The design behind the design behind the design

2
Contents
1. The design behind the design
2. Behind the blueprint
3. Concept diagrams
4. The information architectures of the Habitus
5. Sense-making and meaning-making
6. Synthetic cognition: drawing as thinking
7. Wrap up

3
Acknowledgements
This essay was first presented at the IA Summit in San Diego,
Califonia in 2014. The organisers need to be thanked for allowing
me on stage.
Some content and images have been altered or removed since
then and there is some new content that has been added.
Much of the thinking in this essay has been informed by my work
with Terence Fenn and our many conversations. References to
our papers are contained herein and for further information regard-
ing our collaboration go to www.fennhobbs.com

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The design behind
the design

5
I first heard the expression ‘the design behind the design’ via the
Boxes and Arrows website. It was referring to the work of informa-
tion architects (IA’s) in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Specifically it was referring to the thinking and deliverables that
literally came pre- graphic design and coding and thus it was the
design hidden to users. It was behind the graphic design, the con-
tent, the functionality...that users directly perceived when interact-
ing (at that time) with websites.

6
Amongst other things, the kinds of design deliverables that were
being produced by IA’s were site maps (articulating the structure
and relationships of content and functionality in websites), task
flows (processes) and wireframes (page level navigation and infor-
mation design). True to the term architecture (in a classical sense)
these deliverables were referred to as schematics or blueprints for
how to build things like websites.
The kinds of arguments for why this kind of design was necessary
included:
• Improved usability
• Time saved once in build
• Facilitating consensus between stakeholders
• Assisting in building customer centricity
• Assisting in build-phase scoping and costing
• Providing something to test at a lo-fidelity
• Etc.

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Behind the
blueprint

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There existed in those earlier days a view that IA (even within the
IA community) was less a design-oriented activity and something
more akin to engineering:
How do we organise content for the purposes of storage and re-
trieval, on and from servers, mediated by controls that existed in
interfaces that existed in browsers?
This view had a strong library orientation and much of the early
work on the topic of IA emerged from the fields of Library Science
and Knowledge Management.
In this orientation IA has meaning because it serves a utility func-
tion.
It’s worth noting that at that time not all IA’s were operating in this paradigm.
Creative agencies that employed IA’s had a far stronger marketing-orientation
towards why and how IA should be practiced and organisations of various kinds
that were practicing user-centered design were frequently engaging with infor-
mation architecture concerns through a interaction design-oriented lense.
And yet, when doing IA, especially when building something from
scratch, I always had a strong intuition that we were doing more
than just designing systems for storage and retrieval.
There was a sense that in linking pages, items of information, cat-
egorising, grouping and creating connections I was creating new
worlds.
It felt a lot more like role-playing, like designing the worlds in which
players would travel to kill dragons and steal treasure than engi-
neering storage and retrieval systems.
It felt fun. And there was an openness, a freedom (because of how
easy it is to connect stuff online) to make these connections in
any way we liked, without too much concern for what pre-existing
knowledge structures may exist, as long as it worked for the player
to navigate the dungeon, find and kill the dragon and make off with
the loot.

9
An experiment: how do you create a banana-frog? First, you take
the set of all bananas and the set of all frogs,
And where they overlap, you’ll find the banana-frog.
BANANAS FROGS
BANANA FROG

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It’s a similar, corollary intuition, that when we suspend disbelief in
perceiving theatre, film, reading or art that within that fictional real-
ity there is still something relevant, meaningful and ‘real’. How do
we understand these fictions? For example:
“Why do elephants drink? To forget.”
So, suspend your desire for utility for just a moment. To imagine
that IA is something more than what we currently think of it as,
means going somewhere new.

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An information architecture does not require serving a utility func-
tion in order to have meaning.
The above experiment starts with a basic HTML page with the
word ‘Winter’ in the centre hyperlinking to a page that says ‘Spring’
which is hyperlinked to a page which says “Summer” and so on
until you return back to ‘Winter’.
It’s a loop, just like the seasons. And its meaning lies in the circular
structure of the architecture providing the metaphor.

