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.

Social interface design is becoming very important in the current development of the web. We are really only now discovering that our old assumptions are not always correct. As the web matures we start seeing that we have to look at our users differently. Its not just an individual but a whole ecosystem around that individual that needs to be considered.

Bokardo has a great post with gives a very clear idea of the changing landscape…

Gone are the days of traditional usability testing. Almost all testing assumes that 1) people want to use your software and 2) people use your software alone. Each of these things is becoming less true every day. There’s so much software! A much bigger problem, at this point in time, is how to get people and the social groups of which they are a part interested and keep them interested in your software.

You’re not convincing just one person, you’re convincing one person and all their friends.