Dana Aubin, Comtech Services
June 1, 2024
At a recent CIDM roundtable, members discussed the role of an information architect (IA).
What is an information architect?
An information architect is responsible for the structure and organization of technical content so that it is findable and usable. While information architects are often associated with DITA, their expertise is beneficial for either structured or unstructured authoring.
In a ContentOps framework, which focuses on the efficient and effective management of content throughout its lifecycle, an information architect plays a crucial role. They ensure that content is structured in a way that promotes scalability, findability, and reuse. This involves creating and maintaining the systems and processes that support content operations, such as taxonomies, metadata schemas, and content models.
As the use of generative AI grows, information architects can play a key role in ensuring that the content used to train large language models (LLMs) is structured, tagged, and categorized so that the content presented to users is accurate and consistent.
Responsibilities
Based on CIDM members’ experiences, an information architect may have the following responsibilities in addition to defining the structure and organization of content:
- Content strategy
- Governance of the content model
- Stylesheets
- Taxonomy and metadata
- Tool administration
- Training
- Translation management
- User experience
The specific responsibilities of the role vary depending on the organization, each of these responsibilities may be a separate position within the company. One information architect in the group summed up the responsibilities saying, “With both my last job and this one, I kind of feel like they give you an arbitrary title and you just do what needs to be done.”
“Information architects are responsible for the care and feeding for the systems and all of the authors working in the system.”
Full Time vs. Part Time
The role of an information architect can be either full-time or part-time, depending on the size and needs of the organization. In larger organizations, it is often a full-time position for one or more information architects. In smaller organizations, it may be part-time or combined with other roles, such as content strategy or technical writing. Based on our conversation, the status depends greatly the number of writers supported, the scope of support (one team or the enterprise), and of course, budget.
According to one member, “I would say that full-time vs. part-time depends on the size of your group, right, and how much you’re using DITA.”
Information Architect vs. Content Strategist
While there is some overlap between the roles of an information architect and a content strategist, there are distinct differences:
- Information architect: Focuses on the structure, organization, and navigation of information. Their main concern is how information is categorized, accessed, and presented to ensure usability and accessibility.
- Content strategist: Concentrates on the creation, planning, and governance of content. Their responsibilities include content planning, editorial guidelines, content lifecycle management, and aligning content with business goals.
To put it simply, an information architect is “on-the-ground” with the technical writers, and the content strategist works at a higher scope to make an impact on the enterprise. However, the distinction isn’t really that simple because there is not always a fine line between the roles.
“On my team, we’ve got an information architect and a content strategist. Very often a single person can span both roles, which makes it quite, “mushable,” if you will.”
Conclusion
Information architects are vital to ensure that technical content is structured, organized, findable, and usable. Their efforts contribute to a better user experience.