Links on Information Architecture

What is the Deep-Dive Brainstorming technique?

Deep-Dive™ is the name of a technique used to rapidly immerse a group or team into a situation for problem solving or idea creation. This approach is often used for brainstorming product or process development.

Originally developed by the IDEO group (a learning design company) for rapid product development, the Deep-Dive technique is now widely and increasingly used for innovation not only in product development, but process improvement and customer service strategies. The method used by IDEO was documented by Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer (of International Institute of Management Development (IMD) business school), who latterly further enhanced the process and sold the rights to Deloitte Consulting in 2006.

What is the Deep-Dive Brainstorming technique?

Posted in Information Architecture, Interaction Design, UCD, UX and Digital Strategy, User Experience | Post a comment.

Five Myths about Taxonomy and SharePoint

Many organizations are finding that leveraging the full suite of capabilities SharePoint offers requires introduction of a new requirement – that of dealing with, managing and exploiting taxonomies. Of course taxonomies are not new, but there is some confusion about where managed metadata services and the term store end and true taxonomy management begins.

There are also some misconceptions about the process of deriving and applying taxonomies in SharePoint. The following are five areas of confusion that we have seen in our engagements and research.

  • Myth 1: SharePoint now has taxonomy management
  • Myth 2: Taxonomy is used as metadata and metadata is an IT problem. Therefore taxonomy is best left to the project’s technical resources
  • Myth 3: Librarians are the best people to handle SharePoint taxonomies
  • Myth 4: SharePoint taxonomies need to be comprehensive and finely grained
  • Myth 5: Taxonomies managed in the in the term store can be used everywhere in the SharePoint application

Five Myths about Taxonomy and SharePoint

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Sketchnote Army- a Sketchnotes Showcase

Sketchnote Army is dedicated to finding and showcasing sketchnotes and sketchnoters from around the world- from events, conferences, workshops or wherever sketchnotes are captured or created. If you want your sketchnotes to be featured there, you can send your sketchnotes URL and info to the webmaster.

Sketchnote Army

Posted in Diagramming, Information Architecture, Information Visualization, Interaction Design, User Experience, User Research | Tagged , , | Post a comment.

High Paying Jobs in User Experience Design

Here are top paying jobs for Information Architecture, Usability, and UX practitioners plus reasons to explore each for your user experience design career - and bank your account. (Salary figures based on Indeed.com and GlassDoor.com data)

  • User experience strategist: $67,000 to $135,000
  • Usability analyst: $81,000 on an average
  • User interface designer: $84,000 to $155,000
  • Interaction designer: $91,000 on an average
  • Interaction designer: $91,000 on an average
  • Information architect: $104,000 on an average

High paying jobs in User Experience design

Posted in Information Architecture, Interaction Design, UCD, Usability Engineering, User Experience | Post a comment.

Manager’s guidebook on intranet redesign projects

The intranet manager is one of the most important people in an intranet design project. Many times the effort that goes into such a project is on the same level as that of a major organizational change initiative. It is therefore important that the manager is thoroughly prepared for the journey. If you are managing your first redesign project or are new to intranets or just love intranets then we have the resource to get you started: Manager’s guidebook to intranet design projects.

This 64-page guidebook takes you through eight stages of a typical intranet design project. Each stage has many activities that go under it. The activities described and insights included are those gathered over the years by PebbleRoad.

Manager’s guidebook on intranet redesign projects

Disclosure: I work for the company that released the ebook. Of course, it’s included here because it I think it deserves to be here.

Posted in Information Architecture, Interaction Design, UCD, UX and Digital Strategy, User Research | Post a comment.

Designing site structures for intranets and websites

A good site structure makes users happy. They can easily find, understand and use the information on your site. For the business, this makes all the difference. In this article, Maish takes you through principles behind good site structures and describe a methodology for creating site structures.

Table of Contents

  1. What is a site structure?
  2. What can go wrong with a poorly-designed site structure?
  3. A bit about organizing information
  4. 7 Site structure design principles
  5. Site structure design methodology
  6. Conclusion

Designing site structures for intranets and websites

Disclosure: I work for the company that wrote this article. Of course, I have included it because it is a great article and only for that reason.

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The Space of Design

Models of the process of design are relatively common. Each describes a sequence of steps required to design something—or at least the steps that designers report or recommend taking. Models of the process of design are common because designers often need to explain what they do (or want to do) so that clients, colleagues, and students can understand.

Less common are models of the domain of design—models describing the scope or nature of practice, research, or teaching. Such models may be useful for locating individual processes, projects, or approaches and comparing them to others. Such models also help clients, colleagues, and students understand alternatives and agree on where they are (or want to be) within a space of possibilities.

Typically models of a domain are of three types:

  1. Timelines
    • Lists of events from the domain’s history
    • Links between events suggesting influences
  2. Taxonomies
    • Lists of sub-domains
    • Trees branching into categories and sub-categories and so on
  3. Spaces
    • Venn diagrams indicating overlapping categories
    • Matrices defining the dimensions of a space of possibilities or area of potential

The Space of Design

Posted in Creative design, Information Architecture, Information Visualization, Interaction Design | Post a comment.

Social Spaces: Lessons from Radical Architects

While Information Architecture took its name from architecture, it took very little else. This is not surprising, as the early days of the web were about making sites that supported the interaction between people and data. The obvious model back then was a library; a library is a space for humans to receive knowledge. But with the rise of social networks, and the integration of community into almost all online experiences, more architecture practices are directly transferable to design. Online spaces are no longer just about findability, but about falling in love, getting your work done, goofing around, reconnecting with old friends, staving off loneliness… humans doing human things.

Posted in Information Architecture, Social Media | Post a comment.

A UX process diagram

A UX process diagram that maps software development life cycle (SDLC) and user centered design (UCD) activities together.

A UX Process diagram

Posted in Information Architecture, UCD, User Research | Post a comment.

In Defense of Lorem Ipsum

If you’re running a project where you mock up designs, get them approved, code them up, build a CMS, hook it all together, and then everyone looks around and says “Who’s got the content? Wait, this content doesn’t match the designs and it won’t fit in the CMS!” then you have a problem. A big problem.

Lorem Ipsum is not the cause of your problem. It’s a symptom. The real problem is an overall process that treats design and content as separate tracks without appropriate communication, collaboration, and checkpoints along the way.

In Defense of Lorem Ipsum

Posted in Content Strategy, Information Architecture, Interaction Design | Post a comment.