Linking Hypertext Researchers & Information Architecture Practitioners

The theme for the Hypertext 2012 conference (June 25-28, Milwaukee, WI, USA) is building systems for linking people, data, resources and stories. This workshop, "Linking Hypertext Researchers & Information Architecture Practitioners," will try to connect hypertext researchers and information architecture practitioners, establishing professional relationships that will help enable more and better people-data-resource-story linking systems in the future.

Key dates

• June 25: Workshop
• TBD: Position papers accepted and final workshop prep begins
• TBD: Call for participation ends
• TBD: Call for participation begins
• TBD: Workshop committee established
• February 26: Workshop committee recruiting starts
• January 30: Workshop proposal accepted

More details on the "Linking Hypertext Researchers & Information Architecture Practitioners" workshop are coming....

Past, related efforts

Addressing gaps between researchers and practitioners with the broader user experience field has been getting more attention lately:

• Researcher-practitioner interaction update (UXRPI), 2010.
• Closing the gap between research and practice, World Usability Day: Dayton, 2010.

The information architecture practitioners have made several attempts over the years to connect with researchers, mostly in library science:

• Keynote at SIG USE research symposium, 2008.
• The Confluence of Research and Practice in Information Architecture, 2006.
• Setting the IA Research Agenda, 2006.
• Information architecture - another great topic for the HICSS-40 mini track on Using Information, 2006.

Examples from the flip side - where hypertext researchers have attempted to close the gaps with practitioners - have also happened over the years, but not as much recently.

Perhaps the most useful artifact for helping practitioners understand the existing literature has been Jakob Nielsen's book Multimedia and Hypertext, with its many references to the HCI and hypertext research literature.

Using a hypertext-related conference workshop to help bridge the research-practice gap has been done in several different contexts:

• Hypermedia Research and the Web Workshop, 1996.
• The Hypertext Functionality series of workshops, from 1994 to 2000, held in conjunction with a wide variety conferences.

Paul Kahn's keynote at the Hypertext 2001 conference is probably the most prominent recognition that hypertext research can benefit from the practice of information architecture. A few quotes from the abstract:

• "It is possible to link things well but far easier to link things badly...Information architecture for the web is the practice of connecting things well..."
• "A major part of information architecture for the web is the design of hypertext. Information architects analyze, plan, organize, visualize, design."
• "This talk will explore current best practices in the design and organization of online publications. What can hypertext research learn from these practices?"

All of these past efforts provide background material for this workshop to build upon.

Current efforts

As different branches of user experience professionals have matured, they have started to reach out to research communities to help provide a foundation for their profession. The UPA Body of Knowledge is an example.

For the information architecture profession, Research and Practice in IA lays out some action items and resources that will help with IA research-practice challenges. Recent activities include:

• Continued awarding of IA Research grants by the IA Institute.
• Conducting the first World Information Architecture Day (February 11) with sponsorship by / held at academic institutions in Ann Arbor, Bogota, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Malmo, Johannesburg, and Tokyo.
• Increased attendance of students at the Information Architecture Summit conference. Students are one of the key bridges to future research-practice interaction.
• Growth of the Journal of IA, an international peer-reviewed scholarly journal., including a article on Practice-led research.

These recent activities provide a set of ideas for workshop topics.