1. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

2. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Culture? You mean stuff like
ballet, classical music, and
NPR?
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

3. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Culture? You mean stuff like
ballet, classical music, and
NPR?
No. Though all of those come
from our culture, shape it, and
find a home in many sub-
cultures.
Let me explain …
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

4. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Simply put, culture is learned
and shared ways of living.
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

5. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Simply put, culture is learned
and shared ways of living.
Sounds simple …
… but it is not
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

6. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
CULTURE
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

7. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
CULTURE
RELIGION
LANGUAGE
SOCIAL NORMS
KINSHIP
POWER
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

8. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
CULTURE
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

9. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
CULTURE
RELATIONSHIPS
MEANING
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

10. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

11. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

12. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

13. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
ONTOLOGY
IA discovers, defines
and articulates the
rules and patterns
that govern the
meaning of what we
intend to
communicate
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

14. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

15. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
TAXONOMY
developing systems
and structures for
what everything’s
called, where
everything’s sorted
and for the
relationships
between labels and
categories
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

16. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

17. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
CHOREOGRAPHY
the structure it
creates fosters specific
types of movement
and interaction -
anticipating the way
users and information
want to flow and
making affordances
for change over time
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

18. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

19. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

20. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

21. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

22. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

23. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
... is the comparative study of the ways in
which language shapes social life.
It explores the many ways in which practices
of language use shape patterns of
communication, formulate categories of social
identity and group membership, organize
large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and,
in conjunction with other semiotic practices,
equip people with common cultural
representations of their natural and social
worlds.
From the Society For Linguistic Anthropology – http://linguisticanthropology.org/about/
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

24. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
The task of ethnography is to decode
cultural symbols and identify the
underlying coding rules. This can be
accomplished by discovering the
relationships among cultural
symbols.
42
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

25. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
SYMBOLS = LANGUAGE
MEANING = RELATIONSHIPS
we must
understand
the language
of the user
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

26. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

27. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Instead of collecting “data” about people, the
ethnographer seeks to learn from people, to be
taught by them ...
Ethnography starts with a conscious attitude of
almost complete ignorance ...
The essential core of ethnography is this concern
with the meaning of actions and events to the
people we seek to understand. Some of these
meanings are directly expressed in language; many
are taken for granted and communicated only
indirectly through word and action. But in every
society people make constant use of these complex
meaning systems to organize their behavior, to
understand themselves and others, and to make
sense out of the world in which they live.
The Ethnographic Interview p.4-5
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

28. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Instead of collecting “data” about people, the
ethnographer seeks to learn from people, to be
taught by them ...
Ethnography starts with a conscious attitude of
almost complete ignorance ...
The essential core of ethnography is this concern
with the meaning of actions and events to the
people we seek to understand. Some of these
meanings are directly expressed in language; many
are taken for granted and communicated only
indirectly through word and action. But in every
society people make constant use of these complex
meaning systems to organize their behavior, to
understand themselves and others, and to make
sense out of the world in which they live.
The Ethnographic Interview p.4-5
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

29. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Instead of collecting “data” about people, the
ethnographer seeks to learn from people, to be
taught by them ...
Ethnography starts with a conscious attitude of
almost complete ignorance ...
The essential core of ethnography is this concern
with the meaning of actions and events to the
people we seek to understand. Some of these
meanings are directly expressed in language; many
are taken for granted and communicated only
indirectly through word and action. But in every
society people make constant use of these complex
meaning systems to organize their behavior, to
understand themselves and others, and to make
sense out of the world in which they live.
The Ethnographic Interview p.4-5
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

30. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
Instead of collecting “data” about people, the
ethnographer seeks to learn from people, to be
taught by them ...
Ethnography starts with a conscious attitude of
almost complete ignorance ...
The essential core of ethnography is this concern
with the meaning of actions and events to the
people we seek to understand. Some of these
meanings are directly expressed in language; many
are taken for granted and communicated only
indirectly through word and action. But in every
society people make constant use of these complex
meaning systems to organize their behavior, to
understand themselves and others, and to make
sense out of the world in which they live.
The Ethnographic Interview p.4-5
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE

31. DAVID FIORITO
THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF IA
REFRAMING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
A ROUND TABLE WORKSHOP AT THE IA SUMMIT 2013 - BALTIMORE