[.ca] Information Anxiety 2 (ISBN 0789724103)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Information might want to be free, but why should we free it? We've got enough troubles keeping track of all the petabits running around untethered already, and we risk a computer counterrevolution if we let the situation get much crazier. Information architect Richard Saul Wurman swept the field clear in 1989 with his groundbreaking book foreseeing the problems of data clutter and proposing a radical new means of organising and presenting knowledge humanistically; he has substantially revised it for the new century as Information Anxiety 2. This volume is sparklingly clear and readable and offers insight not only to designers, educators and content developers, but also to anyone who needs to communicate effectively through dense clouds of facts. If Wurman occasionally indulges in new-agey pop psychology, his analysis is never muddy and the more hard-headed reader will forgive him soon enough. The discussion alternates between describing the deeply stressful task of absorbing poorly organised data and exploring solutions that require a bit of rethinking but reward such an investment with improved understanding and, maybe, a state change from information to wisdom. We could do worse, and if we don't pay attention to Wurman and his colleagues, we almost certainly will. --Rob Lightner

The 'Answer' to 'Out of Print':
Some readers may not understand that this was the FIRST book that gave those of us with information architecture 'leanings' evidence to support our posture. While Lou and Peter's book is always referred to as a 'primer' for the field of Information Architecture that evolved out of the internet boom, there are key concepts in Richard's book that are imperative for 'thinking'. I recall a review of his first publication where the reader lamented that Richard told a great story but gave no concrete examples of what he was talking about. I was screaming mentally, "But his entire book is a living example of his concepts." I kept writing his office, begging them to issue a reprint because I had already lost 2 copies of the first edition book and feared loaning out the last one I had scrounged up. That copy is my classic...whenever I have time I run through the highlights and notes I have throughout the book. I will often find concepts that I consider part of my core beliefs and am reminded where I originally adopted them from. As for one of the recent reviews 'dissing' this book, making reference to Nathan Shedroff's writings, perhaps the contributor didn't realize where Nathan, who used to work "for" Richard, originally got his endoctrination!

One for the reference shelf:
Found it difficult to put this down. Parts of the book are a bit slow and somewhat off topic, but most is spot on and Wurman offers some wonderful insight and obsevations that left me wondering why I had never thought of viewing things in a similar context. For anyone designing web media/printed communications the advice and insight Wurman offers is well worth the price of admission. This is one I'll have the shelf with Tufte.

Every business owner should read this book:
Ten years ago RSW said that data was the source of "Information Anxiety"; he went on to explain ways for people to put data into meaningful displays. His premise is that the display of data helps you convey a message. Take a look at the millions of advertisements that still don't understand his simple suggestions. I cringe when I see the updates or designs people do to magazines or newspapers that put more pictures, less data and even less "information." Doesn't anybody read books like IA2 to understand what the brain does and how it sorts data to come to choices? In the beginning Wired followed his rules and they blew away the competition, then they got smart and followed the formula of the oldline magazines, then nearly bankrupt they got sold. RSW set up the guidelines for magazines of the future. This is a great book and if a business owner really wanted their advertising and their collateral material to produce results they would use the tools in the book to check and see if they have broken the rules of cutting through the noise. Buy this book, follow the rules, win more business.

