Interview with Martin Belam: Part 1 - Internet and intranet navigation trends

 by Martin Belam, 13 August 2009

I was recently interviewed by Ben Veasey, who was carrying out research for his 'Library & Information studies' degree at UCL. His dissertation is on British newspaper libraries, and he wanted to ask me about my role as information architect at The Guardian, and how it reflected changes that had taken place as the digital era of news delivery had arrived.

I've also learnt from a master blogger, and know that if you are going to spend the time answering questions for a student like this, it can be worth publishing your responses on your site. On this occasion, it also seemed like a good chance to try out my new Flip camcorder, and so I persuaded Ben to film the interview.

Now, having worked for years at a major broadcaster, you'd think I'd have absorbed some lessons about how to produce good quality film clips. Instead, here is me in a very noisy Guardian canteen, against the moving back-drop of a window facing one of London's canals.

The first clip is my response to this question from Ben.

"How have the trends in the navigation of intranet and internet sites changed?"

Next...

In tomorrow's clip, I'll be answering a question about how perceptions of Information Architecture as a discipline have changed over time.

2 Comments

That is some great camera work!

Great responses Martin. Thanks for your help!

The internet has changed allot since google appeared. I still see some old websites floating around the top areas of google. Tabled websites. Most of the designs are pretty basic, centered table with a 5px border around everything, but it still has quality content. Twitter is a spam zone and so is most social bookmarking sites. The last time i used an intranet was in college.

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