Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Straight from the Horse's Mouth with Livia Labate and Austin Govella

Changing the Channel

by Christina Wodtke and  Bill Wetherell on 2007/06/05 | [4 Comments]

Christina Wodtke traveled with microphone to the IA Summit in Las Vegas this year and sat down with some of the most interesting and accomplished information archictects and designers in all the land. Bill Wetherell recorded those five conversations, and now B&A is proud to bring them to you. Thanks to AOL for sponsoring these podcasts.

Christina talks with Livia Labate and Austin Govella about the UX practice in Comcast and how they have created an environment where they are treated as colleagues rather than a service organization.

We discuss…

Big IA vs. Little IA
Livia describes “Little IA” as the bottom-up approach to projects looking at the structure and organization of content. While “Big IA” is about acquiring user and business needs and then converging these, taking content and structure into account.

Defining the damn thing
Does the role define the person or does the person define the role? Austin believes that job titles are not relevant any more. What matters is learning from other professionals to improve upon a product or create a new solution to an old problem.

Ying Yang
The need for “specialization” and the need for “collaboration” in business is a big challenge. These two important yet distinct elements are rarely looked at in harmony.

What is IA all about…besides “herding cats?”
Livia defines this process through their mission statement: “Balancing user needs and business goals to create a framework in creating positive user experience”. This helps them define the boundaries of Information Architecture.

Looking through the Looking Glass
Austin suggests reading business publications thereby changing the words you use to sell ideas to different members of the corporation. Dress code also impacts the kinds of conversations you have with the client. Know who you are presenting too, and dress the part.

Describing Value
Austin discusses the importance of talking to business leaders about design choices in their own language. For example, “this move will decrease our acquisition rate”...”decrease our ability to convert people”...”decrease our referrals.” In essence, know your audience and speak their language.

Secrets to Success
Christina sums up this conversation beautifully, ”...learn the language, lose the agenda, be a resource, and dress better!”