Assignment: Architect and design the website for a new organization for Information Architects. Launched August 2002.

Approach: In the spring of 2002, several IAs gathered in Asilomar to formulate a new organization to serve the needs of the growing Information Architecture profession.

The Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and promoting information architecture. We're working on creating resources for information architects, information about promoting IA and the benefits of IA, and we're creating a framework that can support research and advancement of the discipline.

The web team was created to define, design and build the website to serve the Institute. I acted as lead IA and designer for the site. This was a challenge to architect, in that much of our content wouldn't be coming for several months, after we went public and volunteers were assembled on the various initiatives. In addition, the name of the institute was extremely long and unwieldy.

The architecture was crafted out of several conversations with Lou Rosenfeld, the board and the other web team members. From the core master site architecture (PDF, 20k) we whittled down the site to reflect what we would have ready at launch. Several sections were left out until we complete many of the initiatives—like the Member Directory or Resources area.

The site consists of several top level sections of navigation along the top with secondary and tertiary contextual navigation in a left-hand panel. Primary content is in the center of the page and a related quote from various IA/UX or inspiring people is in the right column of each page. Detailed Wireframes of all pages (PDF, 2.6mb)

Another challenge to the site was creating an IA for a group of IAs and reaching consensus around the design. I designed several logos in various form factors (horizontal and vertical) and presented several comps with different color palettes. The board decided from the selections and we moved into full design mode. With no money and little content, there was not much to work with from a design standpoint. My hope is, that over time, the site can be refined with images of the organization as it matures and there are events and other gatherings.

Outcome: The site is functional and the flexibility of the architecture is currently being tested as more people have become engaged and initiatives are coming and going and being completed. Some people in the community liked it and others criticized it heavily for its utlitarian flavor and color palette. I expect it will go through a redesign within the year as we have more content to work with.