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The FAQ of IA

Donna Spencer
October 30, 2015

The FAQ of IA

In this presentation, Donna will talk about the questions that she's been asked over and over again in her 15 years of information architecture work. And she won’t only talk about the questions...she'll answer them too!

Information architecture work is full of counterintuitive ideas and outcomes that can't be predicted ahead of time.

Amongst other things, she'll introduce and answer these questions.

"Is it OK to put things in more than one place?"
"Why can't we just arrange it according to our audiences?"
"Can't we just put a map on the page and use that?"
"Why do we need to do this? Doesn't everyone just search?"
"Can't we design the site and then pour the IA in afterwards?"
"Why do you need to spend so much time looking at the content?"
"But in the card sort, users said they wanted 14 categories..."

And her personal favourite: "Can't we just write some FAQs?"

Donna Spencer

October 30, 2015
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Transcript

  1. Roll, honour, award Reports of proceedings Collection search CONFLICT Equipment

    type War diary Collection search Collection search Collection search Collection search Collection search BATTLE HONOUR UNIT PERSON PLACE EVENT EQUIPMENT
  2. … use search People search for known item tasks: People

    browse/navigate for unknown item tasks: they know what they are looking for they aren’t sure what they are looking for they have a word to describe it they don’t know what to call it they know when they’ve found it they aren’t sure when they are done