12
Anthropological space
What the seasons experiment hints at is the idea of constructing
meaning by building it in a different kind of space to the one we are
used to perceiving around us in every-day life.
Otto Bollnow theorised the concept of Anthropological space [2]
which explored three new characteristics of space. He argued that
it is heterogeneous (personal, subjective, relativistic); hodological
(physical, social and psychological); and that it has evolved (that
our ideas about space have changed over time).
Design, in all forms, seems to me to take place half-in and half-out
of this Anthropological space.

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“It’s Pitch Black. You Are Likely to be Eaten by a Grue” Andrea Resmini [3]

14
Andrea Resmini “Johannesburg Art Gallery, Cross-channel Heuristic Search Phase” 2012

15
Making the implicit, explicit: an exercise in visualising the possible
information architecture of an exhibition.
Michael Dean’s ‘Introduction of Muscle’ [4]

16

17

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19

20

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23

24

25
Naoko Fukasawa
“My product is already in your mind,
you just haven’t seen it yet” [5]

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Alessi, by Naoto Fukasawa, Shiba Saucepan with Lid 18cm Wood

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Concept diagrams:
exposing the design
in anthropological
space

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[6]

29
[7]

30
[8]

31
[9]

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[10]

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[11]

34
[12]

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[13]

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[14]

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Concept diagrams reveal the otherwise hidden design in, of and
for anthropological space.
Returning to the example of the ‘Seasons’ in HTML, on the Web,
the design of anthropological space is explicit. The hidden informa-
tion that usually composes anthropological space becomes fore-
grounded. And it is for this reason that I believe IA has emerged as
a field of practice now.
Whether the designer self identifies with the term IA or is even
aware that when they structure both data and information on the
Web they are doing IA, is irrelevant. The process of making deci-
sions about structuring information is the direct design of anthro-
pological space.
It’s not just the web though… other things have emerged in our
time that echo this idea.

38
At the start of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, just be-
fore the boys hear the trash can being knocked
over and the dog barking they are playing Dun-
geons and Dragons at the table. This was in
1982.
Although role playing games have existed in
one form or another for millennia I find that their
emergence now, in their highly structured format
(for example the intricate rule books that accom-
pany them), at the same time as the emergence
of the Web very interesting.
Both are examples of designing and literally
playing in information space.
For those not aware of role-playing games such as Dun-
geon & Dragons the way it works is simple: players as-
sume characters (much like personae in our design field)
that proceed through fictional worlds based on scripted
narratives. Interestingly it is collaborative (multiple play-
ers play together in the same narrative) and the narrative
is co-created by the unpredictable decisions that players
make alone or together in these worlds.

39
Computer games are a further example of what has been discussed. Building and play-
ing in information space. We make sense of these spaces through a variety of formal
techniques (covered extensively in HCI literature) but also because intuitively game
makers apply cultural references that make sense to certain target audiences. For ex-
ample, elves, dragons and wizards make sense to Western audiences for whom certain
games are targeted. Where possibly unknown entities are introduced rule books and
descriptions are provided to allow sufficient understanding to interact with them and play
around.
‘NoClip’ is an old cheat in computer games. I first discovered it playing
Doom (if I recall correctly). ‘NoClip’ is a command that when activated
gives the first-person player the ability to move through walls and such
and be untouchable to monsters. It was originally created to allow the
programmers designing the spaces the ability to move through them to
check if everything had been correctly built without hitches and bugs.
When I first used the command I set a path in a straight line wanting
to head as far out as possible. Like Jim Carrey in the Truman Show I
wanted to head out in a boat to the walls that marked the boundary of
this information space. When I arrived at the limit I turned around to
look down on the landscape, a privileged view from a vantage meant
only to be perceived through windows out into the sky.

40
And to me, this all makes sense. In an information age, information
becomes foregrounded. And this information, especially in a utility
context, requires architecting.

