Information Architecture Institute

Last updated
Information Architecture Institute
Formation2002 (2002)
Dissolved2019 (2019)
Legal statusDissolved
PurposeThe IAI was a global organization that supported individuals and organizations specializing in the design and construction of shared information environments.
Formerly called
Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture

The Information Architecture Institute (IA Institute or IAI) was a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to advancing and promoting information architecture. The organization was incorporated in November 2002 [1] and was a 501(c)(6) organization. It grew to become one of the world's largest professional groups for web specialists, with over 1200 members in 60 countries, [2] It was dissolved in September 2019 and is no longer a professional board of trade. [3]

Contents

The institute broadly defined "information architecture [4] " as:

Founding

The Information Architecture Institute was founded in 2002 by Peter Morville, Lou Rosenfeld, Erin Malone, Lisa Chan, Christina Wodtke, Andrew Hinton, Michael Angeles, Jesse James Garrett, Karl Fast, Thomas Vander Wal, Jess McMullin and Todd Wilkens. They originally named it the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture, after the Asilomar Conference Grounds, where the founders first came up with the idea. [5] The founding board, elected in 2002, consisted of Christina Wodtke, President, Lou Rosenfeld, Treasurer, Victor Lombardi, Secretary, Peter Morville and John Zapolski. [6]

The IA Institute was created to replace a similar group called the Argus Center for Information Architecture (ACIA), which was closely associated with Argus Associates, a commercial information architecture consultancy.

During the first week of the creation of the Institute, 163 charter members joined. This number became 400 by August 2003. These members came from 26 countries. These first members were of crucial importance to make progress to the IAI's first projects:

The Institute at its foundation, with its mission of advance in the field of shared information environments, defined goals for the first year:

The Institute was founded with seed money from its founding members. Later sources of revenue included membership dues and seminars.

Publications

The Journal of Information Architecture is an independent initiative of REG-iA, the Research & Education Group in IA. It published papers from 2009 through 2013 and was sponsored by the Information Architecture Institute and by Copenhagen Business School.

Conferences

The IA Institute had its own IDEA Conference until 2010. In 2018, the IA Institute Board voted to be an executive sponsor for The IA Conference 2019.

Controversy & Dissolution

On January 21, 2019, an attendee of the 2018 IA Summit in Chicago published an open letter to the information architecture community, alleging that her formal complaint against another attendee had been mishandled by the IA Institute. [7]

On January 25, 2019, a Change.org petition called for the recall election of the Institute President at the time.

On March 20, 2019, former IA Institute President Eric Reiss filed a petition for discovery against the Institute. The case was dismissed two months later. [8] However, that July, the board received a summons to appear in court, and the institute did not have the funds needed to hire representation. [9]

In September 2019, the IA Institute announced its dissolution. [10] According to the announcement, litigation was "not the absolute cause" of the decision. Remaining funds were transferred to World IA Day, Inc., which was formed less than a month after the IAI dissolution. [11] The IA Institute was officially dissolved by the State Attorney's Office in Michigan on November 21, 2019. [12]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Morville</span>

Peter Morville is president of Semantic Studios, an information architecture and findability consulting firm. He may be best known as an influential figure and "founding father" of information architecture, having coauthored the best-selling book in the discipline, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. For over a decade, he has advised such clients as AT&T, Dow Chemical, Ford, the IMF, the Library of Congress, and Microsoft. Morville was a co-founder and past president of the Information Architecture Institute, and has served on their advisory board. He delivers keynotes and seminars at international events, and his work has been featured in major publications, including Business Week, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal.

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The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted functionality, these Web applications exhibit complex behaviour and place some unique demands on their usability, performance, security, and ability to grow and evolve. However, a vast majority of these applications continue to be developed in an ad hoc way, contributing to problems of usability, maintainability, quality and reliability. While Web development can benefit from established practices from other related disciplines, it has certain distinguishing characteristics that demand special considerations. In recent years, there have been developments towards addressing these considerations.

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References

  1. "Annual Report, 2002-2003 | IA Institute".
  2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-01-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. "About the Information Architecture Institute | IA Institute".
  4. Resmini, Andrea and Luca Rosati (2011). Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann. p. 32.
  5. "Asilomar18.JPG". 18 March 2007.
  6. "Annual Report, 2002-2003 | IA Institute".
  7. "An open letter to the IA community".
  8. "Case Information Summary for Case Number 2019-L-003011".
  9. "Letter to Members - The future of the IAI".
  10. "Decision -The future of the IAI".
  11. "The start of a whole new World IA Day".
  12. "Keeping our promises".