[IxDA Discuss] Information Architecture or Interaction Design

[Christian Crumlish]

I think Dave's explanation pretty well covers it. A lot of it does come
down to self-branding and turf. I was recently talking to someone who
was a "UI designer" in 2000 and who had been out of this job market for
a while. Coming back into it she wasn't sure what to call herself or
what jobs to apply for.

One other potentially useful schema to look at is Jesse James Garrett's
"elements of user experience" diagram
(http://jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf) in which, at least in the
context of the Web, he associates IA with hypertext systems and IxD with
software interfaces.

We tend to use the terms somewhat interchangeable at Extractable, where
I work, but when pressed I will associate IA work with the
information-access driven websites we build and IxD with the interactive
applications we build. On the tactical plane, projects that require IA
tend to have some form of siteamp. Projects that require IxD tend to
have task flow diagrams. Both often have wireframes. All require
understanding users/customers/people/personas and the behaviors,
motivations, tasks, and goals the wish to accomplish. All require
understanding business or institutional needs, goals, and logic. All
require strategy and design.

Hope this helps.

Christian Crumlish
Director of Strategic Services, Extractable
Director of IT/Web, IA Institute

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> In the advertising/interactive marketing agency IA and IxD 
> are often just synonyms depending on how that agency wants to 
> be perceived.
> 
> ...
> 
> But I would say to Antoinette, that the answer needs to 
> really come from your context as the User Experience (UX) 
> Community has made an implicit decision to not focus on 
> separation and definition and rather look at our contexts of 
> practice. Most discussions about defining and differentiating 
> any of the UX fields from one another usually ends up in a 
> rant around "this is my space; and you keep away" -- thus 
> very unhelpful.