Comments for DonnaM

Comment on Visio and IA Tip – hide and show annotations by maadonna

maadonna — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:52:54 +0000

Barb – here’s one for creating a TOC: http://stephenturbek.com/2007/04/automatically-create-table-of-contents.html

Comment on Visio and IA Tip – hide and show annotations by Barb

Barb — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:14:21 +0000

Donna – First, i’m wanting to use the TOC macro for visio documents that have multiple tabs…so a line item and/or link for each tab. Will this do that?

And I’m not a programmer and have no idea how to get this macro into visio. is there some way that I just cut and paste it?

Thanks so much!

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by maadonna

maadonna — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:14:58 +0000

Thanks Rachel – that will be great!

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:11:30 +0000

I’m looking forward to this book already! I’m up for reviewing some of it if you need. I’m a technical communicator so I’d probably have a different take on it than some. I have experience with IA though and have read the polar bear book, so I’m not totally green to the subject.

Good luck and can’t wait to read it!

Comment on How I draft an information architecture by maadonna

maadonna — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:32:05 +0000

Good point Ricardo.

In this situation I had plenty of other user research – I wasn’t going to be assuming I knew enough about them.

Something I did know was that individual users were very focused only on their topic of interest – a very small proportion of the whole information set. In a card sort they wouldn’t care enough (or know enough) about the rest of the content to do a decent sort.

So sure, I may have learned something. I always learn something. But I didn’t think I would learn enough.

And it isn’t a matter of a 20 minute card sort – I would have had to spend at least half a day contacting people, arranging for them to do the sort, then another half analysing the results. I still don’t think I would have got enough good information from a card sort to justify the planning & analysis. Especially as I had other good user research already.

Comment on How I draft an information architecture by Ricardo

Ricardo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:43:39 +0000

I’m not entirely comfortable with this approach. You can’t possibly “know” you won’t learn anything useful. You’re *assuming* you know enough of the users to put yourself in their place – I thought that was one of the basic mistakes designers make.

A simple card sorting session with a small group can take less than 20 minutes, I don’t see how that would be overkill. At the very least it will confirm your assumptions. I haven’t read your book yet though, so I don’t know what’s your exact POV here.

happy new year!

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by maadonna

maadonna — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:26:44 +0000

That sounds great Kirsten.

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Kirsten

Kirsten — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:16:16 +0000

Hi Donna,

This book sounds great. I’d love to review some chapters or potentially contribute a case study.

I’ve recently been working on a large scale intranet redesign. Much of the content is so specialized that we are directly engaging and empowering subject matter experts and users to conduct detailed IA based on best practices and principles we’re working on establishing.

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by maadonna

maadonna — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:22:30 +0000

Thanks!

Guilherme – if you are interested in design games, also keep an eye on http://www.knowledgegames.net/. Dave Gray and Sunni Brown are currently working on a book.

Peter & Kate – I’ll get in touch about feedback as I get a bit more written down.

Louis – you are exactly the type of person this book is for!

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Ruth Ellison

Ruth Ellison — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:32:20 +0000

Congratulations Donna! Can’t wait to read the book.

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Louis

Louis — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:21:16 +0000

As a web designer, I’m always addressing IA issues but I haven’t had a a go-to resource to assist me. I’m looking forward to pre-ordering this. Loved Mark B’s first book.

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Kate Russell

Kate Russell — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:36:52 +0000

Great!

I’m eager to hear more about it. I’d also love to give feedback as a rather newcomer in the field.

Kate

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Guilherme Marques

Guilherme Marques — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:01:27 +0000

Hello Donna, I Guilherme Marques of Brazil.
I am very interested in your work and believe it would be very interesting to have more material on Design Games.

Hugs

Comment on I’m writing an information architecture book! by Peter Boersma

Peter Boersma — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:37:08 +0000

Donna,

Congrats! I think there is room on the market for a Guerrilla IA book (whcih is more than Card Soring, as I told you before: http://www.peterboersma.com/blog/2005/02/piece-of-ia-pie-little-micro-lite-or.html ).

I’d love to get a sneak peek at a chapter or two: feel free to contact me for a review.

Good luck with the axe (”A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Kafka, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka)!

Comment on How I draft an information architecture by Deepesh Joseph

Deepesh Joseph — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:11:56 +0000

Nice description of how one visualizes the whole IA process for a website design. This is a good starter for those who venture to do IA stuff for the whole enterprise systems.