It's hard enough getting someone to grasp the amount and extent of work involved in creating 'what you see' when you're online: the underlying structure, navigation, organization, buttons and bling, etc. My relatives and neighbors can understand the basic idea of making websites – sort of. Thank goodness few of them ever ask a follow-up question...

We've recently begun a home renovation project. After living in the house for two years and coming to a rough idea of what we want to DO with our space, we've hired an architect. His job is to take our grandiose ideas and binder of torn magazine pages, couple them with the existing structure and produce a workable blueprint for crafting the building into something meeting both our dreams and our needs, within physical (and budgetary) limits.

At our first meeting, we asked about the architect's process for tackling a project. It looks something like this: meet with clients, gather ideas, develop a rough approach, meet with clients again and work to refine blueprints, deliver final drawings for the builder to use. Wow. I got it. I understand that process because it's what I use to 'build' online.

I sit down with clients, gather their ideas for a website -- shift through the must-have features and the love-to-do ideas. I dig into the technology to figure out the foundations; develop a sitemap to define the key areas and uses of space and where to put the 'furniture' (content and assets); refine the approach with the client and then deliver a final blueprint for the developers to build or remodel a website.

Of course, problems arise in both realms, and for similar reasons. Our architect went on vacation overseas and neglected to include some of the 'must-haves' when briefing his assistant and the master bath approaches reflected none of our requirements; my client last week neglected to include some of their 'must-haves' during a brainstorming session, and now the sitemap needs tweaking in order to accommodate them.

Finally, I'm beginning to warm up to the title of Information Architect. I'm comfortable defining myself as a virtual architect of online spaces—making the web a better place, one website at a time. I just don't think I'm ready to explain it over a beer just yet, but ask me next summer...

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posted by Holly @ 2:44 PM