Making Sense of Place (MidwestUX 2013 Keynote)

Making Sense of Place

by @Abby_the_IA

Information Architecture (IA)is a practice of making sense

Skeletons in My closet

(sorry Andrea resmini)

• I cut placemaking from my Parsons IA class last year because I worried it was over their heads

• Until last year, I had never discussed placemaking with my clients for the same reason

“If you can’t say something that is clear, don’t say anything at all”

- Me

Why talking about Place is so unclear

Sense of place is wrapped up

in the metaphors of

our daily lives

“There is no there, there.”

- Gertrude Stein

How do we discuss place

without sounding like

a hippie?

How do we make sense of the places we work on and

within?

on Today’s Agenda: Make sense of “Place”

1. Share how I *now* teach the considerations for place in my Information Architecture classes

2. Provide a framework for thinking about and talking about the places we affect with our work

3. Ask for your help in convincing businesses and organizations that place is an important consideration set to have, especially in digital work

Meet my students

5 ways that organizations Can act like art students

1. Not good at setting meaningful goals and sticking to them

2. Don't want to talk about the problem, they want to solve it

3. Think scope grows on trees, even though they know money doesn't

4. Fail to understand how one decision can affect the whole ecosystem maybe even the world

5. Expect a ton from digital but are willing to do very little towards that end

2004 2013Users are interacting with our designs

in more places everyday

Consideration of place is more important in our work now then ever before.

People prefer

The easy road

There is More than one wayto Design a cafe (or app or site or event or)

There is discovery

involved in finding the right way to solve a problem

12 a month

Spoons Lost

12 a month

144 a year

Spoons Lost

12 a month

144 a year

576 since 2009

Spoons Lost

“Move the $#% Spoons”

- Your mom

Moving the spoons could make things

worse

Common Failures in digital placeMaking

• Adding signs to point out things that people don't see or don’t understand

• Providing functionality that is confusing or leads to results that are out of line with what they want of their customers

• Trying the same tactics for solving a problem over and over and being surprised when it still doesn't work

• Designing user experiences that aren't considerate of those who work there

• Not seeing the problem with this disconnected and out of whack way of thinking

What is Placemaking?

What is Your Place?

• What places are within your control? • Who controls the places that your places are within or connected to?• What places are likely to be affected directly? Which places indirectly? • What considerations need to be part of your process for affecting these

places?

Objects aid us in discourse

Stills from the Eames classic film “Powers of 10”

“Since our technical systems are wholly mixed up with our natural systems, that creates additional levels of complexity. In order to design within these confounding contexts, we need to be able to scale up and scale down as we design: to consider both the granularity of the things we are designing as well as the much larger contexts within which they exist.”

“The Eames have simply illustrated the conundrum; it is our responsibility to figure out what to do next.”

- Jamer Hunt, Director of Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons the New School for Design

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662461/how-to-apply-eamess-legendary-powers-of-10-to-real-life-problems



it is far too common to focus on the spoon &

ignore the coffee shop

We need a controlled vocabulary and

taxonomic Approach for discussing “Place”

Ecosystem > System > Structure > Journey > Location > Context > User > Interface > Interaction > Object

Ecosystem

A complex collection of systems

“A large pharmaceutical organization”


System

A set of interacting structures

“Providing Information to Patients”


Structure

A configuration of objects

“Patient Website”


Journey

Traveling within or between locations

“Explore Website”


Location

A particular position

“Request Information”


Context

circumstances that form the setting for an interaction

“Using an iPad to view a website while making list of action steps to take”


User

a person who interacts with an object

“Anxious, newly prescribed, already confused”


Interface

a point where interaction occurs between user and object

“Request Information Form”


Interaction

the way in which user and object affect one another

“Clicking a button”


Object

Something that can be seen and touched

“a button”

Questions we should be asking...

How affecting is the work you do on other places in

the ecosystem?

What are the systems you are working within?

What structures are needed to support each part of that

system?

What journeys might a user take through

each structure?

What locations might users encounter on each journey?

What contexts might users find themselves in when

within each location?

What do users expect of each

location?

What interface best supports the intended interactions with each

object within each location?

Help us all by Facilitating the

Understanding of the levels between the

object and the ecosystem

Level Appropriate Framework

Ecosystem = Controlled Vocabulary, Venn Diagram

System = Swim Lane Diagram, Gantt Charts

Structure = Hierarchy Maps, Site Map

Journey = Journey Maps

Location = Flow Diagrams, Block Diagrams

Context = Scenarios

User = Personas

Interface = Wireframes, Schematics

Interaction = Specifications

Object = Screens, Templates, Style Guides

Explain the role of your frameworksand tools

Ecosystem = Controlled Vocabulary, Org Chart

System = System Diagram

Structure = Site Map

Journey = Journey Maps

Location = Flow Diagrams

Context = Scenarios

User = Personas

Interface = Wireframes

Interaction = Specifications

Object = Visually Designed Screens

Ask:“who is

tending to the other levels?”

If you forget everything

else....

5 Lessons in Place-making

1. People prefer the easy road, watch for worn grass.

2. There are many ways to do anything and discovery involved in finding the right ways

3. Low-level decisions can have high-level consequences

4. Know your place, and the levels above and below

5. Affect what you can, respect what you can’t

One more thing...

How you do anything is how you do everything

Make sure the places that you

make aren't just full of passive

aggressive signs

Thanks

@Abby_The_IA | AbbytheIA.com

(deck will be at: slideshare.com/abbycovert shortly)

Making Sense of Place (MidwestUX 2013 Keynote)

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Transcript of Making Sense of Place (MidwestUX 2013 Keynote)