Quietly, unbeknownst to us, developers have been teaching themselves to do information architecture. I say quietly, but they’re not being all that quiet about it. There are books, presentations, even entire conferences dedicated to it, and we had no idea, because they’re calling it something else: Domain Driven Design. This wildly popular software approach emphasizes matching technical design to the business and requires developers to create controlled vocabularies, model the flow of information through business units, and interview experts to uncover their mental models before they get down to coding. This is all the stuff that IA is great at, and there’s a whole new set of people out there desperate for our help.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “ubiquitous language” or “business domain” from a developer, or you’re just frustrated with the constant discourse on design “getting a seat at the table,” come learn how to translate IA work into terms developers are already excited about and how techniques from Domain Driven Design can uplevel your IA practice.
Sarah is a Director of Information Architecture for Microsoft, focusing on Microsoft Learn. She works with content creators, engineers, PMs, and executives to bring order to one of the largest sources of technical information anywhere. Her practice, developed on projects for companies like Adobe, the University of Washington, and Expedia, melds the lessons of old-school information science with enterprise-level data analysis and just enough research.