The Death of Information Architecture?

Joshua Porter over at Bokardo has been writing some excellent posts lately. A common thread seems to be surfacing that the current method for designing sites is now not suiting the needs for a social web. Social interface design (which I covered previously) is becoming crucial.

Information Architecture now needs to adapt to also suit the changing environment.

Joshua’s recent post on Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture has some interesting thoughts coming from some of the big names in IA. These names realising the changes that are coming and the need to react to them (although not liking the change).

With the growth of things like folksonomies and search, the structured (preplanned) web is becoming less important. Things like the perpetual beta and understanding desire lines are changing the way that sites are developed. Developing a completely resolved site that is locked in, unchanging from day one does not work. Only through adapting, fine tuning and understanding the desires of the users of a site, that a site can be constantly relevant.

I think the “death” of IA is a little too strong. Like the sites that we are now building, it too has to understand and adapt to the changing environment.