Insights

Perspectives, methods, case studies, and interviews about information architecture and content operations for the modern web.

Designing with Code

A stack of notebooks next to a laptop computer

With the growing need of responsive web solutions and adaptive, flexible content, there are new reasons for designers to roll up their sleeves and get into “code.” Since HTML is, at its core, a layer of description wrapped around content, working at this level helps designers think more critically about their content and about the architectural implications of that content. While considering markup won’t replace our content audit, user research, or taxonomy work any time soon, it can increasingly function as an important part of the design process.

The Trouble with Systems

A hand holding a clear spherical lens up to a computer screen of data

Much virtual ink has been spilled in the last year or two over the importance of thinking about information design in terms of systems as opposed to thinking of it as a set of carefully laid out maps. As an initial stab at defining an approach to systems informed by the way we think, I submit that information architecture is in a unique position to act as a shim between systems and sentience. IA is where we create information from data and structure that information with narrative. We use IA to wend a deliberate path through the wilds of content at large.