Our job insight series continues with well-known American DITA author Julio Vazquez, who talks about his work as a senior IA and coming into the field from a background in technical writing and support programming. What does his work involve and what advice does he have for budding IAs?
What is your job title?
As I think about this, the title ‘information architect’ is probably insufficient. I probably do a little more than some and maybe not as much as others. My title at SDI (Systems Documentation Inc) is senior information architect. We consult with clients about their information and publishing processes, and help them reach their goals by providing SaaS-based solutions for technical writing, information design, information architecture, eLearning and training.
What does this involve in practice?
Many things – process analysis, education, content inventory, information architecture, and writing XSLT to implement branding and style for content output.
Each client is unique and has different requirements to implement, which makes my job extremely interesting. In most cases they want things to look tomorrow as they do today, but there are also times when they want something different and ask my opinion. So while some days are the same, others have a unique spin. That’s a good thing for me because I get bored easily.
How did you get into information architecture?
Nothing at the beginning of my career in technical communications would have prepared me for what I’m doing today. I began this trek when I got frustrated trying to find the information I needed as a support programmer. In fact, I had to perform a recovery at 3am one day and realised that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was reading; I wound up making an error that cost some time for a manufacturing floor.
So I decided to look through the information again to see if I could make sense of it while I was fully awake – I couldn’t. When I finally got the actual explanation, I decided that I could do better and wound up getting a job as a technical writer.
How did technical writing lead to IA work?
My second stint as a technical writer involved getting more serious about reuse and structure. I wound up doing usability testing on a few editors to determine their suitability for our team. I started learning about decomposing content into pieces so I could reuse things more effectively and filter content for different contexts.
Then I was approached to be part of the IBM cross-functional team that developed DITA 0. My main role was to try to keep the language usable for writers. But while we were building the language, I wrote an article that became the basis of a book I authored called Practical DITA.
One of the things I did was integrate what I learned about planning and structure to develop a guide that would help writers take a practical approach when writing with DITA. This hands-on approach is the basis of what I do for clients and SDI does use the book as part of our marketing to clients.
What do you enjoy most about IA work?
I enjoy watching things come together. It’s pretty neat to create a content model that makes sense for both authoring and producing output, and then making the final results a reality.
And what is the most challenging thing?
When you’re doing the entire gamut, creating decent-looking PDFs using XSLT is a challenge. Of course, when you get it right, it’s part of the satisfaction – it’s a double-edged sword.
Any tips for other budding information architects?
- Be open to change. It’s a part of the job and a daily fact of life for information architecture.
- Research what you’re not sure of; it’ll save you time. I’ve bookmarked Zvon.org to guide me with XSLT and XSLT-FO so when I hit something I don’t do as frequently, I can avoid searching.
- Draw structures. I use a whiteboard when I start developing a content model – it’s easier to update than files. I’ve been known to take pictures of scribbles on a whiteboard to use later while developing specialisations or transforms [the code that transforms XML into some output format].
Where will you be in five years?
I’m not sure but hopefully I’ll still be helping folks achieve their information goals and helping others move forward in content strategy and information design.
Julio Vazquez is a senior information architect working in Durham, North Carolina for SDI, which provides consulting, writing and SaaS content services for companies looking to improve their publishing and writing processes. This ranges from temporary staff augmentation to component content management systems and XSL transforms for DITA.
