Systems Insights

The Informed Life: Structured Content

A digital Microphone sitting on a desktop with blank computer monitors in the background

In this episode of "The Informed Life," Jorge Arango and I discuss the role of structured content in making complex ideas clear online. Topics include the transition from traditional web pages to a data-centric web design, the role of information architecture in making complex information systems accessible and intelligible to both humans and machines, and the challenges and opportunities in using semantically sound structured content to enhance digital information's usability and accessibility.

Taxonomy Boot Camp 2022 Themes & Takeaways

Cover slides from six talks presented at Taxonomy Boot Camp 2022

Last week I had the pleasure and privilege of attending the 18th annual Taxonomy Boot Camp in Washington DC. This year’s conference carried on its strong tradition of ideas, talks, and workshops for neophytes and experts alike, and, as always, provided much food for thought. Here’s a roundup of the themes and topics I saw recurring across talks, plus (as always) a bit of commentary on where I see them fitting into the bigger picture of designing information spaces that are easy to understand and pleasant to use.

Domain Modeling for Structured Content

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Domain modeling helps organizations discover the information structures and meaning that allow structured content to reach further and last longer. By uncovering the assumptions and tacit rules that plague your content ecosystem, domain modeling can help you facilitate the shared vision necessary to create resilient, scalable systems for communication across channels.

UXMethods.org: A Boutique Knowledge Graph Case Study

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UX Methods is a progressive web app designed to help those new to the practice of user experience design explore and understand the purpose-driven connections between UX tools, techniques, and approaches. It is also a case study in boutique knowledge graph design which explores the benefits of bringing semantic web technologies to smaller scale projects.

Delivering Information Architecture

A creative photograph of a cityscape focused within the lens of a camera held by a hand, with the blurry background of the sunset sky and city buildings outside the lens.

One of the greatest challenges in digital design is identifying and maintaining focus on the right problem. For information architecture, one of our most common deliverables, the visual sitemap, can actually make focusing on the right problems harder, if not impossible. In this article we’ll examine why this happens, explore what practitioners and teams can do to avoid this trap of misplaced focus, and learn how to rehabilitate our wayward sitemaps and reinstate them as the effective design artifacts they can be.

Stop Publishing Pages! – Content Strategy MeetUp Talk Highlights

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The way that we consume information on the web is changing. Voice and IA technology are driving this change in a way that affects anyone publishing online. And yet: we continue to hold on to the metaphor of the content we publish as “pages,” destined to be found and read as delivered by patient, attentive online readers. I recently had the opportunity to talk with the Seattle Content Strategy MeetUp group about this alarming state of affairs—and about what we can do to fix it.

What Is Information Architecture?

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Information Architecture is the process and the product of designing shared information environments. In the same way that building architects collaborate in the creation of physical environments for shared human use, information architects collaborate in the creation of information environments for shared human use. The architect may not know in detail how each wall or widget gets built, but they know enough about how all the pieces fit together as a whole to ensure that the final result effectively meets the human needs.

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.