Information architecture makes design accountable
Here's the deal: many companies still hire a Lead Designer to lead the design team (makes sense so far) that defines not only visual design but also more IA related aspects like interaction (navigation, flow, functionality) on their websites. These days, many include "familiarity with usability testing and information architecture" as a requirement, along with more tradional designer requirements like "fluent with Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop" or "an extensive visual design portfolio".
You can see which part doesn't make sense: having the lead visual designer with a focus on visual design and branding be responsible for the IA and interaction design of a website is wrong. These are different roles, that demand a different focus. Rare are the people who can (or want to) do both really well.
I was looking at one of these jobs recently, and and found myself thinking (again): they really should hire an IA instead. I thought: "Assimilate, don't complain!" and applied for the job.
But how could I pass the interview? They'd have to want to change their process. If a company has a process in place, as someone asking for a job you're in a pretty bad position to convince them to change that. So I wrote down a list of ideas, arguments and answers to potential questions to prepare for a possible interview.
The main idea in this conversation is to sell the category (IA), not the person (you). They won't hire you as an IA if they don't think IA is important. Once they do think so, guess who they will probably talk to first? You'll get a smaller slice (they might hire someone else still), but of a much bigger pie.
Businesses, especially these days, care about accountability, getting more out of existing investments, and the good old bottom line, so that's how I presented these arguments. It would be foolish to argue for example that IA makes for better visual designs, you'd be picking a fight on somebody else's turf.
Argument 1: IA deals with today's big, complex sites.
Today's websites aren't the small 500 page sites of yore anymore. Today's website are huge, complex and ever changing information delivery vehicles. The fact many websites are so hard to get around in illustrates this. Information architecture is a new role, created by these new demands. Where a traditional visual designer will tend to focus on branding and visual design issues, and information architect has the tools and methods to define websites that are easy to use, and can effectively deal with todays websites that contain huge amounts of constantly updated and changing information.
Argument 2: IA delivers user satisfaction.
IA's typically deal with large web presences, and take a systematic approach to organizing them. They have a strong research background, and base their decisions on a real understanding of users. They are familiar with using effective decision making methods like usability testing. In real life, this means development efforts are focussed on ease of use, on creating satisfied customers. User satisfaction is important for your company, and to deliver it you need a strong focus on this in your development process, it doesn't just happen.
Argument 3: IA increases efficiency through ease of use.
Good IA makes websites easier to use, and more effective. This means you can have a huge investment in a current website, with backend systems, having fought integration nightmares, branding battles, and still your website might not deliver the results you expected. IA can change that. It is very good at identifying and fixing problems that could be costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales.
Argument 4: IA is accountable.
The core job of an IA is to create a website that reconciles business goals with user goals. An IA will always start a project with goals, and measures of success. This brings a previously unobtainable level of accountability to your web projects. You will finally know exactly which parts of your web presence work well, which development efforts are cost effective, where future efforts should be focussed.
Argument 5: IA deals with changing business goals.
In a web environment, business goals and user goals are in constant flux. You need to design a website that reflects these changing goals. So you need to reflect these goals in your design in a systematic, accountable and focussed manner. That is exactly what IA's do.
Argument 6: IA works well with designers.
The information architect typically works very well together with junior and senior designers, since she doesn't focus on visual design, so there are no turf wars: the designers just have more base material to work with. (*). The IA position is not about having great visual design skills. The IA will provide a base that the designers can build upon, without that solid base they will always have a hard time turning business requirements into successful websites.
Argument 7: IA connects visual design with business goals.
You may have noticed difficulties relating your visual design decisions to business goals. IA is the intermediate step that allows for making that link. The information architect can take over some of the roles visual designers may find tedious (sitemaps, flowcharts), basing these on business goals, while freeing visual designers to focus on design and branding. (**)
Argument 8: IA saves money.
Information architecture solidifies the processes of gathering and defining requirements in detail before implementing them. You will know exactly why a certain amount of time is being spent on a certain feature, and it won't be just because it's cool. This preciseness saves money by avoiding time spent on building features nobody will use. You will have a solid methodology for deciding on what elements to best spend your money.
Argument 9: (the evergreen of arguments) Other People Do It.
Companies like Epinions have hired information architects as Creative Directors. They realize
the unique challenges of the medium. Other companies that work with information architects
include Epinions, 3Com, AT&T, Compaq, Ernst & Young, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, British Telecom, Fannie Mae, First USA, AOL, Square D, L.L. Bean and Hewlett-Packard, and The World Bank. (This short list was copied from here.)
Question: Won't the effort the change in process takes cancel out any potential benefits? Ie. we don't want our people to go trough the hell of adapting another process again: been there done that.
Answer: If your current process is flexible enough to deal with the constantly changing demands of the internet environment, IA will easily fit in there. Good IA makes for happier programmers, since they get better specs, happier designers, since they have more to work with, and happier project and business managers, since projects have more accountability built in and are more structured towards business goals.
I'm sure a lot more arguments could be made for hiring an IA and not just a Visual designer to lead a development team. I'd love to see your ideas.
Finally: in some cases, and especially in todays risk-avoiding business climate, trying to sell the term "information architecture" if they are not familiar with it already can be a lost battle from the start. You may be better of just being a Lead Designer but negotiating your job description and the process into something IA-like. Pick your battles, don't focus on the job description.
(*) Remember the above are arguments designed to convince someone to hire an IA instead of a Lead Designer.
(**) If this comes across as evil bashing of visual designers, I'm sorry. I love visual design. I'm talking in a limited way about visual design here, I realize that. I still think a visual design background can be for doing IA detrimental if that person takes on IA as this little extra thing they have to do, not as their core activity. Their decisions will keep being focussed on visual design, missing a lot of opportunities designing interaction. IA is important, a lot more important than visual design for 95% of websites out there in my (admittedly and understandably controversial) opinion, if you use this (limited) definition of visual design.