41
Pierre Bourdieu
The Habitus
“…[the] lifestyle, the values, the dispositions and expectation of
particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and
experiences of everyday life…the habitus could be understood as
a structure of the mind characterized by a set of acquired schema-
ta, sensibilities, dispositions and taste. The particular contents of
the habitus are a complex result of embodying social structures—
such as the gender, race, and class discrimination […] - that are
then reproduced through tastes, preferences, and actions for fu-
ture embodiment…” [15]
The Habitas, as a concept, speaks to the background of the social
context of design. It explains that we make sense of the world,
interpret information and project onto the world meanings that are
embedded socially. Further, design exists in relation to the Habi-
tus.

42

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With knowledge
of geography, I
interpret the land-
scape as consisting
of items such as
mesa’s and tor’s,
features that come
with a set of theory
and explanation as
to their formation.
The meaning of the
landscape is trans-
formed when viewed
through the lense of
geography.

44
Equally, the pres-
ence of this cross
on the outskirts
of Trompsburg in
South Africa tells
me much about the
disposition of the
local inhabitants and
goes further to sug-
gest a relationship
between nature and
the faith held by the
inhabitants.

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The information architectures
of the Habitus

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The argument here is that all art and design, whether implicitly or explicitly, is a discourse in the information
architectures of the Habitus which is highlighted in critical theory.
Manet’s Olympia (1863), on the left, is an ex-
plicit example of this where Olympia (with var-
ious items positioned to suggest that she is a
prostitute) makes eye contact with the viewer
and thus acknowledges the viewing of her na-
ked body. Her pose, referred to as the odal-
isque position in the history of art, has a long
tradition in the presentation of naked women in
art however acknowledging the (male) eye in
this context and deviating from the presenta-
tion of the nude as mythological figure (Venus
for instance) was highly controversial.
Above, Sleeping Venus or the Dresden
Venus (c. 1510) by Giorgione

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Cubist still life works gathered objects
from everyday life (newspaper clippings,
bottles, musical instruments, African
masks) and their works may be thought of
as discussing the Habitus of their time by
using found objects that break from those
traditionally used to convey the nature
and stature of commissioning patrons
(items reflecting wealth or learnedness for
instance). These contemporary objects
became the content for a contemporary
discussion of the nature of representa-
tional art and the shifts and departures
the cubists were making through formal
means.
Roy Lichtenstein’s 1979 Cubist Still Life
with Playing Cards, on the left, then fur-
ther presents a folding over of time and
reference...art about art (history) and the
associated consumerist and market ori-
ented forces associated with valuing art.
Above, Pablo Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning
(1912)

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Lastly, Damien Hirst’s 2007 sculpture For the
Love of God, on the left, appears to reference the
memento mori, images of skulls or similar, in the
tradition of still life painting in the history of art.
At the same time it suggests a discussion of the
value of art in the contemporary art market (the
skull is encrusted with 8601 diamonds and is a
platinum cast from an 18th century skull).
Above, Philippe de Champaigne’s Vanitas (c.
1671)

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The history of art, as a set of discourses, is an information ar-
chitecture, a background and Habitus referenced, addressed and
discussed in art.

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“It is interesting to note that in a city such as Johannesburg signs
of order and regulation - stop signs, no-parking zones, yellow
lines, red lines, and broad yellow grids painted onto the roads
and pavements - appear to function purely as decoration.”
Image top right presents a manipulated photograph where street
signage has been intentionally removed.
Quote and photographic art works by Stephen Hobbs

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Architecture about architecture. Photos taken by the author at the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the
Royal Academy of Arts in London 2014. At left, Eduardo Souto de Moura, right, Diebedo Francis Kere.

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Architecture about architecture. Photos taken by the author at the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the
Royal Academy of Arts in London 2014. Above left and top right, Grafton Architects, bottom right Edu-
ardo Souto de Moura quote.

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This image was produced as part of the information architecture solutioning for the Johannesburg Art Gallery
by J Hobbs and T Fenn [16]. The solution was oriented around three intersecting dimensions: meaning (what
art and the gallery means in a South African, and more specifically Johannesburg, context); organisation (the
internal dynamics of the gallery itself); and place (Region F in the inner city of Johannesburg). The decision
to foreground the solution (the interlocking circles) above a photograph of the outside of the front entrance to
the gallery suggests the solution layered over the Habitus as background.

