One of the dirty little secrets about being an information architect is that most of us only bat .500 at best. We labor and agonize over making recommendations and designing information architectures that are supposed to change the world, but many of our designs never see the light of day. Rather than moan about why my designs were not implemented, I want to share my story.
Continue readingFrom an information architecture perspective, a daily web publication presents challenges and possibilities no newspaper editor ever had to face. As one of the longest-running daily publications on the web, Slate has dealt with these issues for years.
Continue readingIt doesn’t replace information architecture. And it’s really not a school or brand of information architecture. Findability is about recognizing that we live in a multi-dimensional world, and deciding to explore new facets that cut across traditional boundaries.
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Designers can empower people to make confident decisions. Empowerment goes beyond just basic functionality: we help people meet their needs and gain a sense of fulfillment and knowledge through their interactions with screens, products, and services. Empowerment is the sense of confidence people gain by making decisions and feeling good about the decisions they make. Our users take that feeling into other interactions as well. Empowerment is at the core of trust, too. Today, cynicism undermines trust in the media,
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You’ve been there before. You thought you could trust someone with a secret. You thought it would be safe, but found out later that they blabbed to everyone. Or, maybe they didn’t share it, but the way they used it felt manipulative. You gave more than you got and it didn’t feel fair. But now that it’s out there, do you even have control anymore? Ok. Now imagine that person was your supermarket. Or your doctor. Or your boss.
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