information architecture: value proposition of our approach

Confident in Our Value Proposition

Kaarin HoffIA, The Understanding Group

@kaarinh @undrstndng

Information Everywhere, Architects Everywhere.“ ”

Everyone architects information, but everyone is not an information

architect. There is a mentality

difference.

What I mean when I say “information architect”

Photo credit: https://coronalabs.com/dilbert/

Engineer is an identity, a way of approaching the world,an affinity your friends and neighbors won’t let you forget.

Why can’t you just build it?

Why don’t you just know the right answer?

How many solutions could there possibly be?

Why can’t you just build it?

Why don’t you just know the right answer?

How many solutions could there possibly be?

IA isn’t about having the right answers; it’s about having the right approach that gets you to the right answers.

Figure out the WHAT

Before determining HOW

Pace Layers

Pace Layers

Example

Application

Tools

Best Practices

Approach

Approach

Photo credit: http://blog.buildllc.com/2010/05/cardboard-forts-a-critical-analysis-part-1/Photo credit: Scott Leslie, alan_levine_and_kids2 (creative commons)

Backyard Fort

• Users• Stakeholders• Tools

• Time constraints • Risks• Budget

Exposing the Parts: Fort

Deciding Together: Fort

Deciding Together: Fort

Exposing the Parts: Digital Example

Exposing the Parts: Digital Example

Determining the System: Fort weights and dependencies

Deciding Together: Fort

Deciding Together: Fort

Determining the System: Digital Example

Determining the System: Fort

Determining the System: Digital Example

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its ConsequencesBy Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star

“Each category valorizes some point of view and silences another.”

Meaning is negotiated

Deciding Together: Fort

Deciding Together: Digital Example

Great final products

Great final products

Childcare

Childcare

Childcare Meaning is negotiated

Thank you for listening!

Kaarin HoffIA, The Understanding Group

@kaarinh @undrstndng

When is this Toolkit needed?

Snow fort: http://www.stonehurstmanor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/snow-fort.jpgBusiness fort: http://www.childrensdiscoverymuseum.net/exhibits/photo-gallery/luckey-climber/

Clifford GeertzAmerican Symbolic Anthropologist

“Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs and the analysis of it to be not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”