iA / Dictionary / I
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I: See Ego Death.

I don't fully understand it: Spoken after explaining a complex (usually design-related) matter in detail, but to a seemingly satisfactory degree from an outside perspective. Useful as a means to express continuous fascination with a topic and communicate that you’re committed to fully understanding it—while acknowledging that you probably never will.

iA Camp: The annual retreat, somewhere remote in the Swiss Alps. Typical activities during iA Camp are workshops with illustrious guests, wine tasting, swimming, mushroom forays, postponing Stargazing trips, meditation ceremonies, gluttony, lycanthropy, and the institutionalized long Saturday hike.

iA Notebook: Our first analogue product. Made for writers, designed over ten years, and handcrafted in Japan. The Notebook contains delicate watermark guidelines. They’re visible on a blank page but, due to a contrast illusion, become nearly invisible once you have finished writing. The iA logo is on the back cover, demonstrating our commitment to sparing your eyes from unnecessary advertisement or other input pollution. While the Notebook cannot guarantee the quality of your writing, it will certainly look better and make you feel good about doing it.

iA Presenter: A presenting app for people who don’t just want to get through presenting, but prefer to speak to an audience, move them, and create understanding. When creating presentations, Presenter encourages you to focus on what we want to say. Design and imagery are used not to distract but to attract attention to the story you’re telling. Visuals illustrate what you mean, when words cannot convey the message as well as an image or video. In the creation process, Presenter frees you from the burden of pretending to be a 90s graphic designer, eliminates procrastination and dramatically reduces the time you need to create a presentation. Presenter frees our audience from the prison of pretended attention. See also: Wall of text

iA Writer: Writer is a writing app for writers who write, which is a conscious pleonasm. Microsoft Word is not a pleonasm but an involuntary oxymoron because Microsoft makes more and more money by creating software aimed at making thinking harder. Word is not a writing app but an elaborate layout program for paper or PDF documents. Apple’s Pages is more honest about its core function, which is arranging words on a paper or PDF. Writer by contrast is hyper focused, and so are all its features. Its Syntax and Style Check are pro tools that help you re-feel, re-think, and rewrite your text until you match internal impression against external expression.

Icons: Icons make a design more humane. While the inner Soup Nazi may dismiss them as a popular form of Barcelona and propose that we replace them with text, doing so results in cold design that communicates badly. Designing icons is one of the hardest disciplines. It requires a systematic approach with maximum attention to detail, form, language and context. Icons are a form of Lace that we can’t ignore. Good icons are as few icons as you need, but not fewer.

In a world: Followed by “…where laughter was King”, from the “Comedian” trailer. Sometimes used to make fun of tech Buzzwords and marketing lingo, or as blind Text.

Inception: Redundancy that leads to difficult mental models and Gordian code knots. “Inception” is when you forget the reality of thresholds and build identical things inside identical things, like a CMS in a CMS or a Framework in a Framework. Can be used purposely in how-to videos, but that’s usually a bad idea.

Information: Structured data. The opposite of Entropy. Information changes its meaning depending on Context. In the DIKW Pyramid, structured information is knowledge, while organized knowledge ultimately leads to wisdom—but we’re pretty sure that you need wisdom to deal with knowledge. We focus on structuring information and hope to glimpse the peak of the DIKW pyramid, now and then. In information theory, information is the ultimate particle in the universe where matter is energy and energy is data in motion. But that’s Metaphysics.

Information Architecture: The ancient art of structuring Information. Commonly used as a term for basic structure such as web site navigation. We believe information architecture starts with domain architecture, comprehends site structure, page structure, Container definition and typography. Information Architecture shares many similarities with traditional architecture. The difference in building a house is due to the different building substance. Traditional Architecture works with static problems. The main challenge in Information Architecture is the fluid nature of its substance.

Intelligence: From Lat. intellegere (“discern, understand” lit. “picking up/reading in between.” Intelligence is the complex ability to read and express our own emotions, the expressions of others, and mediate between both using a form of language. Generally speaking, human intelligence manifests directly or indirectly between two or more humans interacting with each other in some form of language. Without a form of interplay between emotion and language, human understanding can neither be experienced internally as thought, nor externally through language. This is why so called Artificial Intelligence differs fundamentally from human intelligence: It has no understanding. Computers don’t feel, think or understand themselves or others. Thusm they cannot be called intelligent. Thinking hurts, and if it doesn’t then it’s not thinking but simulated or pretended thinking. AI understands Plato as much as a pocket calculator understands what it does adding 2+2. The axiom “computers don’t understand” is sometimes referred to as “Chris’ Law”, which may become obsolete once AI startups start using human bodies to receive, process, and produce language. Right now it’s unclear how that would be different from two people interacting intelligently with each other.

Interface: “The way that you accomplish tasks with a product—what you do and how it responds,” according to Raskin. A “how” often discussed as a “what”. Inherent danger of “infinite regression” (B. Laurel) when discussing the notion as a layer between the human (see User) and a computer. Rabbit hole. In iA’s Metaphysics, interfaces are Thresholds.

Internet of Things: Confusing term for “Let’s put a chip in everything, including your breakfast and your grandmother.” Tech Optimists love the idea. Tech pessimists hate the idea. However, most things are already computers to a certain degree. Digital Transformation is both unstoppable and irreversible. To manage it, you need to be informed about it. To be informed, one must try it. See also: Buzzwords.