Who matters?

first level of an impact map provides answers to the following questions: Who can produce the desired effect? Who can obstruct it? Who are the consumers or users of our product? Who will be impacted by it? These are the actors who can influence the outcome.

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

It’s far more important to know Who will see this? What do they want? What do they need? What idea do I want to convey? What could I show? What should I show? Then, after all that, How will I show it?

To start with why, ask yourself: Why does this work need to be done? Why is change needed? Why do those changes matter? Why should other people care? Why hasn't this been tackled correctly? Why will this time be different?

The most crucial thing we discover is how you work as a team. We need to know how many people actively publish to or maintain the website, and how much time they commit to it. We also need to know their skill sets. Any decent design solution takes your resources into account.

So when a client says, “We want tons of big photos,” my next question is,

In a documentation project, focusing on the audience requires asking the right questions, such as: Who’s going to read this document? What’s the education level of the audience, and what are its top need-to-know priorities? Do these users need a complete reference or just a getting started guide?