ia play

2 month contract with Defaqto, no salary mentioned. Yet again junior means at least one year of experience.

“We require a Junior Information Architect to join the business, supporting
ongoing web site development. Working with the Senior IA, you will be
responsible for producing wire frames, sitemaps, user journeys / story
boards and user scenarios considering the usability of the client’s
Websites. You will need a minimum of one year of experience as an
Information Architect, preferably for a major agency”

from London-IA

I’ve come across a few ads for a junior IA/designer that I think are for the same job. Always interesting to see the differences in how agencies advertise the same role.

From Skillbrokers, advertising for a Junior Information Architect/Designer

SME based in the centre of the West End is looking for a junior information architect/designer - the technical environment is made up of: photoshop, HTML, CSS, Wireframing tool (such as visio or axure), Ecommerce/ebusiness.

Ideally you will be able to demonstrate some experience in this area, have design experience, but want to become an information architect with a passion for user experience and business performance above design aesthetics - you will need to have a solid understanding of Web design and development along with a working knowledge of Web technologies, be well versed in tools such as illustrator, Photoshop and visio, an understanding of digital agency processes.

You will either be a Web designer with a good grasp of user experience design looking to move into information architecture or an Information Architect with a good eye for design.

And from ABRS, advertising for an Information Architect/Designer

Junior Information Architect / Designer sought by leading consultancy to create wireframes, site blue prints and input into the functional specification. You should be able to turn these into high quality site designs as well as contributing to other design projects.

You should have good photoshop knowledge, good understanding of HTMLS and SS, and wireframing tool (such as Visio or Axure).

To succeed in this role you will have some design experience and want to become an information architect with a passion for user experience. This is an excellent opportunity to develop competencies on high profile projects for someone with limited experience but with the right attitude and skills.

Pretty much every job ad asks for experience, which can make trying to break into a new field seem nigh-on impossible at times.

If you are trying to break into information architecture and hitting the ‘experience-required’ brick wall then consider doing some volunteering:

1. The IA Institute is always looking for volunteers. There’s a list of opportunities on their website and most of them can be done anywhere in the world.
2. Use the advanced search on do-it.org and select ‘computers, technology and website development’ to get results for charities looking for help with their websites. Or try idealist.org or the equivalent service in your part of the world.
3. Approach a local charity direct and offer to help with their website. Usually they’ll be looking for help write, publishing and troubleshooting but you can start there and suggest other improvements as you go along.
4. Get familiar with how people use technology - volunteer to help teach basic IT skills. Age Concern are currently looking for IT trainers and Help the Aged run a similar scheme. Schools and other community groups are often looking for help like this as well. Try the same computers search on do-it.org but narrow with the keyword ‘trainer’.

Volunteering gives you an opportunity to try out what you’ve read about, build up your portfolio and it is great experience at making IA improvements with a limited budget (or more normally, no budget). That’ll be attractive to any employer.

There’s a junior IA job being advertised on Total Jobs for an un-named company in Bristol.

It isn’t a complete junior as they are looking for 2 years experience which isn’t really junior in my book (or in the current state of the recruitment market, more importantly). They also want someone with the “ability to make complicated problems easy” which sounds like a very marketable skills that might be worth a bit more than “up to £250/day”. But maybe that’ll work in Bristol.

Interestingly the role comes with the opportunity to work from home 3-4 days a week.

Foviance are hiring a junior UX-er.

“…looking for somebody who:

• Has a degree (BA or MSc) in user experience or related field (such
as technical communications, human-computer interaction (HCI),
psychology etc.).

• Has the ability to professionally present research and analysis to
internal and external stakeholders.

• Has a genuine passion for user and customer experience, and has the
ability to communicate that passion in an informed and professional
manner.

• Has a valid UK work permit.”

Email clare.mitchellcrow@foviance.com

We still have space to offer an IA work experience placement this summer, preferably July or early August.

