Models as Product, Modeling as Process Confession time. I’m obsessed with models. Not the ones you find in magazine ads, though that might be slightly less embarrassing. By models I mean frameworks to explain complicated ideas. All kinds of people use models. Economic models, for example, help economists make sense…

Perspectives on Structure — Available now! Information Architecture Lenses is a deck of 51 cards in 8 categories, and they are now available for purchase. Information architecture is the practice of designing the virtual structures that underpin digital products. I’m continually impressed with how fundamental and difficult this work is. With digital products becoming more complex…

Illustrate complex processes by including use cases, actions, and life cycles — Flow charts remain my favorite artifact in the design process. With increasingly complex apps, flow charts help to model fluid, conversational experiences. To that end, they answer two essential questions: When do we show specific bits of information? How do we respond to a user behavior? Flow charts depict structures…

Do the needful thing. That’s something my yoga teacher says. It means, make a pose work for you. If you can’t bend that far or need something to prop you up, that’s OK. “Do the needful thing” gives me permission to make the practice my own. That’s how I feel…

Five essential questions for testing navigation — Testing navigation entails giving participants a task and a menu and directing them to complete the task with the menu. You’re essentially asking, “Where would you find X in this menu?”