There are many times I have to explain what I do to people outside our field because the term Information Architect is foreign to most (except IT folks). At some point in the conversation I resort to the Lego analogy to explain my job responsibilities but I realize that the analogy is a little short of the total picture.

An information architect has a lot in common with a building architect whether we realize it or not. Both fields are concerned with two views of an object. Let me elaborate.

A building architect has to consider both the interior and the exterior of a building. They have to look at the structure of the building in terms of height, materials, the codes the infrastructure has to support and the customer requirements for the size of the interior spaces. Then there are the exterior considerations. What will it look like? How does it fit into the current ecosystem? What's the landscaping going to look like? How will the building interface with the sewer, electircal, and road systems. Let's find an interior designer who can meet the esthetic  look and costs the customer requires.

An information architect involved in technical communications has similar concerns. What are the structures required to build the content product? What standards are needed to achieve the overarching strategy for a single piece and how does that piece fit into the whole content strategy? Once we've got the foundation together, what are the branding and design principles needed to meet the customer requirements for
look and feel and what infrastructure is needed to meet those goals? What tools or objects are needed to make the content product esthetically pleasing and meet the overall design goals?

All these questions need consideration and convince me that I, truly, am an architect.

How about you?

About the Author

Julio Vazquez

Julio Vazquez is a Senior Information Architect at SDI with over 30 years of experience in technical communications and information technology. As one of the members of the initial DITA task force, he takes his share of blame for the current architecture and language structure. Julio holds a bachelor’s degree in computers and information systems from Empire State College of the State University of New York and has spoken at technical communication and STC conferences about DITA and information architecture and is the author of Practical DITA.