Here’s the rub (for me at least) … I see the tribe as having specialized clans. Information architecture, interaction design, and information design each have a unique focus at their core.

They all blend and mix at the edges. Practitioners are capable of belonging to multiple clans at the same time. But each discipline has a core that is distinct.

I need to blog about this to give it the right depth of detail that is in my head but the essential distinction I see is this:

IA = the mental model, understanding, cognition, structure, shape, context

IxD = the operational model, doing, execution, function, form, use

ID = the visual vocabulary, perception, orientation, recognition, space

Of course each one of these require the others to be present for the systems we architect to become a functioning reality. These are not silos but they are centers of expertise.

Those practitioners that go deep into any one of them gravitate to the core and tend see the world through that filter. Those that remain generalists (even the best amongst us) tend not to dive to deep but can when they need to.

User experience is like the humanities or liberal arts insofar as we mix, match, blend, and riff on each other yet we keep a core identity.

Don’t tell and anthropologist that she is a sociologist just because she uses a quantitative research method. And just because an historian may use ethnographic interview techniques for a living history project does not mean that he is an anthropologist.

The UX crowd has the same dynamic.

I do so have to blog this.