At the 2014 Language of Critique roundtable, Marsha Haverty
said “If we don’t have a way to describe what we do, we’ll be limited to… being
wireframe monkeys.”
IA is more than wireframes. But we’re confined by the
mindset that thinks IA is a box to check off on a project plan. If you find this a problem, you’ll want a way to change the discourse.
A language of critique is going to help you become a better,
more influential UX professional. We can
all use that.
Furthermore, maybe you’re at a stage in your career where
you’re elevating the practice. Are you teaching, researching, or publishing?
Then you might be interested in the project to shape a language of critique for
IA. In order for us to develop IA as a
discipline, we need a framework for evaluating the goodness of information
architecture, both as a whole, and in specific cases.
So what’s a language of critique for IA? And what’s wrong with whatever we’re using
now?
Introduction to the M3 model
We can talk about our work as taking place on three
levels.
- The bottom level is the level of applied work.
- The middle level concerns theories and models.
- The top level is the level of paradigms.
This is called the Meta-Modeling Methodology or M3. It was
developed by John Van Gigch, an organizational theorist, in 1991 as a way to
look at how scientific disciplines ideally operate back and forth across
different levels of inquiry. In the book
Reframing Information Architecture, Lacerda and Lima-Marques proposed
using the M3 model as a means to develop IA as a discipline.
Reframe IA history
The work of Lacerda, Lima-Marques, and many others is part
of an effort now underway to bridge information architecture research and
practice.
Think about psychology, literature, physics, economics. All
mature fields have a framework and a vocabulary for making sense of what they
do. IA emerged in the 90s as a practice,
along with the emergence of the web. But we still lack a foundational framework
that gets taught, that is continually developed and refined, and against which
our work is measured. We lack a shared understanding of what we do.
A seminal moment for IA occurred six years ago in Memphis,
when Jesse James Garrett delivered a scathing closing plenary at the IA Summit.
Jesse challenged the IA community to move beyond being a practice, and figure
out how to become a discipline. He called for us to develop a language of
critique.
Keith Instone, Andrea Resmini, and
other leaders in our field are engaging the community right now to shape the
future of IA. This effort has brought
academics and practitioners together in workshops and roundtables. It’s
developed the book Reframing Information Architecture, published last
year. And it’s now engaging the broader
UX community in an ongoing Reframe IA conversation.
A practical example
To get our heads around the M3 model, and see how it can
help our work and our practice, let’s look at a few examples.
I was approached by a client at work to answer the question:
does the Smokefree.gov website have a good information architecture? This is the
kind of thing we’re all asked to do on a regular basis – design a good IA, or
evaluate an IA for goodness to make a product better. This is work at the
applied level.
It so happens that Smokefree is a cross channel program. It
includes websites for various audiences, a text messaging program in different
languages, a handful of native apps, and it uses several social media
platforms. It’s a complex, maturing
program that’s designed to help people quit smoking.
I suggested a heuristic evaluation. Where would heuristic evaluation be on this
model? It’s a research-based tool. So it lives at the level of theories and
methods.
We tend to use Nielsen’s heuristics for user interface
design, or something adapted from that set. But as I observed to the client: you’re not
operating under the old web-interface-only world. Your program works through multiple channels.
You’re acting within a new paradigm. You’re aiming to deliver a connected
experience to your users. So we really should be evaluating how well the IAs
work across channels.
There was cautious enthusiasm for this at first. It can be uncomfortable
to think or to commit resources outside an old, well-known paradigm. But a cross channel evaluation really did fit
in with delivering a connected experience, and so they agreed.
Interestingly, when we went looking for heuristics that
would let us assess IA across channels, we couldn’t really find them. So we
began developing a set on our own. And a
member of my team, Dilini Abeywarna, presented “Cross Channel Heuristics” at
Mobile UX last month, contributing to the theories and methods layer.
A comparative example
Does this make your brain hurt? Let’s apply the model to a
different discipline to see if we can get some insights. Consider the field of comedy.
The SOLUTIONS LEVEL. Here we think
about the devices and conventions used to create comedy. They include techniques
– like sight gags, repetition, hyperbole, slapstick.
We can think about comedy at the THEORY
LEVEL. What makes something funny? Some
people favor:
·
The Superiority Theory. “Here Comes
Honey Boo Boo” is funny. Why? Because
ridicule, and feeling superior to others, is one of humor’s primary uses.
·
There’s the Benign Violation Theory. We laugh when some line is crossed, but the
outcome isn’t really threatening. According to this theory, tickling make us
laugh because it seems like an attack, but it’s actually harmless. Jerry
Seinfeld is funny because he points out the outragous in everyday life, which
is benign.
·
The Incongruity-Resolution Theory. A
man at the dinnertable dipped his hands in the mayonnaise and then ran them
through his hair. When his neighbor looked astonished, the man apologized: “I'm
so sorry. I thought it was spinach.”
And there’s the PARADIGM LEVEL. Here we
address questions that explore comedy as a field of study. These include:
·
Why do only humans seem to have humor?
·
Why does timing matter?
·
What are the necessary and sufficient
conditions for a thing to be funny?
Well, a cognitive scientist, a
philosopher, and a psychologist walk into a bar to discuss a grand unified
theory of humor. These examples I’ve
shared come from their book, Inside
Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind.
More about M3
Back to user experience.
We can talk about our work as taking place at different levels. The
problem is, we don’t do that. We
tend to collapse all questions of goodness into one packed layer, mostly the
bottom one.
A client is unhappy with your design. But why? Is it poorly
executed according to current best practices?
Does it fail to take into account an important dynamic – say the growing
importance of the 50-something market, or people’s expectations that things
will work smoothly across mobile and desktop?
