IAC 2020
We argue incessantly about the definition of information architecture, the extent to which Agile is compatible with comprehensive user experience design, what (if any) is the role of the product manager, and just who does and does not count as a designer.
I submit that this is because our professional process, no matter what it is in the fine grain, always reduces to gathering, concentrating, and operating over information in successive transformations, increasing in detail every time. Our tools for making sense of the process are *still* extremely crude.
Surprisingly, there is a technique that dates back to the cybernetics era, called structured argumentation, that may be able to help. In particular, a flavour called Issue-Based Information Systems, originally intended to solve so-called “wicked problems”. I would like to show it to you.
Key takeaways from the session:
• Acquaint the audience with the notion of structured argumentation in general and IBIS in particular
• Relate the technique to real problems experienced by UX/IA/software practitioners
• Direct the audience to tools and techniques they can use right away
Dorian has been working in and around the Web since he was a teenager, in 1996. He has done everything in this industry from swabbing the decks of Linux servers to designing internationalized, single-sourced, multichannel, kitchen-sink and a pony content pipelines.
Over the last decade or so, Dorian has been focused on making long-term, durable information infrastructure for everyday organizations—mainly associations and related nonprofits, like the IAI—using open standards and open-source technology.