Boxes and Arrows: Stories by Anders Ramsay

New Challenges Retreat: ideas, discussion, and a call to action

Anders Ramsay — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 10:16:07 GMT

"On a global scale, there are only a handful of us, and yet our work affects millions every day." "We've got a lot of questions and not so many answers," according to opening session speaker Peter Van Dijck as he and Jorge Arango addressed the issue of global information architecture (IA). As the IA field grows, conferences and retreats provide IAs with the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the possibilities. This year's IA Retreat, "New Challenges in Information Architecture," took place at the Edith Macy Conference Center, just north of New York City, October 7-9, 2005. Of the many themes discussed at the retreat, those that stood out revolved around the challenges of enterprise information architecture (as in very large enterprises, such as government agencies, and Fortune 100's), cross-cultural IA issues, and designing user experiences for evermore complex, and increasingly less, web-centric systems. Peter and Jorge gave a "broad-strokes" perspective on the daunting challenges faced by cross-cultural multi-language sites, where even something as seemingly innocuous as how country/language is selected can set off a firestorm among users. In one great example, they explained that Flemish users protested loudly when a product site chose to set French as the default option if users selected Belgium as their country. The design was changed to accommodate the users. Language and culture challenges in IA were also very much at the center of Mairi Willis' session on designing intranets in large, distributed organizations. She described her task of deploying intranets across some 50 countries, each of which incorporated the country's own language and cultural idiosyncrasies, all while remaining consistent with the overarching enterprise framework. Mairi told of having to mix diplomacy with sprinkles of dictatorship to provide countries as culturally and geographically disparate as Kazakhstan and Indonesia with enough freedom to ensure that locally specific needs were met without compromising enterprise-level objectives. An example of one specific issue was deploying information from headquarters to individual countries. Dan Brown and James Melzer each took stabs at addressing enterprise-level challenges. Dan led a workshop that proposed leveraging the work of George Lakoff and the thinking behind prototype theory toward designing content management systems-which too often are more expensive than useful. He guided us through several group exercises, where workflow, roles, and content were used as the core building blocks of a CMS. Some of us felt that "context" deserved being a separate building block. James' session, which was based on his work for large government agencies, started with a nutshell description of Enterprise Architecture and how (surprise, surprise) user experience had mostly been left out. He presented a great diagram, which placed user experience at the center of the enterprise architecture. A discussion that simmered throughout these presentations was the absence of a formal IA theory, and how we instead find ourselves cobbling together theories from other disciplines. Is there a need for a Ph.D. in information architecture? Is information architecture just an umbrella for other disciplines, making the need for a theory of its own moot? As Peter said, a lot of questions, not so many answers. Marcelo Marer, Mary-Lynne Williams and Victor Lombardi took more of a strategic focus in their sessions. Marcelo and Mary-Lynne described navigating design concepts through their client's various acquisitions of other companies, in which much of the heavy lifting in the design work, conventionally associated with the user-visible interface, took place in back-room strategy sessions with executives. They also provided a great example of high-level design "from the hip;" when, in the twelfth hour of this enterprise-wide effort they decided to discard the strategy they'd worked so hard to sell to stakeholders and instead adopt the infrastructure already in place at a newly acquired company. It was a gutsy, but ultimately, successful decision, and a great testament to the power of being open to change course, even after a fundamental design choice has been made. Victor talked about how advertising space and value on a page-level basis can affect page design. He showed methods for calculating the value of an ad, and discussed how size and placement of the ad on the page are key factors. This led to a discussion of the trade-offs between choosing content quantity on a page and how difficult choices need to be made by stakeholders regarding usability versus income. The focus of IA is often on the structure of the content, while the big swatches of ad space, which have a direct impact on usability and usefulness (and in some cases the ads turn out to be more useful than the content), are easily forgotten. Todd Warfel pointed out that navigation and orientation are also critical factors when incorporating ad space, describing how users sometimes click on an ad link and are not aware until several pages deep in the advertiser's site that they no longer are in the originally visited site. As part of his presentation, Todd outlined methods for improving IA deliverables, including how to leverage grid systems. Using two different newspaper layouts with similar amounts of content as a discussion springboard, Todd showed how the one that made better use of a grid had a cleaner and more relaxed look. He explained that it improved usability during page transitions, since only content that is unique to the new page moves or changes. Todd also showed how pattern libraries can increase productivity both for IAs as well as developers, who are keen to leverage the same code base across multiple solutions. Reminiscent of the Yahoo! pattern library presentation at this year's IA Summit (March 2005), Todd showed several examples of solution reuse across multiple designs. As with wireframes, the ins and outs of sitemaps are a matter of continual discussion among IAs. Into that contentious mix, Todd added his hub-based model, which he described as more closely matching the user's mental model of the site. In contrast to the tree-based approach, page clusters with user persona information associated with them radiate from a central homepage. Todd showed how the model works for content-heavy as well as interactive sites, and that many of the clients he had shown it to understood the model without need for introduction. He noted that the hub-model may be more work to maintain than other models. A lot of discussion emerged surrounding Todd's concepts, such as questions about the role of IAs in defining page layout, or the usefulness of sitemaps. At the same time, there was agreement that there is a dire need for more innovative ideas, such as Todd's work, and Adam Greenfield certainly brought that message home with his "Everyware" presentation. "From the complexities of designing across cultures and languages to managing information in massive organizations, the challenges facing information architects seem to be growing more daunting every time we look around to assess them."Due to scheduling conflicts, Adam was only able to join the retreat at very end, but as it turned out this was the perfect closing session for the retreat. Adam's presentation was both a detailed depiction of a ubicomped world in which we'll find ourselves in an impossibly near future, as well as a call to action for IAs to apply their skills to the mind-boggling challenges of designing user experiences for that future (which, to paraphrase William Gibson, is already here, just not evenly distributed.)

