Agenda
Introduction Me My team
About my roles Strategist Architect
My information architecture philosophy
Technology and tools: A nod
About me
Information Strategist and Architect for a portfolio of products at IBM 16+ years of information and software development expertise Training
B.A. in English; minor in computer science Practiced in user-centered design and testing Conversant in human factors
Roles Information developer Course developer Course instructor Information development team lead UI designer Member of technical staff Manager VP of Engineering
My team
Reports to a central User Technology team Matrixed into portfolio development team
Approximately 20 products 3 brands
Information development team 3 managers 3 editors, including 1 terminologist ~30 writers
Scope: All text that is provided with the product UI labels, messages, embedded introductions and assistance Introductory tutorials and viewlets Help Conceptual, task, and reference information
About you
What is your role on the team? Do you have a strategist on your team? Do you have an information architect on
your team? What does your information architect do?
Information Strategist
Information strategy: The business of what we deliver
Ensure that we are spending money on the things that have the biggest impact to the business and our customers today and tomorrow.
Ensure that we are competitive in the marketplace.
Information strategy: Where are we now?Strategy considers questions such as
What are the strengths of our information? What are the weaknesses of our information?What are our opportunities?What are our threats?What are other information development teams doing
Within the broad profession? At my company?
The users evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our information
Information strategy:What are others doing? What is the business strategy? What is the product strategy? What is the sales strategy? What is the corporate information strategy? What is the software group information
strategy? What is the competition doing?
Information strategy: Where are we going? Strategy answers questions such as
What kind of information do we deploy on the Web today? Tomorrow?
Should we provide cross-product solution information? What are the key solutions we should address?
What is the roadmap for getting there from here?
Information strategist in action
Collaborate across the product planning and leadership team Product management Marketing Information development User experience
Collaborate with other portfolio and product teams Evaluate and helps bring forward strategic initiatives from within
information development, including product initiatives Evaluate new projects
What do customers need? What do we have that can be leveraged? What will it cost? (work items and estimates)
The result: Priorities backed by the business Support flexible product packaging strategy and
solution bundling by providing information that can more easily be reused
Decrease time-to-value by providing better installation and introductory information
Decrease support costs by providing more troubleshooting information, especially on the Web where customers can find it via Google
Questions
Who determines information strategy on your team?
Could you articulate your team’s information strategy if asked?
Could your extended team?
Information Architect
Information architecture is…
The implementation of the strategy
An information architect… Understands the users, products, technology, competition, and
business, working with UE, human factors, marketing, development, service, support:
Researches & understands user requirements Assists in user and task modeling, using those models to define
information model Assists in developing personas Assists in developing scenarios Assists in designing the UI task flow, and therefore the
information flow Finds the patterns inherent in data, making the complex clear Validate designs with intended users
Owns and drives the information-related aspects of all of these
An information architect… (cont) Defines the overall solution for how information is delivered
(vs. authored, developed, or managed), based on user’s goals and user’s context:
Information model & organization of content Navigation & linking & retrieval Location & storage (Web, CD, installed)
Information architecture ensures that information is retrievable, presents a cohesive mental model, and is consistent, especially across products
Fulfills a formal role, defined as part of the corporate IRUP process
In short: An information architect makes sure the pieces connect to provide the greatest value to all customers.
Information architecture and the extended user experience team
Information Architecture
WritingEditing Human Factors Visual Design
UI terminology/labels Structure of UI menus
Topic organization
Headings
Index labelsInformation
design
Organizational edit
Technical edit, esp. organization and
retrievability DQTI characteristics
Relationships between visual elements
The IA role does not include…
Information development team lead role Ownership/responsibility for the documentation plan Ownership/responsibility for executing the ID plan
ID project manager role Project management, tracking, scheduling, etc.
ID infrastructure lead role Ownership/responsibility for the technical details of the implementation,
including designing solutions and creating processes for file storage and version control, information builds, information testing, etc.
The same person might fill all of these roles on some teams, but as a role, IA is not about these things. I don’t fill these other roles on my team right now.
Day-to-day
I lead or participate in development of Scenario development User role and persona descriptions Task analysis and modeling
I am a mandatory reviewer for Information plans Content plans Navigation and tables of contents Templates (such as DITA specializations)
I help seek and analyze user feedback Customer feedback plans and summaries Customer advisory board presentations and results Customer conference presentations and results
Information architecture’s impact on the business Customers consistently request:
Better retrievability Solution-oriented information A seamless information experience across products
Good information architecture can fulfill those requests and: Reduce total cost of ownership Reduce customer support calls Reduce number of non-defect customer support issues (NDOPs) Increase customer satisfaction
All information developers can work toward these goals in their information deliverables and contribute to the overall information architecture.
