Tag Archives: information architecture

IUE2009: Thursday’s tracks

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Okay, that was a great conference.

The last day was built on parallel tracks of presentations, most were about an hour-long. I’m only going to write about 3 of the ones I attended.

  1. Now That I See It, Dan Klyn, Flannel
  2. In-House Recruiting, Cora Bledsoe, Quicken Loans
  3. Grown-Ups Guide to the Social World of Web 2.0, Jan Welborn-Nichols, Market Arts Creative

Now That I See It

Dan Klyn’s talk was enthusiastic and thoughtful. He asked the question about information architecture, is there more we can learn from “regular old” architects? Of course, the answer is yes.

One idea he garnered from architecture is the spectrum of architecture work. Which level should it meet?

  1. Shelter
  2. Comfort
  3. Convenience
  4. Prestige

Ask that about any Web project. What an excellent model for thinking about the aims of a project! Associated with each is the level of customization, the speed of delivery, and the reliance on established patterns of use. E.g., for many sites that need comfort or convenience, building a site using WordPress (or another blog CMS) would be fine. However, if you need certain convenience or prestige, more custom approaches/implementation of information architecture may be needed. An out-of-the-box CMS may not be able to reach that level of work.

I suspect most of us make these strategic calls at the early stages of projects, but I found this spectrum of shelter to prestige to provide a nice frame.

Dan also talked about some discussions he’s had with Richard Saul Wurman, who wrote a book a published in 1997 with “Information Architects” as the title. I’ve not read the book, but been aware of Wurman by references from a number of authors in the IA field. My general take is that he pushed thoughts on the topic forward, but that the book was focused more on what today we call information design. Funny, I’ve watched a number of TED presentations, but had no idea that Wurman was behind that project.

It’s been so long since I’ve been in a room with other information architects. I love IAs.

Dan is working on a book called “Now That I See It.” I’m looking forward to seeing it!

In-House Recruiting

Cora presented one of the most immediately applicable ideas of the conference. In short, it is the idea to create a place for people interested in participating in user research to gather, so that when Quicken Loans needs to recruit participants, they have an existing pool of possible participants to pull from. See a core part of the answer at feedbackcentral.quickenloans.com.

Awesome idea. Perhaps we’ll do this at work.

Grown-Ups Guide to the Social World of Web 2.0

Jan presented a fast-paced survey of many Web 2.0 sites out there, and gave her review of many of them. She shared many recommendations on making the most of each one. Her talk was great and entertaining…and I need to get to work. Read LOTS more about her talk at Zach’s blog, and visit her company’s site at market-arts.com.

Zen rock gardens, accessibility, information architecture

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I was walking into work this morning, thinking about 1st, 2nd, 3rd orders of order (“Everything is Miscellaneous” by Weinberger) and came across a frozen pond. The pond is shaped like a teardrop and has three clumps of grass growing from it. As I considered the space between the clumps of grass, it reminded me of a Zen rock garden, with fine white gravel raked into patterns and larger rocks placed within.

I had a brief conversation yesterday afternoon about a website whose scope drastically changed. Instead of considering an audience of a few hundred people and serving about a dozen stakeholders, it may now serve tens of thousands of people, and our definition of who is a stakeholder sort of went out the window.

It is too late to reign it in.

We have an initial launch of mid-April, and we will only deliver a very small portion of what this site may become.

Organic does not mean irresponsible

The person I was conversing with heard my concern at what this change means for the information architecture of the site, and responded that we can’t know where this will go, and it will simply have to grow organically. I agreed, but asserted that we can still try to imagine what the site will look like in the future.

The word “organic” is sometimes a euphemism for “I don’t know what will happen, so I give up. Let it be what it will be.”

Organic does not mean wild and untended. In a design sense, it seems to relate to an out-of-style phrase, “form follows function.” Farmers who grow organic crops still have furrows in their fields.

I pictured this website on the one hand as “organic” in the loose, wild and untended sense. I have seen information that has grown “organically” like this and it is very much like a field of weeds, unfit for harvest. Those of you who have done a content inventory of a site that hasn’t been reworked in years know what I’m talking about.

Utopia: IA as rock garden

On the other end, imagine an information architecture as ordered and spacious as a Zen rock garden: Beautiful to gaze upon, rich in hidden relationships, all in view at once, yet different depending on where you stand around it.

The accessibility connection: tactile rock garden for the blind

An aside, I was looking at picture of Zen rock gardens, and found this example of one that has an accompanying tactile rock garden for the blind. Scroll down to the “Ryoanji” heading.

Read: Everything is Miscellaneous by Weinberger

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I just finished “Everything is Miscellaneous” by David Weinberger.

Fantastic read for information architects! I found it thought-provoking, educational, and humorous. I find myself thinking more creatively about designing information in my work.

To honor the miscellany, I actually read through the Notes (references to sources used in each chapter), Acknowledgments, and the Index at the end of the book.

The link to the site for the book is http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/.

However, it appears that as of right now, there is a problem with WordPress’s database connection. (Come on, people.)

And, as a matter of tapping at the Web, I tried the https connection to the site, and found this slip showing:

This web site is in the process of being moved. Please check back later today. Please contact billo if you have questions about it. You know his phone number.