Information architecture practice: An interview with Steven Ritchey Sapient

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, Aug/Sep 2000

AISB: Can you describe in some detail what you (or your firm) do for your employer or your clients? If you have a specialization, how would you characterize it?

SR: At Sapient we help clients define their Internet strategies, and we design, architect, develop and implement solutions that execute those strategies. As an information architect, I define and document a website's structure, navigation and interactivity by translating client business rules and user needs into functional requirements. My blueprints contribute to the overall strategic direction, vision and scope of a project. I also work closely with experience modelers to analyze and model user tasks and usage scenarios.

AISB: Could you discuss your methodology? What tools, techniques and software do you use?

SR: I use a wide variety of techniques and tools to do my work, depending on the kinds of information I'm trying to gather and structure. Other factors come into play, too - the size and proximity of my team, our client's needs and our project's timeframe and budget.

To learn about users' needs, behaviors and mental models, I've conducted interviews, observations, card sorting sessions and participatory design sessions. To record findings, I've used tools as simple as pen and paper and as fancy as usability labs equipped with digital video and 2-way mirrors.

To communicate visually, I've relied heavily on Visio in the past. I find it to be fast and relatively easy to use but not particularly helpful when I need to create subtle visual distinctions. Since I came to Sapient, I've been inspired by the effective (and beautiful) blueprints some of my colleagues are creating with Illustrator, so I've started learning to use it.

I've noticed, however, that most amazing breakthrough moments happen when we're using "messy" techniques and tools - brainstorming sessions with lots of rough sketching and diagramming on white boards and arranging post-it notes on any flat surface available. I'm starting to believe that a company or team's appreciation of information architecture is most clearly demonstrated in their investment in whiteboards and post-it notes!

A lot of my communication is verbal rather than visual, so I use Word and PowerPoint, depending on the audience and purpose. For large matrices and lists, I use Excel.

ASISB: What professional and academic experience did you bring to your current position, and what are the most crucial things you have had to learn on the job?

SR: Like many other information architects I've met, my background is in liberal arts. I earned a BA and an MA in English, but after a year of coursework for a Ph.D. in American lit, I finally decided an academic life wasn't the future I wanted. I got into technical writing and found myself writing online help and text for websites. I quickly grew frustrated. The "band-aid" online help I wrote couldn't fix the horrible user interfaces it "supported," and the text I wrote was difficult to find because navigation and page structures weren't designed to support users' tasks.

About this time, I met and starting working with thom Haller, a leading evangelist of information architecture in the Washington, DC, area. Thom helped me think beyond Words and page layout to examine the larger issues of how people approach and use information, how audience and purpose affect information structures. As I helped Thom build Info.Design, an information architecture consultancy, we read, taught and thought a lot about information architecture.

In the meantime, I got a job at the World Bank as a communications specialist, but really shaped my role into that of an information architect. I got into knowledge management and intranet work and met a lot of great librarians, who led me to think more carefully about how people browse and search for information and how categorization shapes users experiences of information.

From the World Bank, I moved from the org world into the .com world when I worked at marchFIRST (formerly USWeb/CKS) and now Sapient. As an information architect in companies like these, I've had to learn a lot. I've become much more aware of clients' business needs and found that many clients don't have their Internet strategy (or even business strategy) thought out clearly before they decide they need to revamp their site or build a new site. Sometimes, holes in their strategies don't become apparent until I begin my detailed work of structuring a site, so I have frequently found myself playing the role of the business consultant, basically asking a lot of questions to get them to clarify their goals. Since I've been at Sapient, I've been working with brilliant digital business strategists who help me position my work within business frameworks.

I've also had to learn to think visually. With a background in music and literature, I could conceptualize information over time, but not over visual space. In the past year, I've been spending a lot of time with visual designers, reading and looking through design books and just paying more attention to visual design and choices around me.