Where did the IA go? Donna Spencer, Maadmob @maadonna

My IA journey

My IA journey • Started in 1999 • Involved with IA Summit/Conference 2004-2020 • Freelance/consultant with IA focus since 2002 • Government, higher education, e-commerce work • 2 books • Card sorting: Designing usable categories • A practical guide to information architecture • I’m still doing IA work!

I’ve watched IA change over 20 years

IA was •Structure for content •Categorisation •Navigation •Flow/paths •Language and labelling

Roles have changed Usability Information architect User experience designer Service designer, product designer Content strategist, content designer

Work structure has changed Independent / agencies In house

More role specialisation Generalists Specialists

Learning changed Self-taught, conferences Bootcamps

Agile arrived Variety of project structures Agile

Projects changed Content heavy websites, intranets Apps

Resources changed Start from scratch Design and pattern libraries

AI and machine learning arrived Manually-created categories Algorithms and big data

Do we still need IA?

IA now •Structure for content •Categorisation •Navigation •Flow/paths •Language and labelling •IA in pattern libraries •Modelling •Project data strategy •Data science

IA in pattern libraries Make sure your pattern library has IA guidelines Add meaning to pattern libraries

Modelling Making sense of complexity Describing complex content or contexts Communicating it

Project data strategy Content acquisition Content structure Content relationships - Particularly for Agile projects

Data science Enhance algorithms with categorisation Transparency for personalisation and recommendations Locate bias in algorithms, and reduce it

Yes we still need IA It just looks different now But it’s much more interesting!

Thank you! •You can find me: • @maadonna • maadmob.com.au • linkedin.com/in/donna-spencer/ •I still do IA consulting, especially with data science teams •I can work remotely 