Information Architecture Design

A Design-Theoretic Framework

Information Architecture Design (IAD) advances a design-theoretic articulation of Information Architecture as the structural composition and realisation of meaning across artefacts, systems, and social formations.

In contrast to dominant interpretations that situate Information Architecture within navigation, organisation, or digital interface design, IAD treats it as a condition through which meaning is structured, composed, stabilised, and rendered operative in the world. It is concerned not only with how information is arranged, but with how meaning holds, persists, and conditions action across contexts and over time.

This work emerges from sustained professional practice in design and strategy, and from a programme of research examining the relationship between Information Architecture and Design as a mode of inquiry, a compositional practice, and a means through which meaning is made operative in the world.

Explore the Framework

This framework is currently being formalised as a structured canon. Selected materials and early access are available below.

→ View the high-level canon structure
→ Download sample materials (modules, glossary, auxiliary notes)
→ See the framework in use (lectures, masterclass & presentations)

For workshops, talks, or advisory work related to IAD, contact jason@jh-01.com

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Constitution of the Framework

The IAD canon is organised as a structured body of work across five interrelated layers:

• Canonical Notes: The primary, module-based theoretical articulation of the framework
• Auxiliary Notes: Supplementary, philosophical, historical, and design-theoretic extensions
• Canonical Artefacts: Cases, diagrams, and material objects for testing and application
• Theoretical Extensions: Secondary and emerging outputs further extending the stable core
• Meta Layer: aggregated structures supporting development, synthesis, and management

Together, these layers stabilise the theoretical core, enable extension without dilution, incorporate artefacts as first-class elements, and align the framework with its ongoing development across pedagogy, practice, and research.

Conceptual Engine

IAD is grounded in a compositional account of meaning structured through three interdependent constructs:

• Structural Logic (SL) — the organisation and relation of elements within a structure
• Semantic Formation (SF) — the coherence through which meaning is apprehended as a whole
• Contrived Ontology (CO) — the intentional inscription of meaning into artefacts, systems, and social formations

These constructs describe how meaning is composed within IAD and how it is stabilised and made to hold in social reality, while their operation is enacted through:

• Semantic Mechanics (SM) — mechanisms by which meaning is structured within artefacts and systems
• Socio-Semantic Mechanics (SSM) — mechanisms through which meaning is realised across social contexts

This establishes a continuous relation between composition in design and the stabilisation and realisation of meaning in the world.

The framework is being developed as a structured canon, enabling:

• explicit articulation of theoretical components
• cross-referencing between concepts, constructs, and canonical artefacts
• development and integration of secondary theoretical outputs
• integration of theory, method, and application

Canonical artefacts such as cases, examples, diagrams, and tables are incorporated into the system as first-class elements, extending the relational structure beyond modules, glossary, and auxiliary notes into a material layer of artefacts.

This allows the framework to develop outward through use while maintaining a stable theoretical core.

Canon Structure

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Selected Materials

Selected materials are provided to expose the internal structure and articulation of the framework:

Canonical Module: IA in the Wild and in Design
↳ M02_IA_in_the_Wild_and_in_Design.pdf (sample)

Glossary: Frame-Scale
↳ GL_Frame_Scale.pdf (sample)

Auxiliary Note: Modelling in IAD
↳ Aux_SN_01_Modelling-in-IAD.pdf (sample)

Applications and Development Contexts

The framework is being developed and tested across academic, pedagogical, and professional contexts.

Lectures

University of Michigan, School of Information — SI658 Information Architecture 2025 / 2026

→ Lecture 1: Structural Logic & Semantic Formation: Notes | Video
→ Lecture 2: Message-Content & Message-Form: Notes | Video
→ Lecture 3: Realising Discourse: Notes | Video

Applied Masterclass

World Building, Composition, and Praxis: A Masterclass in the Structural Design of Meaning
→ Entry page on jh-01.com

Presentations

Axioms of a Second Intellectual Culture in Information Architecture
IA Academics & Practitioners Roundtable, IA Conference, Philadelphia (2026)
→ DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27021.50405 (notes on ResearchGate)

Extending the Concept of Information Architecture in Design
UX South Africa, remote. 2025
→ Notes
→ Video

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Position

IAD operates within a second intellectual culture of Information Architecture.

It departs from Library and Information Science-derived models, artefact-bound interpretations of IA and strictly descriptive accounts of structure. Instead it establishes Information Architecture as:

• A compositional activity within design,
• A structural condition of meaning, and
• A mechanism through which social and conceptual realities are composed and made operative.

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Contact

For workshops, talks, or advisory work related to IAD:
jason@jh-01.com