Dimensions of a Cyber "Renaissance" or "Enlightenment":
This is a substantially revised and updated version of a book first published in 1989. In fact, it has been 26 years since Wurman formulated his concept of "information architecture." The primary focus in this version, however, is the same: what amounts to the equivalent of ADD at a time when "information overload" continues to create problems with the recognition, differentiation, digestion, and application of data. (Davenport and Beck also have much of great value to say about this phenomenon in their new book, The Attention Economy.) As Wurman explains, he offers "new maps for navigating through a stream of bytes that leaves us inundated with data but starved for tools & patterns that give them meaning." He asserts that there has not been an "information explosion"; rather, an explosion of "non-information" or data that simply do not inform. What to do? Within 17 separate but interdependent chapters, Wurman suggests dozens of strategies and tactics which are guided by "new maps" and implemented with new "tools" inorder to organize data in new "patterns." The result is an eloquent as well as insightful "manifesto" for the 21st century. Here is a consolidation of Wurman's key points in the first chapter: "We live in an age of alsos, adapting to alternatives. because we have greater access to information, many of us have become more involved in researching, and making our own decisions, rather than relying on experts. The opportunity is that there is so much information, the catastrophe is that 99% of it isn't meaningful or understandable. We need to rethink how we present information because the information appetites of people are much more refined. Success in our connected world requires that we isolate the specific information we need and get it to those we work with. If information is the product of the Digital Age, then the Internet is the transportation vehicle. That means more misinformation. The sheer volume of available information and the manner in which it is often delivered render much of it useless to us. The best teachers give us permission to get in touch with ourselves and become more of us. Everyone needs a personal measure to distinguish useful information from raw data. To entertain the radical idea that understanding might involve accepting chaos threatens the foundations of our existence." Wurman and his associates explore and develop other equally important ideas in each of the other 16 chapters. By indulging their interests throughout their own lives, "and perhaps because rather than despite many failures", they have been able to design their lives. They invite their reader to become engaged, not merely involved, in the same perilous but ultimately fulfilling process. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Davenport and Beck's new book (identified earlier) as well as Borgmann's Holding On to Reality, Drexler's Engines of Invention, Hamel's Leading the Revolution, Locke et al's The Cluetrain Manifesto, and Nielsen's Designing Web Usability. From my perspective, the new century is rapidly becoming what could be characterized as a new "Renaissance" or (if you prefer) "Enlightenment" which these and other contemporary thinkers are now in the process of establishing.

A Quick-and-Dirty Mishmash of Platitudes:
I am taking the unusual step of rating this book "1 star" to express my extremely high level of dissatisfaction at its quality and usefullness. There is no question that Richard Saul Wurman is a highly gifted individual, and his ACCESS books are fabulous. But this poorly-edited, disorganized book fails to capture or convey any of the insights that went into that or other successful Wurman projects. My guess is that this project was conceived as a quickie update to the original Information Anxiety to take advantage of Internet mania, and as such much of the work was delegated to others, but without sufficient review and editing. (There are too many editing mistakes to list here, but suffice it to say that probably few books have a misspelling in the Table Of Contents as this one does -- "Informatgion" instead of "Information".) RSW tells us that it's important to always start off with what the question is. Problem is, he doesn't follow his own advice in that book. He careens uncontrollably from gushy predictions about the future, to cataclysmic warnings of information deluge, to superficial suggestions on software and web design, to facile pop management advice, The only thread connecting all these disjointed pieces is that he strictly limits himself to talking about how important something or other is, without ever giving specific advice about how to approach it. I am personally interested in the field of localization and globalization. So naturally I was curious as to what insight RSW brought to this area. What I found was a single, lonely page on the topic, with a few lines of simplistic patter, and a strange, unexplained diagram of various fountain pens with country names associated with each. I am also interested in the combination of text and graphics to present information and in fact bought this book thinking it might have some insights in that regards. So I was quite happy to see in the Table of Contents a section Design in the Digital Age, summarized as "In this Digital Age we need to focus on the connections among all design elements: medium, words, pictures, and sound." Alas, true to form, all the section in question does is repeat that we need to focus on this, with no clue as how we might actually do that, nor a single example in sight. To get an idea of the poor editing quality of this book, consider the following paragraph from this section: "Where words meet pictures meet sound creates understanding. Are you a value-based organization? A service-based organization? A quality-based organization? Are you all three? We test communication by conveying a message and having the recipient understand it, be interested in it, and remember it. Any other measure is unimportant and invalid." Does anyone else wonder how the stuff about organizations fits in here? It's just random cut-and-paste content that accidentally found its way here, never to receive the benefit of the editor's pen. Signs of rampant cut-and-pasting abound throughout the book. Although not really the fault of the author(s), the book is also seriously dated, having come out while there was still some degree of dot-com mania going on (although the peak was passed). So you can read this book on sort of an archaeological level, to recall all the bizarre things people were saying back in those heady days. Internet refrigerators, anyone? I probably don't need to summarize; let me simply say you are best off spending your time and money on virtually any book on this topic besides this one.