The Architecture of Understanding

Peter Morville, NUX3

Nature

Isle Royale National Park

Planning

Inspiration

Planning

Playing Practicing

“With respect to learning by failure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets a larval cyst in the brain.”

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

“There is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one direction, but in many directions simultaneously.”

Food Scarcity(overpopluation)

T T

Inflow(birth rate)

Outflow(death rate)

Stock(population)

T T

Disease(canine parvovirus)

Immigration(via ice bridge)

Parasites(moose tick)

Weather(mild winter)

Inflow(birth rate)

Outflow(death rate)

Stock(population)

The design and management of information systems.

Understanding the nature of information in systems.

Categories

Categories are the cornerstones of cognition and culture.

We use radio buttons when checkboxes or sliders would reveal the truth.

Connections

Hyperlinks Pages

I n f o r m a t i o n A r c h i t e c t u r e

Web

Paths Places

Space

I n f o r m a t i o n A r c h i t e c t u r e

29   Adapted from Cross-Platform Service User Experience

portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1851637

SERVICE

Multi-Channel Cross-Channel

+ +

SERVICE

Connections Categories

Mind

I n f o r m a t i o n A r c h i t e c t u r e

Consequences Actions

Time

I n f o r m a t i o n A r c h i t e c t u r e

32

“The system always kicks back.”

“How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”

Culture

Underlying Assumptions

Espoused Values

ArtifactsVisible organizational structures and processes (hard to decipher)

Strategies, goals, philosophies, justifications

Unconscious, taken for granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, feelings (source of values, action)

Three Levels of Culture

National values are fixed. Organizational practices are not.

Double-loop learning in organizations (and individuals) is rare.

The relationship between information and culture.

“There’s a secret about MRIs and

back pain: the most common

problems physicians see on MRI and attribute to back pain – herniated, ruptured, and bulging discs – are seen almost as commonly on MRIs of healthy people without back pain.”

“If you want to accelerate someone’s death, give him a

personal doctor. I don’t mean provide him with a bad doctor.

Just pay for him to choose his own. Any doctor will do.”

Limits

“It is now my suggestion that many

people may not want information, and that they will avoid using a system precisely because it gives them information…If you have information,

you must first read it. You must then try to understand it. Understanding the information may show that your work was wrong, or may show that your work was needless. Thus not having and not using information can lead to less trouble and pain than having and using it.”

Calvin Mooers (1959)

The limits of information

“We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.” – Winston Churchill

“Tell me about a day in your life.”

“Willpower is the single most

important keystone habit for

individual success.”

“A culture of generosity.” Josie Parker, Ann Arbor District Library

Daylighting

Daylighting

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

John Muir

Thank You! IA Therefore I Am