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“When I grow up, I want to be an information architect.” Bet you wouldn’t have heard a kid say that 15 or even 10 years ago.

I remember the first time I heard the term. Actually, I think my boss at the time (now a well known content management guru) made it up. When describing my role on multimedia projects, he said, it’s kind of like being an architect, but not for buildings, for information. “Ah,” I said, “an information architect.” That’s what I want to be.

This was back in about 1995. Little did I know that the term was already spreading as fast as the Internet, and the field of information architecture was born.

A recent discussion on among CM Professionals brought up an interesting question—namely, what is the relationship between information architecture (IA) and content management? And, beyond that, what about the emerging discipline known as user experience (UX)?

• User Experience (previously known as User Interface Design) is the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a digital device or system. In content management, you want to keep the desired user experience strongly in mind when designing both your authoring interfaces and your end publications (Web sites or other types.) So, UX plays a very important role in content management.
• Information Architecture is the practice of expressing an information model, or concept for information. In content management, the task of analyzing the content, breaking it down into the appropriate chunks, defining of structure for how it will be stored, accessed, and presented is all information architecture. Again, IA is a critical aspect of content management.

I’m a big advocate of user-centered design, so, for me, the user experience helps shape many aspects of a content management solution, ranging from which system to choose (one that’s intuitive for authors, developers, and end customers), to the information architecture (how your audiences want consume your information...in small chunks, as full documents that they can print, as videos?)

One thing to remember, though: While UX and IA are important aspects of content management, there’s a lot more to it. Content management has equal parts of process and structure. UX and IA focus more about how to structure content, which is good. Add a few doses of workflow planning, like roles, tasks, and permissions, plus business rules to the mix and you have a decent recipe for content management.

Rita Warren of ZiaContent, Inc. is a veteran of the software and digital media industries with more than 10 years experience helping companies deliver content in compelling and sensible ways. Well known in her field, Rita served as technical editor of the first edition of Bob Boiko's acclaimed book, the Content Management Bible. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and contributor to content management industry publications.