Abby Covert at UXLX

Notes from Abby Covert talk on Information Architecture.mdown

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📺 Information Architecture for Everybody 🔗

Information Architecture

The way we organize information in order to make sense of it.

Critical Components of IA

1. Ontology - what do we mean, when we say what we say?

• Meaning is subjective, demographic, socio-political,
• The act of choosing a language thats to be used, or not used, in a specific context
• Facebook, mcdonalds
• Words We Don't Say - NY Times

the language we use to describe the pieces, the way we talk about the things changes the interfaces that we eventually make

• uncontrolled vocabulary increases linguistic insecurity

2. Taxonomy

• the way we connect the words we pick to the structure

there are only five ways to organize anything — Richard Saul Werman It takes knowledge to know that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom to know not to put it in a fruit salad

3. Choreography - what you intend for users to do

• understanding our world across context and channel
• instagram - can't upload on ig.com, medium - can't edit on mobile

Warnings:

1. Information Architecture always exists

• not a feature, its the backbone
• if you dont consider IA, it considers itself

2. IA is not just for information architects

• we are all, already doing this, with varying degrees of success

3. if you make anything, you're already architecting information

• let's get better