There are many ways to organize the same things. Every arrangement tells a different story. We often order things in categories, but those same things could be organized by environment or history or function. Each type of organization tells us things and gives us a different picture. And thus is information architecture born:

Buffon’s great gift then, was in the recognition that there are many possible ways to organize the same things, and that every arrangement tells a different story. This is what brings us to information architecture.

The inventor of the term ‘information architecture’ is Richard Saul Wurman, a ‘real’ architect by training and avocation, but who has increasingly turned to the design problems involved in providing access to information. Wurman points out: “The ways of organizing information are finite. It can only be organized by location, alphabet, time, category, or hierarchy” (Wurman 2001:40-41).

But what Wurman also points out is that the same set of things can often be arranged in each of those ways, and each arrangement tells you different things. If you consider an arrangement of pedigree dogs, for example, an arrangement by size displays its own patterns and suggests its own questions (like “why are there so few large pedigree dogs compare with tiny ones?” ). An arrangement by country of origin tells another story, while an arrangement by date of Kennel Club recognition tells a tale of changing tastes over time.

The task of the information architect therefore is to find the arrangements that will be most instructive and useful for any given context of use. Arrangements, not classifications, are the primary name of the game.