Donna Spencer 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?"

1. The FAQ of IA

2. Who am I?

5. Today…

6. 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

7. Why can’t we just…

8. ..arrange it by
audience

12. …arrange it by audience

13. …arrange it by
format

18. …pour the IA in
later

20. …pour the IA in later

21. … use search

22. … 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

25. … the influence of Google,
and on-site search

26. …order it by
alphabet

27. …order it by alphabet

29. “I wish it was by alphabet”

30. Other illogical ‘best
practices’

31. Everything in 3
clicks

33. 7+-2 links in
navigation

39. abstract is harder
than concrete

41. Content in one
place only

44. Avoid jargon

46. Avoid jargon

47. Running a card
sort

50. Why can’t we just…

51. …use a FAQ

56. it really does
depend…
Thanks :) you can find me @maadonna, or maadmob.com.au