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Collage has a special ability to bring together fragments from disparate places to form a new whole. Fragments
capable of representing different moments from across the Habitus to start a new conversation. The above work
by urbanist and architect Thiresh Govender (date) collects various views of a walk through the inner city of Jo-
hannesburg into one single image.

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It is not just in art that we find these information architectures of the Habitus. Science, religion,
history… all these are the hidden information architectures of the Habitus.
Information architectures in the Habitus:
• Emerge as self-organising systems
• Orient around areas of knowledge (or topics)
• Provide nodes for exchange and the interpretation of information
• Develop identity over time and facilitate shared practice and collective learning
• Develop bodies of knowledge and associated storage for this knowledge over time
• Apply social means of validating new knowledge for inclusion
• Contain values important to the community
• Intersect with other adjacent information architectures
And perhaps most importantly, they present themselves, when well established, as reality.

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This is the basis for The Matrix films. The rabbit hole leads us out of the information architecture
of the Matrix. The maker of the Matrix is even referred to as ‘the Architect’. However, in our lived
lives, we exist within a multitude of interlocking matrices.

58

65
[1]

66
Sense-making and
meaning making

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In some ways this may be viewed as a Post-Modern condition.
However, information architecture (as sense-making through re-
searching) looks across this landscape of multiple, interlocking
information architectures to tell a story. Information architecture
(as meaning-making through design) strives to resolve problems
that emerge in this landscape by manipulating aspects of existing
architectures, creating new connections between existing archi-
tectures or formulating new architectures that further interlock with
existing architectures (or combinations of these).
A set of examples of representations of sense-making by 4th year
students from the Interaction Design and Industrial Design course
collaboration delivered at the University of Johannesburg in 2014
follow.
It is worth noting that when designers attempt to solve hyper complex prob-
lems (or wicked problems) the act of sense-making (understanding) and mean-
ing-making (resolving) can be viewed as two sides of the same coin [17]. Fur-
thermore, the information architectures created in meaning-making do not strive
to be scientific in nature but rather are solution-oriented [18]. And lastly, since
the act of sense-making involves interpretation across multiple interlocking in-
formation architectures that span disciplines, information architecture as a prac-
tice is transdiscipinary in nature [19].

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Ormond and Jacobsz. 4th Year industrial design / interaction design student work (Johannesburg, SA)

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VD Westhuizen, McCarthy, Van Heerden. 4th Year industrial design / interaction design student work (Johannesburg, SA)

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Malan and Thantsha. 4th Year industrial design / interaction design student work (Johannesburg, SA)

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The design artifact could be a chair, a website, a building, a service
or a kettle.
DESIGN
ARTIFACT

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SYNTHESISRESEARCH DESIGN
The artifact however hides the process that the designer
goes through to conceive of it. When dealing with simple
problems this process is often hidden even to the design-
er. Assumptions made through the design process can also
simplify a problem: assuming for instance what form the end
solution should take without deep research or questioning of
the problem.

73
STRATEGYRESEARCH DESIGN
In the presence of complexity it can help to separate out these
stages in the design process. In design management we find pro-
ject plans that define distinct stages for researching, determining a
strategy and then designing (although the whole process is the act
of designing).

74
It is in this modality of complexity that IA assists in acting as a
blueprint (B) for the way in which the design should manifest the
strategy in the fields of user experience design, web design, inter-
action design, etc.
It is often the case that assuming the problem is a simple one where
IA, as blueprint, is omitted from the process. This forms the basis
for most arguments for utility-oriented IA in digital design.
B

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PROBLEM
ECOLOGY
A deep exploration of a problem, through research, reveals that all
problems exist in context. This includes history, politics, economics,
culture and society, the context of use and environment, the com-
missioning organision, varying user types, the marketplace etc.
This exploration creates a data-mass and this forms part of the
problem. How does the designer make sense of the data mass
where interpretation of the problem is subjective: a sociologist will
see a social problem, an IT manager will see an IT problem, a mar-
keter will see a marketing problem and so on.
This creates what we refer to a problem ecology.

