How to Make Sense of Any Mess: Information Architecture for Everybody

Most importantly perhaps, we realize that for the first time ever, we have easy access to other people's experiences to help us decide if something is worth experiencing at all.

Information architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable.

Practicing information architecture means exhibiting the courage to push past the edges of your current reality. It means asking questions that inspire change. It takes honesty and confidence in other people.

What are you making?

But to make sense of real-world problems, you need to understand how users, channels, and context relate to each other.

The first step to taming any mess is to shine a light on it so you can outline its edges and depths.

What channels do your users prefer? What context are they likely in when encountering what you're making? How are they feeling? Are they in a hurry? Are they on slow Wi-Fi? Are they there for entertainment or to accomplish a task?

As users, our context is the situation we're in, including where we are, what we're trying to do, how we're feeling, and anything else that shapes our experience. Our context is always unique to us and can't be relied upon to hold steady.

Try diagramming.