Sessions

Information Architecture Beyond Content

It is the Age of Product. Product owners, product managers, and product designers dominate the org charts of digital teams. Where does that leave the information architect? Just because these digital spaces are more transactional in nature and they do not emphasize classification and wayfinding does not mean they are absent a structure.

Information architecture is just as crucial to product design as it is to content. Products mediate the exchange of information between people. A sound information structure ensures processes run smoothly, conveyed data has suitable context, and everyone knows what they’re supposed to do. The structure of a product’s user experience sets expectations about how users work together in digital spaces. It facilitates not only finding the information that’s needed, but how it is collected and connected.

The information architecture in products is abstract, buried deep in the product’s experience. Unlike traversing a hierarchy of topics, users may not even realize they’re experiencing a structure in a digital space. A product’s structure is more intertwined with other parts of the system, like the data model, and hidden behind still other parts, like the user interface. Moreover, the structure of a product is heterogeneous, with interlocking parts to deal with the various kinds of data and functionality. Permissions and access, business rules, and activity logging are all essential parts of enterprise products. These and other features come with their own structures that must interact with the information structure of the product’s domain.

In this workshop, participants will practice applying their IA skills to the design of a product. The workshop puts those IA skills in the context of four perspectives that information architects bring to bear on their work: Abstraction, Lifecycle, Distinction, and Collaboration.

• Abstraction: How real-world processes can be transformed into data objects and semantic categories

• Lifecycle: How to envision and realize changes in information over time

• Distinction: How to draw useful boundaries between similar objects

• Collaboration: How to create spaces in products to facilitate people working together

For each of these perspectives participants will see how to apply their IA skills to the design of products. Participants will get a set of prompts to aid in adopting that perspective in their problem space. They will also get an activity they can use with their team. At the end of the workshop, in addition to the prompts and the activities, participants will have a greater understanding of how to adapt their content-focused IA skills to the challenges of designing products.

Audience Takeaways:

In this workshop, participants will apply the skills and techniques they use for content to product design. They will learn about four key structural challenges in designing products, and collaborative activities for engaging the whole team in designing product IA.

For each of four key structural challenges for designing products, participants will learn how to apply their IA skills. Participants will get a set of prompts to aid in adopting that perspective in their problem space. They will also get an activity they can use with their team.

At the end of the workshop, in addition to the prompts and the activities, participants will have a greater understanding of how to adapt their content-focused IA skills to the challenges of designing products.