do we want users to feel? Be passionate about your projects." Design Games for IA, presented by Donna Spencer. In this session Donna shared some fun and engaging games that IAs can conduct among members of a project team or with clients to help brainstorm ideas, uncover information, and organize content. For example:

• Metadata games: Show an image of anything and have participants write down all the words they use to represent that thing (e.g. a beer in a foam sleve- it's a cozy, coozy, and/or a stubby holder).
• Freelisting: Make a list of as many items as you can think of from one category (e.g. "List all of the dogs you can think of").
• Card-sorting with a twist: add a twist like imposing a time limit, offer a prize for the team who finishes first, or other constraints to make it more like a game.

Integrating Effective Prototyping, presented by Fred Beecher. In this session Fred talked about the range of prototypes available when combining visual fidelity (low to high) with functional fidelity (low to high). From simple wireframe sketches on paper (low fidelity and low functionality) to highly visual and interactive prototypes his discussed conditions around the appropriate use of each type. This session has made me consider whether a project should ever have less than two types of prototypes. For example, begin with one type of deliverable as early on as possible (e.g. paper wireframes) and then move to the next in order of fidelity (e.g. clickable wireframes). This could help us come to a clearer consensus around priorities, begin development earlier, offer additional opportunities for user/client input and feedback, and decrease experiential ambiguities. Agile for the Rest of Us, presented by Andreas Ramsy. Andreas leads the NYC IA Meetup group and presented his experience being an IA in an agile environment. He cover just a few of the basics around Agile, if for nothing else than to make the point that Agile doesn't dictate a process. He advocates making the "one change that changes everything," whatever that one thing is that can help your developers start earlier. This could take the form of a simple list, a single wireframe image, or even a hand-drawn sketch. This point, taken into consideration with "Effective Prototyping" is an interesting intersection to linger in for a bit. It also implies the importance of communication among all the team members since turn around times are much tighter.

Final Impressions of the IA Summit

After hearing Jesse's speech it does feel like the practice of information architecture is at a tipping point, influenced by the changing landscape of the online social world, and redefining itself to remain responsive to the needs of users in these new contexts. I feel like I left with a sense of really wanting to explore the topic of content strategy and consider the user experience more often, broadly, and iteratively on projects. I don't know if my horizons were expanded, but I've certainly encountered new ways to enjoy the view. The IA Summit was sponsored by ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science & Technology) and held at the Peabody hotel in downtown Memphis, TN.