Approach
My approach
Strategy is the foundation Move information close to the user Progressively disclose information Architect for flexibility
People buy products; they don’t use them Topic-based information Component-based architecture
Dynamic delivery
Build off the foundation
Tools
Technology
Architecture
Strategy
Move information close to the user
Everything the user sees is a user interface, including APIs
Work with UI and user experience teams to make the interface as easy-to-use as possible
Embed as much information as practical directly in the UI itself Getting Started or Welcome pages UI labels Message text complete with user action for recovery
Progressively disclose information
Progressively disclose more information at user’s request Hover help or tool tips Contextual help Complete conceptual, task, reference information
Seamless connections and transitions The user should never have to hunt for the next clue This is not a scavenger hunt
Architect for flexibility
My team contributes to 20 products, under 3 brands
Products historically renamed once each year Some capabilities are provided in 6 products Customers want solutions, not products, so
solution bundles are becoming more common…and need to be flexible to market needs
People don’t use products
People use solutions, capabilities, features, technical components Example
Goal: federating information Capability: federation Technical component: federated server Product: IBM WebSphere Federation Server
Product name reserved for things that exist because we package as products: installation, release notes, what’s new
Capabilities, technical components referred to in most other product information
Cornerstone of re-use on my team: Information can be reused wherever we provide federation capability
Topic-based information
One thought or idea
The most finely grained portion of content that merits or requires individual treatment
Questions to consider when chunking Can the information be segmented into multiple chunks that users might
want to access separately? What is the smallest section of content that needs to be individually
indexed? Will this content need to be re-purposed across multiple documents or as
part of multiple documents?
Why topics?
Flexibility in presentation Structure Organization Categorization Necessary redundancy
Reuse Across products Across divisions Outside the company
Single sourcing for reuse decreases maintenance time—maybe Minimalist—enables us to provide just the information users need, just when
they need it
Component-based architecture
An information component is A group of related topics that “travel” together The largest group of topics that won't ever be split apart as a result
of remarketing, repackaging, technological componentization, user tasks, or usage scenarios.
The topics in a component also won't be split apart for our own work management purposes; all topics in a component are owned by the same information developer
Power is in the ability to assemble them in new and interesting ways as needs change
Modeling components and deliverables Components packaged into information center plug-ins Components packaged into PDF books Plug-in and book definitions can cross segment ownership Product information set is a collection of plug-ins and PDF books
Segment
Component Component
Component Component
Segment
Component
Component
Segment
Component Component
Component Component
Book 1Book 2
Product’s PDF Suite
Modeling components and deliverables (cont’d)
Segment
Component Component
Component Component
Segment
Component
Component
Segment
Component Component
Component Component
Plug-in 4
Product’s Information Center
Plug-in 3Plug-in 2Plug-in 1
Dynamic delivery
Information adapts Products and capabilities installed Platforms used User level
Information components hide and become visible as needed
Runtime instead of development-time reuse Plug-and-play components Not “starter doc”
Technology and Tools
DITA and Eclipse
DITA enforces topic-based information DITA support components
At least 1 DITA map per component Maplists combine maps in a component Maplists combine maps across components
Eclipse provides flexible delivery Dynamic integrated navigation across all installed components Future: Filtering components
And that’s how I got here tonight
Questions?
Resources
Resources: Information architecture and design Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug
A short, excellent book that contains human factors, usability, and information architecture and design information. Well worth the short read.
Web Navigation, Jennifer FlemingNavigation is a critical part of the information architecture of products, Web sites, and online information systems. This book covers principles that apply to all of these.
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Lou Rosenfeld and Peter MorvilleSays Web, but principles apply generally. Excellent book.
Developing Quality Technical Information, 2nd ed., Gretchen Hargis, et al. w3.svl.ibm.com/usertech/ecouncil/dqti/DQTI.PDF IBM’s very own. The basis for our Edit For Quality process. Sleep with it under your pillow.
Resources: Information architecture and design Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture
www.aifia.orgProfessional organization for information architects.
Society for Technical Communicationwww.stc.orgProfessional organization for technical communicators. SIGs for usability and information design are particularly pertinent.
Resources: Human factors
Human Factors for Technical Communicators, Marlana Coe An excellent introduction to human factors that is specific to information use.
Human Factors and Ergonomics Societyhfes.orgProfessional society dedicated to promote the discovery and exchange of knowledge concerning the characteristics of human beings that are applicable to the design of systems and devices of all kinds.
ACM’s SIGCHIwww.acm.org/sigchi A special interest group (SIG) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) focused on computer-human interaction (CHI)—those working on the design, evaluation, implementation, and study of interactive computing systems for human use.
Resources: User-centered process and usability The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper
The ultimate cranky developer takes on the software-development process and the lack of user-centered approach. Justifies design before coding.
Usability Engineering, Jakob Nielsen Early process book; basis for most later approaches.
The Usability Engineering Lifecycle, Deborah J. Mayhew Good end-to-end process coverage.
Software for Use, Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood A very detailed, model-oriented, engineering approach to user-centered design.
Resources: UI design The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman.
This could be considered a human factors or usability book. A seminal work.
About Face, 2nd ed., Alan Cooper Update of an early classic. Adds significant Goal-Directed Design™ (Cooper’s process) information.
Designing Visual Interfaces, Kevin MulletVisual communication in UI design.
Designing Effective Wizards, Daina Pupons Wickham Wizards are an important information deliverable in the UI!
uidesign.net www.uidesign.netWebzine/information site with timely UI design opinion and resources.
User Interface Engineering www.uie.com Jared Spool’s primarily Web-oriented usability and design site. Interesting research results.