Very methodically and with sometimes frightening detail, Adam described a technological eco-system in which the web as we know it vanishes into the pervasive ether, in which privacy and ethics become paramount factors, and systems become so complex that attempting to design them at the atomic level may simply not be feasible. Instead, we may find ourselves functioning like gardeners tending plants, guiding and overseeing but not controlling detailed behavior.

As the leader of the committee organizing this event, I can say that a major motivating factor for making the retreat happen was the sense of a need for more events and opportunities for IAs to come together and discuss our work. Peter Merholz, president of the IA Institute, has raised similar sentiments about the need for more events. Too many IAs work in isolation from other IAs. On a global scale, there are only a handful of us, and yet our work affects millions every day. I know that efforts are underway to organize a retreat in the Chilean Andes sometime next year, and I hope to learn about other similar efforts. The catalyst that set me off on the path to make this event happen was Christina Wodtke's call to attendees of last year's amazing "Future of IA" retreat to make retreats happen in our local areas. I can only hope that this year's retreat will serve as an inspiration for others to create similar opportunities for IAs to come together, share and vet ideas, and continue evolving as we take on the challenges that lie ahead.

More retreat resourcesRetreat event page Retreat wiki (where Chiara Fox and others added session notes, links to presentations, and more) Flickr stream Podcasts of the sessions will be posted soon... Anders Ramsay organized this year's IA Retreat. He is an information architect in New York City, as well as founder of New York City IA Meetups. His personal site can be found at: www.andersramsay.com.

An Open-Source Conference: BarCamp

Anders Ramsay — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:47:21 GMT

"Think of BarCamp as the open-source equivalent to a traditional conference, in which top-down planning is replaced with bottom-up self-organizational models."

It seemed to be an average technology conference. A hundred some web geeks gathering for a weekend of presentations and discussion at a loft-like office space in lower Manhattan. And yet, BarCamp NYC (New York City), a recent incarnation of the BarCamp “un-conferences,” was about as far as you could get from a traditional conference.

The BarCamp venue was a tangle of laptops, sleeping bags, food containers, stacks of Red Bull, and notes taped to wall space not already occupied by screen projections. The constant crisscross of discussions and presentations (of which it often was hard to tell one from the other) would likely be jarring to the uninitiated, like an orchestra musician encountering a jazz improv session for the first time. Think of BarCamp as the open-source equivalent to a traditional conference, in which top-down planning is replaced with bottom-up self-organizational models. Instead of having committees planning the event, selecting presentations, and then charging attendance fees, the only price for attending a BarCamp is participation. Attendees have to either give a presentation or help out with one. That simple rule lends momentum to an overall sense of ownership on the part of each who attend, which in turn, fuels a desire to participate far beyond doing presentations.

Structure

At the same time, even BarCamps need an initial seed effort. At the NYC event, Amit Gupta headed up a group of volunteers who did the initial heavy lifting to provide the core ingredients of a BarCamp: a space to hang out, a decent Wi-Fi connection, and some food. In the spirit of making the event as low-cost as possible, the daytime space doubled as accommodations for out-of-towners. Describing group-effort auto-pilot in action, Amit writes that organizers “didn’t give any instructions on what to do or where to go. Everyone just figured it out on their own, found a space when they got tired, and bedded down. In the morning, people got up, showered, and were ready by 10 or 11. Again, no direction, no alarms, people took care of themselves and each other.”

