TRACING ROOTS OF CURRENT THEMES IN IA/UE
Popular and current themes within the information architecture and user experience fields.
Reductionism
Originally seen in Linked: The New Science of Networks
by Albert-László Barabási, May 2002
Peter Morville's recent (Dec 2002)article mentions: Our enemy is a dangerous meme known as reductionism. This devious adversary is spreading the notion that we can fully understand Web sites as a combination of simpler components, and that we can break the process of design into lots of quick steps and clearly defined deliverables.
Power Laws and Pareto's Principle (Bradford's Distribution)
Also mentioned in Barabási's "Linked" as well as by Marcia Bates as far back as 1998 or further? See her article: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_7/bates/
Recent threads within the community:
http://interconnected.org/home/2002_12_01_archive.shtml#90024692
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/archives/000336.html#000336