Great Architecture is Invisible

The human brain is an incredible thing - it processes so much information that it's a wonder we're able to actually accomplish anything. A lot of the efficiencies of the brain are due to shortcuts. These shortcuts manifest in a variety of ways, and if you're aware of them you can exploit them for fun and profit. I love a good illusionist performance, they're generally based on exploiting the way our brains are wired to keep our attention exactly where the illusionist needs it to be.

So what does that have to do with Architecture? Let me illustrate with an example from the real world.

Whenever I'm at a well designed airport, I'm always stuck by how smoothly traffic flows. The local airport here has a single set of doors that you go through to leave the secured area after getting off your plane. If you were to go through those doors accidentally when you mean to board a plane, you'd have to clear security again, and undoubtedly you'd be annoyed. After clearing security, the building is designed to subtly redirect travellers to turn their backs to that set of doors. Unless you're looking for them, you'll never even realize those doors are there. Conversely, when you've just arrived on a plane, you're not likely to mistakenly go to the security stations accidentally either.

The Architects of this building exploited line of sight and a well placed wall to accomplish their task. The people who are helped by this deliberate design choice generally don't even notice it's happened. The architecture is invisible, but it's doing it's job.

How does that translate to Enterprise Architecture? A lot of failed EA tries to make itself too visible - as if to justify their importance. My preferred approach is to nudge the consumers and producers of the architecture in the right direction early. Create an environment where the right decisions are the easy decisions. Unlike salmon, people would prefer to swim downstream than upstream.

The real key to this though, is it takes deliberate thought and design. You have to think about where to direct people's attention before they even know it's happening. You need to make sure you identify where to want to steer things well ahead of time. Make people's lives easier, remove cognitive load from them. If you can manage it, you'll have a much more stable and coherent system at your disposal.

Of course the danger if you do it too well is that it might seem like you're not providing any value at all. You need to make sure to highlight the way you've guided people's attention to your sponsors. Think of it like a magician explaining his trick to only part of the audience.

Any thoughts on how to do invisible architecture? Let me know what you think.