Or conversely, is your design based on your firm grasp of these
shifts, which she’s not aware of? It’s
important to be able to talk clearly and constructively about these different
layers. So let’s parse this out a little
further.
The bottom level, the
level of applied work. Anything that involves designing or evaluating an
artifact, such as a website or a feature, is an example of this. You start with
a practical problem. You need… what? A
search results page. A series of input screens. A campaign minisite. You need whatever
the user story, or project plan, or your discovery process says you need. The
output of work at this level is a solution to a practical problem.
Now, how do you know how to do this work? How do you evaluate
whether you’ve done a good job? You have your practices. And your practices are informed by your
science, which comes from the next layer up.
Level 2, the level of
theories and models. It includes concepts
that help us understand the problem space. Some examples: Designing for
accessibility. Content strategy. Theories of behavior change. Embodied
cognition. Responsive design. At this
level we also see research that investigates whether specific practices work. The
HCI literature falls here, and publications from the Nielsen/Norman group. Is
your client hesitant about parallax scrolling? Or is she asking whether we need
to banish the hamburger menu? This is
where you say: Let me show you the science!
Theories and models inform how we carry out the
practice. Conversely, the practice tells
us what research is needed, and helps new concepts emerge. But there’s more. Theories and models change
– or need to change – based on what’s happening on the next layer up. When our
world shifts, and you’re using methods from the wrong paradigm, you’re going to
run into trouble.
Here’s an example of a challenge at the theories and models
level.
On the Smokefree project, the team wanted to know if specific information architectures can
be used to support people trying to change their behaviors. It seems to me the
answer would be yes; there’s an IA for that. Our work enables and persuades
people to do things. Like renew, contribute, buy, share. We design the IAs for apps and devices to
help you lose weight, get exercise, become better at saving money. There’s
going to be research on IA and behavior change, right?
We looked for empirical research on the effects of different
information architectures on health outcomes, behavioral outcomes, or website
engagement.
Out of an initial 688 candidate papers, only 1 both looked at IA and controlled solely
for IA. So only one paper could perhaps contribute some light on the question
of whether specific IAs support people trying to change their behaviors.
We know by experience and annecdotal evidence that some IAs
are better for informing and persuading people than others. But we can't prove
it, because there's a gap in our science. The language for asking the right
questions is missing. Researchers aren't looking to fill that gap. And they
don't know that they're not looking.
We are going to get traction on this research. It’s one of
my quests this year.
On to Level 3, the level of paradigms. This is philosophy. It’s how we CAN know what we know. Paradigms are like containers, articulating
the shape of what they hold. Understanding the paradigm gives great power to
your endeavors. It helps you see the possibilities, and lets you bring
meaningful things to life. Being
oblivious to the prevailing paradigm will lead to your work being ineffective
and irrelevant. Which is tragic.
We can think about paradigms by looking at what changed and
what’s now possible, and then giving a name to all that. For instance, Uber exists in a paradigm we
can call “the Sharing Culture.” That paradigm changes how we think – and how we
CAN think – about transportation, as well as commerce and other domains.
The 90’s saw the birth of an epoch-making paradigm called
the World Wide Web, where digital pages were connected with other digital pages.
This has shifted to a paradigm called
“the Internet of Things,” where the objects I use and the very life I lead are
intertwined. Things and information are
connected to one another and are tied to my goals, my behaviors, and my location
in space and time.
The increasing focus on customer experience in the
government sector is a result of the widening socialization of the Internet of
Things paradigm. It’s also a result of another, related paradigm shift.
I don’t know what it’s called, I haven’t heard a good name
for it yet. Digimodernism. Selfie Realization. Here, the individual is at
center stage.
In the old paradigm, culture is a spectacle before which we
sit. The author, the creator is primary,
while we, the audience, watch and listen.
In the new paradigm, the spectacle does not and cannot exist
unless the individual intervenes. There is no Facebook unless we all write
stupid stuff in it. Anyone who reads a
post can, and is expected to, become a co-author. The interesting stuff is in
the comment section.
Look at what we’re doing right now. You have a presenter
standing up on a slightly elevated stage, an audience seated in a neat pattern
below, spoken words, pictures on a glowing screen, and earlier some music. On
the one hand, it looks like theater in a classic sense. But everyone here can
co-create this act. The interesting stuff in this performance, I think, is in
the twitter stream of reactions.
We’re operating in a new paradigm of individual engagement
and co-authoring. This is why, if we critique Facebook for being banal, we’re
missing the point. If we judge it against a beautiful, controlled website from
the 90s, we’re not seeing the potential. Also, we’re not going to understand
where we can actually improve things.
To be effective, we have to understand the paradigm we’re
working in. We need good theories and methods to work with. And then we can do
that thing – make improvements or create something new.
Join the Reframe IA discussion
If you’d like to continue the
conversation on developing a language of critique, you’re invited to join the
Reframe IA LinkedIn group. Next steps for the group include publishing the
results of the roundtable this year and planning a workshop and other
activities for the 2016 IA Summit. Join at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Reframe-IA-494524.
References
Hurley, Matthew, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams Jr., InsideJokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind, MIT Press, 2011
IA Summit, 2013, Reframing IA Roundtable
IA Summit, 2014, Teaching IA Roundtable
IA Summit, 2015, Language of Critique Roundtable
Lacerda, Flavia and Mamede Lima-Marques, Information Architecture as a Discipline — A
Methodological Approach, in Reframing Information Architecture,
Springer International Publishing, 2014
Malone, Erin, “Defining a language of critique,”
2009
Resmini, Andrea, Reframing Information Architecture, ibid
van Gigch, John P., System Design Modeling and Metamodeling,
Plenom Press, 1991
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