Notes from IA Summit 2017
Last month, I traveled to Vancouver, BC, Canada to speak at the Information Architects Summit, and it was a truly blessed experienced. I met hundreds of new people that all brought wonderful insight, conversations, and ideas. I will share the video ones it goes live.
Presenting at IA Summit 2017
This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote for my work.
Humanity is the center of design.
“Design for humans” sounds like an obvious statement, but there’s plenty to unpack there. Because design is only as “good” as it is functional. Otherwise, it’s not design; it’s art.
When it comes to designing products—e.g., websites—for an increasingly digitized world, designers often lose sight of the end purpose. Many designs are aesthetically pleasing but don’t consider how they are going to be used by actual humans. Design is most successful when it serves humanity.
Taxonomy is important.
Taxonomy is the process of categorizing data and content—of structuring stuff in a way that makes sense, is helpful, and which serves the overall goals of the organization providing the content.
And I admit, information architects are sometimes guilty of underestimating the importance of taxonomy.
Taxonomy is the foundation that guides the architecture, which, in turn, guides the rest of the design. Taxonomy is definitely not glamorous. Done well, it’s barely even noticed. But it’s critical to the success of the user experience. Taxonomy provides the invisible links that make or break a website.
