Learning, developing, exploring, and navigating knowledge paths

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Information architecture is concerned with what individuals want from a thing and to design the best way for the thing to give it to them.  In other words, information architecture is the practice of making information understandable and presents it so it conveys the meaning it is supposed to.

In information architecture, tasks arrive from questions, not answers.

In addition, there are five ways to organize information:

Location	Position, place or area having definite limits (atlases and travel guides)
Alphabet	Language letters in conventional order (words dictionary)
Time	Sequence of events or things following one another (history and stories)
Category	A knowledge division or class (subjects encyclopedia)
Hierarchy	Subject rank (best to worst, biggest to smallest, fastest to slowest, least expensive to most, etc.)

Design is choosing the right way to present information and how to help individuals navigate through it.  In other words, a good design makes something good instead of just look good.

Challenge is discovering the connection that leads from information to memory.  The connection is learning, and learning is remembering what one is interested in.

Well designed temporal life	Poorly designed temporal life
Each day is interesting	Interests are replaced by accumulating funds and power.
Temporal life is a collection of hobbies, a collection of interests.	Temporal life is a matter of things done during the day and things done during the evening or weekend.
Everything one does is driven by and connected to real interests, which affect how one look at products they make.
One benefits from being able to have clearer conversations with clients and staff.
One is creative because they have problems they want to address, and they can converse through the inquiry or solution process.

For more information, consider Michael Hopkins Inc. Magazine article “Get Dumb and Grow Rich—Most people sell their expertise, Richard Saul Wurman sells his ignorance” and his interview Wurman Out Loud.[1]  Inc. Magazine compiled these presentations as an ‘Innovate!’ piece to communicate that answers do not matter, it is the questions that one asks.

Objective Thinker

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