Eric Reiss
Do you invite friends and family to taste the dishes you’re cooking on the hob? Do you insist on flicking through books before you buy them? Do you check your watch in public places? Most of us do. We create shared frames of reference – with our families, with authors, with official timekeepers – and hundreds of others. These shared references give us confidence. They build trust. They help us avoid mistakes and misunderstandings.
For today’s information architects, creating shared references means providing visitors with the information they need to make informed choices. In other words, the website owner and the visitor have tasted the same bowl of soup. Unfortunately, most websites and apps do not do this very effectively, as owners and designers fail to recognise the value of AI. What’s more, we are now entering the era of Information 4.0 and AI. Today, it has become even more crucial to recognise and resolve issues related to shared references. After all, if a human cannot understand something, how can we expect Alexa or Siri to understand it either? And as we break down larger chunks of information into useful pieces that can be recombined to provide a more personalised experience, how can we ensure that the related pieces of information remain consistent? After all, if content is king, then context is the kingdom. And this means that metadata creation and the practice of information architecture have become more important than ever before, as they provide vital context.