The City is not a sitemap*

by Gordon Ross on Feb 13, 2012

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What is a city? How is it organized? How do we make sense of the city? Join OpenRoad VP Gordon Ross as he covers some of the challenges faced in attempting to design information architectures for civic websites. Based on his research for the City of Vancouver's web redesign project, Gordon will share observations, conclusions, and IA design implications. In contemplating the task of civic IA, Gordon seeks to describe the limits of our abilities as designers to classify and categorize and invites IA's and designers to look for new methods and inspiration to reflect the richness and complexity of the real world in our designs. (*with apologies to Christopher Alexander)

This talk was given at the IA Institute's World IA Day 2012 in Vancouver, Canada. @WIAD_Vancouver / #WIAD

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The City is not a sitemap* — Presentation Transcript

The City is not a Site Map*World IA Day 2012 – VancouverGordon RossVice President, OpenRoademail / gordonr@openroad.catwitter / @gordonr *with apologies to Christopher Alexander

Why is this a problem?

Richard Nisbett

LATCHLocationAlphabetTimeCategoryHierarchy Richard Saul Wurman

LATCHLocationAlphabetTimeCategoryHierarchy Richard Saul Wurman Ambiguous classification schemes

Resident Business Visitor

Who am I?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?Based on who the City thinks Iam, where would they put whatI’m looking for?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?Based on who the City thinks Iam, where would they put whatI’m looking for?Uh… what am I doing again?

1. What are you trying to accomplish today?2. Why? Can you explain that further?

Man, there’s no pleasing this Gord guy…#civicIAsucks #WIAD

city of Vancouver City of Vancouver

What is a city?

Lewis Mumford

• Geographic plexus• Economic organization• Institutional process• Theatre of social action• Aesthetic symbol of collective unity

Small c city of Vancouver = thatwhich is in focus for most of thecitizens, most of the timeBig C City of Vancouver = thatwhich they come into contact with,but might not even realize it

Our City IA Manifesto

Everybodys last stop,refuge,terminus,lotus land,Shangri-la,Canaan,utopia.Paradise colonized.Babylon unbound.Wayde ComptonPerformance Bond map of Vancouver: Charles Demers, Vancouver Special

Design Implications

From City A to Z, Pile & Thrift, 2000

• Categories • Transparency/Translucency• Time • Visibility / Invisibility• Geography (Space) • Jurisdictional Boundaries• Personal Geography (Place) • Seasons• Maps • Voluntary/Mandatory• Conflict • Language• Demand • Channel Preference • Engagement

Jurisdictional Boundariesobservation Different levels of government are responsible for different aspects of our everyday lives. It is often not clear who is responsible for what. Citizens are interested in who is responsible inconclusion order to seek action and resolution to a particular issue. They have a problem that needs resolution and want to find out who to contact.design The seemingly arbitrary by-products of the designimplication of government need to be clearly communicated to the citizen user, even if the responsibility for the service is not entirely that of the City’s. Examples of jurisdictional boundaries that affect citizens include transportation (City owns streets, TransLink runs the buses); animal control (stray dogs are City, stray cats are BCSPCA); and water (pipes are City, water itself is Metro Vancouver).

The Process of Design Squiggleby Damien Newman, Central Office of Design(Creative Commons - CC BY-ND 3.0 )

Happy World IA Day

We’re OpenRoadWe’re always looking for interestingnew projectsWe’re hiring IA / UX / ID talentWe’d like to meet you I’m Gordon Ross, Vice President & Partner at OpenRoad. Email me at gordonr@openroad.ca or follow me on twitter at @gordonr Find out more about OpenRoad at http://www.openroad.ca

The City is not a sitemap*

by Gordon Ross on Feb 13, 2012

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The City is not a sitemap* — Presentation Transcript