Beyond the Page (the return)

I re-did my Beyond the Page presentation at the IA Summit. It got substantially tightened up, and the response seemed pretty positive. Here it is, in all its photolicious glory:

• Beyond the Page (PDF, 13MB)

In hindsight, I would've talked more about the importance of having good notation systems. I think our tools express the state of our knowledge, and right now our tools seem to be lagging behind (which isn't to say that our existing tools aren't good, just that they're no longer sufficient).

For me, these are the principle values of a good notation system:

• enable rapid, low-cost iteration
• model a solution with clarity
• communicate with other practitioners
• communicate with other disciplines
• open, sharable, extensible, plug and play

Many of our existing notation systems--the flow diagrams, site maps, wireframes--are based around the page metaphor (with the all-or-nothing click as the primary input mode). We need a vocabulary for describing RIAs, content consumption outside the browser and design across devices as part of an overall information architecture plan. Many of our baseline measurement tools are also page based--how do we evolve those to better capture people's complex interactions with information?

(Underlying all this is my view of the information architect as a conductor--the person who orchestrates a suite of information products to create harmonious experiences.)

Dennis Schleicher's wireframing method for RIAs, which you'll eventually find over at RIAIA.com, is a nice step forward. I'm sure there are others out there. If you have examples, email me--I'd like to start keeping track of them.