Visual Design IA vs. Information Design IA

Information Architecture (IA) is a niche area of the information world, but also within UX. After a number of conversations at work, I feel like it is broken down into 2 different categories, with most people understanding it as the first type.

1 (One) Uno - Visual Design IA

People who are mostly involved in website design and visual design talk about information architecture as the layout of the information on a website. Where do things go? How do people read it? I have heard it called the information hierarchy on a specific page. It is mostly about structuring the information visually so users can understand it.

I find that this type of IA has a HEAVY use of lorem ipsum, which is antithetical to the way I like to work, and also means a lot of wireframing. It can also start to lean towards site maps and organizing all of a website.

2 (Two) Dos

For me, IA is really about the information design; the fundamental understanding of what is being presented, who the user is, and what their behavior is so that it can all exist in tandem. Once this understanding exists, it can be a foundation and contribute to IA-1. But, most times IA-1 is done in isolation, and it loses out on the depth, richness, and realness of what what IA truly is to me: the information itself, the user that wants it, and the applicable information behavior. (See: 5 Laws of Information)

This type of IA also gets into a lot of depth, such as: taxonomies, algorithms, metadata, organization etc., but it does not have to. That is on the very advanced side of things.

There is some middle ground though, where these 2 types of IA need to work together and align, and I think that is important.

Also, let me be clear, I think both of these types of IA are important, but I see too much of IA-1 without IA-2, which makes the work of IA-1 worthless in a lot of cases.