AIFIA | Research

The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture has been performing research on the field and profession of Information Architecture. This research initially was used to help assess the needs of practitioners of IA and has branched out into investigating perceptions of IA by those that buy, want, and need IA as well as those that train and mentor information architects. This research helps AIfIA prepare our resources for all members of the field to use in their own practice.

Our initial research quickly pointed out that our research is helpful for the community as a whole. It is the goal of the research to:

Support AIfIA in achieving its goals by maintaining an accurate picture of the information architecture community to focus, to guide and to inform our day-to-day activities.
Support the IA community by maintaining an accurate picture of the context in which information architects work to focus, to guide and to inform their approach to meet the needs of their customers.

AifIA has the following ongoing projects:

Research The Business View of Information Architecture

How does the business community perceive information architecture?
What models appropriately represent information architecture's return on investment?

Research The Information Architecture Community

What tools do IAs need to do their jobs?
What obstacles face information architects?

AIfIA will make its research available in summarized as well as more raw formats to best serve all of the users.