You can get more information from the BBC work experience site or it might be simpler to read IA work experience on this site.

Ecom are advertising for junior IA role (amongst others) at an un-named agency.

Do you know digital media inside out or have a genuine interest in learning more about it, do you know production and interaction design inside out or wish to find out more?

Are you brimming with energy, creativity and enthusiasm? Are you totally passionate about user experience and information theory?

Are you capable and confident enough to get the best in information architecture and user experience from any brief across a range of large brand clients andsectors, and do you want the opportunity to do so?

Do you have an aptitude for getting stuck in, stacks of initiative, emphasis on quality, delivery and client satisfaction whilst keeping innovation and the user journey at the fore are all part of the deal. Yes? Then get in touch!

I was confused by the requirement to ‘know digital media inside out’ and then realised they are using this same description for mid-weight and senior IA roles at the same company. They also seem to have a very precise salary scale: junior = 27k, midweight = 37k, senior = 57k.

( Don’t bother going to the Ecom website. They must have spent all the web budget on the pretty flash animation of falling leaves and didn’t have any money left to post job opportunities on their own site. )

At the BBC we divide our large UX team into a number of fine grained distinctions: visual designers, interaction designers, information architects and usability engineers. The reality is that the actual people in the team don’t fit neatly into this divisions, even if you could come up with a clear definition of the differences.

I’ve been recruiting juniors recently and it has been noticeable that the applicants struggle with the differences between the various UX job titles.

At the same time I’ve been having a look at the job adverts on a few job websites & mailing lists (Monster, TotalJobs, Chinwag, Mad, Jobserve, London-IA, London-Usability) to see if there was any consistent connection between job description and job title. I went through 50 ads in detail and skimmed a load more.

information architect - far and away the most common job title (3 x more than the nearest rival UX architect). Every single job description asked for wireframing skills and only one didn’t mention sitemaps/blueprints. At least half asked for experience in working with multi-disciplinary teams (project managers, designers and developers), client facing skills and a pragmatic approach to balancing user needs and business constraints. Half also asked for usability testing skills, interaction design experience and persona creation. Where tools were mentioned (a third of ads) it was usually Illustrator, Photoshop & Visio rather than any particular package.

interaction designer - rarer than I expected, when this did crop up the job description was pretty much identical to IA. The rarity may indicate a loss of popularity in favour of user experience designer.

user interface designer - similiar to IA and interaction designer but with a slightly more technical angle, often including HTML, CSS and Javascript

user experience architect & user experience designer - very similar to IA and Interaction designer. The only noticeable difference was the remit of these roles often included ‘visual design’ which I didn’t see once in an IA job description

usability specialist & usability analyst - usability engineer seems to have lost popularity as a job title and this appears to have coincided with a broadening of remit. These roles are very similar to the IA and UX job descriptions but with a greater emphasis on designing, conducting and analysing usability tests.

So essentially the job descriptions are very, very similiar for all these job titles. They *must* mention wireframes to be an IA, the UX prefix may widen the job description to include visual design, UI designer is probably more techie and a usability prefix will mean more emphasis on user testing. But these are subtle distinctions. A great deal more unites than divides.

Now job ads aren’t the end of the story but it is interesting that we’ve created so many different job titles and then essentially described them the same. No wonder the applicants are confused.

My dullest slide deck ever, I’m afraid. I felt quite sheepish given all the shiny, shiny powerpoint on show in Miami. And I do need to point out here than the 15 little people on the first page are only representative of the number of juniors and not their general shape (or colour).

I’m very glad we were able to run the session as more of a conversation than presentation in the end. Not sure how much of that will work in the podcast (coming soon to Boxes and Arrows, I believe).

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For those of you who’ve been asking about our job description for junior IAs:

Junior IA job spec

(We’ve shortlisted for a current junior vacancy. In our IA summit panel I said that the junior programme is my favourite part of my job…well the interviewing is a great part of that, particularly when we have such a good pool. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone.)