Lots of people have been linking to Peterme and Nathan Shedroff’s interview on Digitalweb, but it’s a really excellent primer for anyone involved in digital user-experience design in it’s broadest definition. Peter and Nathan are, as ever, very accessible and very quotable.
I’m planning to bash a lot of people over the head with this particular peterme-snippet:
“Navigation and information architecture are tightly related, though distinct. Think about a building. A building’s architecture refers to its structure, the placement of systems (wiring, plumbing, etc.), the placement and size of rooms, the means by which people will traverse space, etc. A building’s navigation (typically called “wayfinding”) is a system of signs and cues as to how to move within the space, to find the desired destination. The navigation is reliant on the architecture, but if the building were just rooms with unmarked doors, no one would know where anything is. The navigation adds a layer of information over the architecture, directing visitors to their desired goals.”
» Digitalweb: An interview with Peter Merholz and Nathan Shedroff on User-Centered Design