76
SOLUTION
ECOLOGY
It follows then that the solution space needs to consider and re-
solve the various areas of concern (history, politics, economics,
marketplace, users, etc) and the presence of various points of view.
This is what we refer to as the solution ecology.

77
PROBLEM /
SOLUTION
ECOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
SENSE-MAKING MEANING-MAKING
As noted earlier, in the design process, making sense of the prob-
lem ecology and solutioning (making meaning as an act of resolv-
ing complexity) is one and the same [17]. We refer to this as the
problem / solution ecology. In Design Thinking it is referred to as
ideation.

78
SYNTHETIC
COGNITION
RESEARCH DESIGN
SENSE-MAKING MEANING-MAKING
Complexity in the problem-ecology presents paradoxes, conflicts
and contradictions which analytic thinking struggles to resolve. This
is the value of design in such circumstances since synthetic think-
ing is able to resolve the complexity without simplifying the problem
and results in innovative solutions.

79
SYNTHETIC
COGNITION
RESEARCH DESIGN
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
It is in complexity and the presence of the data mass that informa-
tion architecture is applied beyond the blueprint to resolve com-
plexity and it operates in the mode of synthetic cognition.
This then is the design behind the design behind the design.

80
Three illusions [20] emerge from the utility view of IA as blueprint as applied in the design
of digital design artifacts (the dominant view of IA now) and go some way to explain why
we may not understand IA as being argued for in this essay.
Illusion 1
IA deliverables are wireframes,
site maps, task flows,
taxonomies, etc
No. The IA deliverable is the synthetic
resolution of the problem / solution ecol-
ogy as expressed in deliverables which
strive to describe it
Illusion 2
The design solution is a website,
mobile app, etc.
No. The design solution is the resolution
of the problem / solution ecology; the de-
sign artifact is a website, mobile app, etc.
Illusion 3
IA derives its meaning (rele-
vance, value, purpose) by deliv-
ering measurable value to
businesses
No. The relevance, value and purpose
of IA is in making sense of problem /
solution ecologies; that business value
is derived from this is but one of many
potential consequences

81
Synthetic cognition:
Drawing as thinking

82
“…it is a good and necessary place to start, (esp. 1st years and at
the start of 1st year) encouraging students to become meta-criti-
cal, self-conscious and reflexive in their drawings, processes and
results.
Essentially students draw as a result of and by means of constant
‘thinking about’ what they are drawing, how they are drawing and
why the results must be questioned and mistrusted at every stage
until a ‘truce’ is declared and the drawing ended”
David Paton, lecturer at the University of Johannesburg.
In Paton’s classes he asks students to draw a brick that is present be-
fore them. Once complete, he then asks the students to redraw the brick
without drawing the outline and only using vertical lines.
Paton’s method attempts to provide students with a “strategy to think
the brick into being”, so they can take “mental responsibility for what is
drawn”.
Examples of student drawings provided by David Paton

83

84

85
Notes by the author from ‘JAG snag’ as part of the design intervention for the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2012)

86
Notes by the author from ‘JAG snag’ as part of the design intervention for the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2012)

87
Andrea Resmini “Johannesburg Art Gallery, Cross-channel Heuristic Search Phase” 2012

88
A discussion about the dots.

89
A discussion about the context of the dots.

90
A discussion about something.

91
A discussion about two things.

92
A discussion about how these two things relate.

93
The one thing is more important, or there’s more of one thing, in relation to the other thing.

94
The one is a sub-set of the other and is of central importance to the latter.

95
The one is a sub-set of the other but is not core, just a part.

96
The two things are related however the smaller exists or has presence beyond the larger.

97
The two things are related, the smaller is not a part of the larger, exists or has presence be-
yond the larger and although smaller in some way more important.

98
The two things are related, the smaller is not a part of the larger, exists or has presence be-
yond the larger and is further away in relevance or importance to the conversation.

