3
Our world is a mess...
4
...and getting more messy everyday.
Many people get overwhelmed when they encounter a mess.
They think of ways to hide the mess...
Or they think of ways to pretty up the mess...
New User tutorial to explain the
mess
Incentive structure for dealing with the mess
Fancy Front end fluffing
...but the mess is still a mess.
...all they have bought is time.
Until the mess grows(as all messes do when given time)
I LOVE MAKING SENSE OF MESSES.
The majority of messes we face are made of information (and people)
Thinking about INFORMATIONas material is hard
Information can be made from the lack of physical material
$3.99 $7.99 $5.75
What you know changes the information you are left with.
• Data is facts, observations, and questions about something.
• Content is whatever a user is interacting with, or as a maker, whatever you’re arranging or sequencing.
• Information is is whatever a user interprets from the arrangement or sequence of things they encounter.
Information ≠ Content or Data
ContextConte
nt
Information architecture is how we arrange the parts to be
understandable as a whole.
3 LESSONSTO MAKE SENSE OF ANYTHING
#1 LANGUAGE MATTERS
Apple
Dumptruck
Jargon
Banana
??!?!
Word
How manyduplicative nounsdoes your team deal with?
How manyduplicative verbsare related to those nouns?
Model Change vs. Label Change
Thing A
Thing B
Thing
OBJECTObject
One label per noun or verbis not always the best way to go
The goal is not simplifyingThe goal is to know what you mean
when you say what you say.
Controlled vocabulariesare the greatest thing since sliced bread or pockets.
@jcolman’s thumb showing off my book’s controlled vocabulary
https://pages.18f.gov/content-guide/plain-language/
• Identify & Define Nouns First
• Identify Nested Nouns
• Eliminate Duplicative Nouns
• Attach Verbs to Nouns
• Beware of Adjectives
How to Get Started with a Controlled Vocabulary
Be the one to slay the semantic dragons in your
organization.
#2 THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY
There are only 5 ways to organize anything1. Location: Rome is a city in Italy2. Alphabetical: Rome starts with “R”3. Time: Rome started in 753 BC4. Category: Rome is a Romantic city5. Hierarchy: Rome is within Italy, which is within Europe,
which is within the Eastern and Northern Hemisphere
*HTRichardSaulWurman-Informa6onAnxiety2
Organizing things isn't the hard part
Agreeing is the hard part
In most contexts, taxonomy is a tool of rhetoric not an exact science.
(Sorry Linnaeus)
If Fresh Direct classified produce scientifically, no one would be able to find anything.
In the 19th century, the US Supreme Court decided that for the purpose of tariffs, tomatoes are a vegetable.
Taxonomy is RhetoricThe way you choose to organize your produce says something about you.
There is no one right way to organize something.
The only thing that matters is reaching your goals.
Beware of corporate underpants.
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Users are often confused when our internal categories end up in our
navigation taxonomies.
Card Sorting FTW
Be the one to show an alternative way of
organizing something.
#3 WE NEED PICTURES
Pictures give us something in common to point to.
Take the time and space needed to collect and iterate.
Visualize something hard to explain
Inspire Realistic, Not Simplistic Thinking
Pie
Crust
TomatoSauce & cheese
Toppings
Slice
Be Careful of Reductionism
Show the process, not just results
Pizza
Crust
cheese
Toppings
TomatoSauce
FamiliarWords
With agreement comes momentum.
Be the one to make a picture of the monster in
everyone’s head.
• Slay the semantic dragons in your organization
• Show an alternative way of organizing something
• Make a picture of the monster in everyone’s head
To start making sense of your mess:
IA is not just for information architects.IA is practiced by everybody.
ps. I wrote a book about information architecture for everybody!http://abbytheia.com/makesense/
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