One of the most common questions I’ve gotten over years of teaching information architecture is, “how are IA and content strategy different?” Over time, I’ve found a way of explaining it that hopefully clarifies things.
I trace it back to one of my favorite artists, Brian Eno. In his essay On Being An Artist, Eno asks creative people to consider whether they work ‘inside’ or ‘outside’1:
To work inside is to deal with the internal conditions of the work — the melodies, the rhythms, the textures, the lyrics, the images: all the normal day-to-day things one imagines an artist does.
To work outside is to deal with the world surrounding the work — the thoughts, assumptions, expectations, legends, histories, economic structures, critical responses, legal issues and so on and on. You might think of these things as the frame of the work.
I read ‘frame’ to mean the work’s context.
Most people pay more attention to the work than the frame. But this is a mistake. The two influence each other, and the frame dramatically changes our perception of the work.
To illustrate, imagine you’re looking at a painting in the Louvre. You may find it beautiful, ugly, baffling, inspiring, or a myriad other adjectives. Those are (subjective) attributes of the work.
But the fact it’s hanging in the Louvre gives it other, less obvious, attributes. For example, you may also subconsciously consider it valuable or culturally important. These characteristics aren’t inherent in the work; they’re projected onto it by its frame.
Now consider what would happen if you saw the same painting in a toilet in a seedy bar. (I know, it’s unlikely. Bear with me.) The work may be the same, but its new frame changes how you perceive it. You might still find it beautiful or ugly or what have you, but now, it’s lost its cachet. (And as a result, you also likely find it less beautiful.)
The painting is also harder to find there. You don’t expect paintings to be hung in bar toilets. If you’re looking for paintings, museums are a safer bet. Museums are also organized in ways conducive to experiencing paintings. Which is to say, as a frame, museums comport to our mental models for experiencing this kind of work.
All experiences happen in a context. There is no work without frame. As the old saying says, “if content is king, then context is the kingdom.” And yet, we focus more on content — for understandable reasons.
People go to museums for the paintings. They’re the main attraction. (Yes, some people go to the Louvre for the buildings, but many more go for the Mona Lisa.) You might assume the building merely contains and protects the work, but it also changes how you understand the work.
Similarly, for users of a website, content is the main attraction. That’s why they come: to learn about payment plans or cancer treatments or the latest iPhone or whatever. No content, no experience.
Thus, it’s right that organizations value content creation, content management, editorial planning, governance, etc. — the hallmarks of content strategy.
But users experience that content somewhere. The work needs a frame, a boundary that defines what kind of space it is. Is it a bank? A university? An art museum? Each imparts its own meaning on the work. Remember, all experiences happen in a context. And despite ‘work’ demanding more attention, frames are something we can — and must — design.
A building such as the Louvre is made of stone, glass, concrete, steel, marble, etc. Designing such ‘frames’ is what architects do.2 Sometimes architects also paint. When they do, they’re not architecting; they’re painting.
Still Life (1920) by Le Corbusier via Wikiart.org
In websites and apps, the frame is made of semantic distinctions: taxonomies and ontologies people experience as they scan navigation menus, labels, icons, screen layouts, etc. This is the work of information architects. Sometimes IAs also define content. When we do, we’re not architecting.
Content strategy focuses on the work. Information architecture focuses on the frame. Yes, there’s some overlap between them. (E.g., SEO.) But they are distinct and complementary disciplines. Inside/outside.
You can think of IA as ‘context strategy’: a counterpart to content strategy that focuses on how content is found, understood, and used — i.e., how it’s experienced. It does this by defining a domain and means for people to “find their personal paths to knowledge” — by design.
Eno said, “A frame is a way of creating a little world round something.” That’s a good way of describing IA’s outcome: a little world round something. Defining that ‘something’ isn’t up to IAs, nor would we want it to be. Others are better suited. But while designing frames might not be glamorous, it is essential. Again, Eno: “Is there anything in a work that is not frame, actually?”