99
The two things are not directly related but are part of the same discussion.

100
The background or context of the discussion.

101
Wrap up

102
This essay has argued for a broader notion of information archi-
tecture to what is commonly understood in the mainstream of the
practice today. Beyond a blueprint for the design of digital objects,
IA is something that allows us to view the structural, informational
make-up of what we call problem ecologies (although more broad-
ly it offers a way to map and describe any informational formation).
From a design perspective, we are interested in how this way of in-
terpreting the world can be used to identify problems (sense-mak-
ing) and generate solutions (meaning-making) by applying syn-
thetic thinking (that is, non-analytical, creative thinking) to which
the last chapter alludes: drawing as a means to conduct synthetic
cognition (creative thinking).
The implications for the field of IA include: considering where IA
can be applied beyond the design of digital artifacts; exploring a
broader set of tools for this application; recognising IA as a design
activity and what doors that opens; and considering the education-
al and theoretical implications of this.
For the field of design it is a call to practitioners, teachers and re-
searchers to consider the role of IA in design more broadly (that is,
across forms of designs: industrial, architectural, communication,
digital, etc). That this is not central to design conversations (re-
gardless of whether we refer to it as IA or not), given that we are
living within a time so well understood as the information age with
knowledge economies, continues to surprise me.
Hopefully this essay provides some direction and positioning that
can assist in pushing both fields forward.

103
1. http://player.vimeo.com/video/77330591. Parachutes.tv
2. ‘Pervasive IA. Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences’ Resmini and Rosati, 2011. Morgan
Kaufmann. Page 68
3. ‘It’s Pitch Black. You Are Likely to be Eaten by a Grue. Lessons from videogames’ Resmini. 2014.
http://www.slideshare.net/resmini/its-pitch-black-you-are-likely-to-be-eaten-by-a-grue
4. ‘The Introduction of Muscle’ Michael Dean. 2013. Installation at the Arnolfini. http://www.arnolfini.
org.uk/whatson/michael-dean. All photographs by the author.
5. Fukasawa speaking at the 2014 Design Indaba. http://www.designindaba.com/profiles/nao-
to-fukasawa
6. http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/04/next-architects-chinese-bridge-competition/
7.http://www.spatialpractice.com/projects/17_beijing-cbd-towers/2.html
8. http://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2013/07/11/taichung-city-cultural-center-com-
petition-entry-in-taiwan-by-hyunjoon-yoo-architects/concept-diagram-5/
9.http://www.spearsphotographics.co.uk/untitled-gallery-34755/399002_birds-nest-concept-dia-
grams-coloured.html
10. http://plusmood.com/2012/05/swiss-clockwork-embassy-matteo-cainer-architects/
11. http://plusmood.com/2014/01/museum-of-cycladic-art-kois-associated-architects/9-concept-di-
agram/
12. http://jonascels.com/little-sparta/
13. http://www.dezeen.com/2012/11/14/ole-scheeren-unveils-duo-skyscrapers-for-singapore/
14. http://www.archdez.com/2013/09/20/folding-house-by-ar-design-studio/folding-house-by-ar-de-
sign-studio-concept-diagram-06/
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_%28sociology%29
16. ‘Research Summary and Strategic Recommendations for the JAG’ 2013. Jason Hobbs
17. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”. 1973. Rittel, H & Webber, M. Policy Sciences.
(4)
18. “The Information Architecture of Transdisciplinary Design Practice: Rethinking Nathan She-
droff‟s Continuum of Understanding” 2012. J Hobbs and T Fenn. Design Development Research
2012 Conference Proceedings.
19. “The Information Architecture of Transdisciplinary Design Practice: Rethinking Nathan She-
droff‟s Continuum of Understanding” 2012. J Hobbs and T Fenn. Design Development Research
2012 Conference Proceedings.
20. “The information architecture of meaning-making” J Hobbs and T Fenn. Published in “Reframing
Information Architecture” Resmini, Andrea (Ed.). 2014 Springer HCI series.
References

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