In the workshop we’ll look at:

• How our visual system works
• Visual and cognitive attention, and how to grab them
• Limitations of memory and how it affects our designs
• Types of errors that people will make, why they make them, and how we can design for them
• How people make decisions, and how we can design for more informed decisions
• Socialness and how to design social interfaces
• Learning about people via user research
• Checking what we’ve designed to make sure it works (usability testing)

This will be a very practical workshop. To learn about the human attributes we’ll play games, look at fun examples of human behaviour, discuss the implications for design and sketch example interfaces. For user research and usability testing, we’ll discuss the principles and run a mini research session and usability test. You’ll leave with tons of practical skills to use on your next project.

You’ll also leave with a detailed workshop booklet, containing slides, additional explanation and follow-up reading.

This workshop will cover:

• What information architecture is and how it relates to other user experience disciplines
• Core IA techniques – analysing content, conducting user research, card sorting and more
• Core IA theories – classification, categorisation, metadata & labelling
• IA patterns – structures for different types of sites
• Designing navigation & page layouts
• Putting it together in an IA project
• Current issues in IA

The workshop will be at the level of an ‘advanced intro’, covering the basics and also allowing exploration of key challenges and issues. The format is a combination of short lectures, group discussion and hands-on activities. Extensive notes and resources will be provided for further personal exploration.

• How classification and categorisation work in our brain, and why it matters
• How to identify potential organisation methods for your content
• When organisation schemes such as geography, task, audience and subject work best (and tricks to make them work)
• How to design an organisation scheme that works for your users
• The best navigation approach for your content

This won’t be a dry, theoretical workshop. We’ll talk and play some games. You’ll go away with a better understanding of the essentials of information architecture, techniques to use on your next project and a comprehensive list of resources for follow-up reading.

Of course there are – patterns emerge from use, and there certainly are enough information architectures around to identify a set of patterns.

This presentation will describe a wide range of commonly-used information architecture patterns, including hierarchies small and large, different types of database structure, hypertext, subsite models, sites with multiple entry points and ways of combining these (and more that I discover before April).

For each I will describe the core elements of the pattern, discuss the most appropriate uses and show real-world examples.

Understanding the different patterns will help attendees to select the most appropriate structures for their content.

This workshop will cover:

• What information architecture is and how it relates to other user experience disciplines
• Core IA techniques – analysing content, conducting user research, card sorting and more
• Core IA theories – classification, categorization, metadata & labeling
• IA patterns – structures for different types of sites
• Designing navigation & page layouts
• Putting it together in an IA project
• Current issues in IA

The workshop will be at the level of an ‘advanced intro’, covering the basics and also allowing exploration of key challenges and issues. The format is a combination of short lectures, group discussion and hands-on activities. Extensive notes and resources will be provided for further personal exploration.

Maybe they desire to locate a fact to prove a point. Perhaps buy a product based on important criterion, or locate the best deal. Maybe they desire to compare features before they make a decision, or keep an eye on current events. Or, maybe they just desire to re-read something they saw on an earlier visit.

Each of these information-seeking desires demands a very different approach to the information architecture, the information design, and the page layout. Donna Spencer will show you the key features of each behavior and what you need to include in the design, with both good and bad examples of each. You’ll go away with skills that take your users beyond just finding the information, helping them to use the information to achieve their goals.

Different users need different things. Some of your users need details while other need a big-picture overview. Some want to look things up by their role, while others want to find things by the topic. Some want to click through a logical category list, while others want to enter their keywords into a search box.

Bringing the chaos of thousands of individual pages into an organized, logical order is the purview of the Information Architect. That’s why you want to meet Donna Spencer. Coming all the way from Australia, Donna’s one of the world’s premier information architects and she’ll be bringing back last year’s most popular workshop.

Under Donna’s expert guidance, you’ll practice important organization techniques, such as card sorting and content analysis, ready to apply these on your own site as soon as you return to your office. You’ll learn how to organize critical content using proven navigation and page layout principles.

Donna will introduce you to a variety of techniques to solve hard IA problems, such as choosing good labels and matching the right organization scheme for your audiences. Once you’ve mastered the essentials of information architecture, you’ll turn the disarray of site content into a tour de force of organization and categorization. And your users will exclaim how easy it is to find things on your site.

I use this spreadsheets for taking content inventories – a task often done toward the beginning of an information architecture project, and essential for any website or intranet content migration project.

The spreadsheet stores information about each ‘page’ on the website. It is a very handy tool as it allows you to get an understanding of all the content on your website, and see it all at a glance.

Before taking a content inventory, think about what you need to get out of it and what you may use it for in your projects. Think about what information you may need to collect, and only collect that – don’t collect more than you might need – it is just a waste of time and effort.

For most of my projects, I like to collect:

• Navigation title, page title and URL for every page
• List of all downloadable files (publications, resources, fact sheets etc)
• Content relationships – usually the site hierarchy

I often also like to collect:

• Date last updated
• Content owner

If you are lucky, your content management system may already have a listing of  file. If you are unlucky, you may have to click through the site page by page.

Files

• Content inventory spreadsheet (.xls) (90KB)
• Content inventory spreadsheet (.xlsx) (27KB)

Notes

The spreadsheet contains instructions for what to include in each column and a set of tips for how to go about filling in the spreadsheet.

The main point to remember is that this is a tool for you to use for your project. You should collect whatever will help you best and represent the information however suits you. The spreadsheet is only a guide.

Screenshots

Resources

Articles on how to take a content inventory:

• Doing a Content Inventory (Or, A Mind-Numbingly Detailed Odyssey Through Your Web Site) – Adaptive Path
• Taking a content inventory – Maadmob
• Conduct a content inventory – Usability.gov
• Content inventory links on del.icio.us

Each of these information behaviours needs very different approaches to information architecture, information design and page layout. During this presentation, Donna will talk about each information behaviour, its key attributes, key design needs, and show good and bad examples of each.

• How classification and categorisation work in our brain, and why it matters.
• How to identify potential organisation methods for your content.
• When organisation schemes such as geography, task, audience and subject work best (and tricks to make them work).
• How to design an organisation scheme that works for your users.
• The best navigation approach for your content

This won’t be a dry, theoretical workshop. We’ll talk and play some games. You’ll go away with a better understanding of the essentials of information architecture, techniques to use on your next project and a comprehensive list of resources for follow-up reading.