Sylleptic

Before the Internet, I used to do something called effective GUI design, which was all about designing Windows applications for the people that were going to use them. Since going online in 2000 I’ve been working with people who sometimes call themselves information architects, sometimes user experience consultants or usability consultants, one guy I interviewed even called himself a cognitive ergonomist!

Essentially the information architect role at Pod1 starts at the beginning of a project, understanding the user, their needs and propensities, what requirements there are for the website (and other channels like mobile) from a functional perspective. They help to create the brilliant ideas behind the website, and to describe all this in personas and user journeys: essentially descriptions of typical users and stories about how they interact with the website. There are all sorts of clever extensions to this involving research with users, testing ideas on them and so on, but this is the core. Later in the project they create the site map, the wireframes and a big part of the specification for a project. They help during the design process, and often help to test what we’ve built with real users.

I’ve gone to the trouble of writing this article because we’re growing our IA team, and we want to hire someone who wants to learn IA. Ideally they’ll have some relevant experience, or a qualification like an Information Science degree, but we’re interested in speaking to anyone who’s analytical, has lots of ideas about websites and their users and is looking to take their career in a new and exciting direction. If you’re interested, send your CV and a covering note to iwanttowork@pod1.com