Presentations

Similarly, the un-conference approach to scheduling presentations was also a community effort. Attendees were encouraged to arrive early to “get a slot on the wall,” which is BarCamp-speak for the self-organizing event scheduler. At the NYC event, this took the form a Day/Time/Room grid taped up on a wall, onto which people slapped sheets of paper with their (sometimes barely legible) presentation names in whatever slots remained open. Presentations ranged from down-and-dirty coding discussions about new or on-the-horizon tools, such as FeedPile and ideaShrub, to more activist-leaning talks with titles such as “Build your own TiVo (Myth TV) to beat the evil broadcast flag” or the more light-hearted, like “Getting your girlfriend the ‘best present ever!’ using OSS.” Below a presentation titled “Social Networks,” someone had added the presentation “Subverting Social Networks.” Very BarCamp indeed.

Chris Messina, open-source evangelist, and a co-organizer of the original BarCamp (held in Palo Alto in the fall of 2005) describes the BarCamp experience as being “emergent... in totality. The events happen in communities -- and are organized by the community members *for* the community.” His presentation, "Flock, Micro formats, and Open source world domination," was representative of the tenor of the event, intermingling intricately detailed technical discussion with larger social themes, such as the win-win proposition of sharing as much of your work as possible with as many people as possible. Chris used his work on the Flock browser as a springboard for discussing how users can more easily create web content and engage with other users. Describing the traditional bookmarking model for maintaining a personal web history as “stupid and unintuitive,” he presented the Flock model, which takes a Gmail-like approach, indexing every page the users visits. Then, rather than having to dig through long lists of bookmarks to find the URL of that cool page you looked at last month, you can instead just search your web history to find it. "Below a presentation titled 'Social Networks,' someone had added the presentation 'Subverting Social Networks.' Very BarCamp indeed."

Exemplifying the playfully rebellious undertone of several presentations were Brandon Stafford and Mike Goelzer, in their presentation “Making the entire web as unreliable as Wikipedia.” They talked about a very-much-in-progress model for allowing visitors of a web page to view an alternate version of the page—written not by the original author but by someone who is part of your “micro culture,” and whose opinion you’ve defined as preferable to that of the original author. Admitting the concept definitely needed some work, they described it as an attempt to “take back the web” by allowing users to, at least in a limited way, turn the entire web into a wiki.

Other great presentations included a talk by Nick Gray on empowering individuals to get their development projects implemented on the cheap using offshoring. Generally associated with how big corporations lower labor costs, Nick described a peer-to-peer version of offshoring, made possible by services such as RentACoder, from which one can find a programmer in, say, Ghana, to build an entire application for under $1,500, or even get small jobs done for as little as $10. Many of those attending initially responded with disbelief at the idea of getting even a single line of code written for $10, until we realized that this amount may in fact be a lot more money in other parts of the world. Some presentations took on more of a sideshow-attraction feel, such as Matt Pelettier’s lunch-time challenge for anyone in the audience to pick an application for him to build in 15 minutes using the Ruby on Rails programming language. “What do you want me to build?” he asked defiantly. “Build something that searches craigslist for New York City apartments,” someone in the crowd proposed. Sure enough, fifteen-ish minutes later lists of outrageously priced Manhattan apartments from craigslist appeared on his laptop.

Planning

Saying that BarCamp NYC was a huge success is an understatement. Interest in the event was so high that the organizers had to keep the location of the event secret, only doling it out to the first 100 or so that signed up. The event buzz was in part thanks to a self-perpetuating marketing strategy similar to how the event itself was run: plant a small seed and then let community forces take over. It involved asking a few respected bloggers to write about the event, and then let news spread via word-of-blog. At the same time, a lot of free BarCamp buzz also came by way of its predecessor, Foo Camp.

Created by O’Reilly Books founder Tim O’Reilly, Foo Camp originated the unstructured event concept on which BarCamp is based, with a key difference being that Foo Camp is invitation-only. Due to an "in-hindsight-fortuitous miscommunication," web-standards evangelist Tantek Celik thought he hadn’t been invited back to Foo Camp 2005, which led him to create an alternate open-to-all event, setting in motion what led to the first BarCamp. (By the time he learned he in fact had been invited, BarCamp planning was well underway.) More than just an alternative model for facilitating a rich exchange of ideas, BarCamp seems to represent a generational break from conventional professional gatherings. They usually take a year or so to plan, cost tens of thousands of dollars to execute, often have some corporate backing, and are mostly planned over email. In contrast, the first BarCamp was put together in about six days, mostly via instant messaging, SMS, and ad-hoc wikis, for a cost of about $1,500, which is less than the price of a single ticket to some of the more high-end tech conferences. Stripped away are the constructs adopted by major conferences from academia, such as keynotes, posters, formal calls for papers, and peer reviews. Gone too is the presenter/attendee divide, where those not giving talks too often are passive spectators, except maybe for the occasional end-of-talk Q&A. That model certainly has its place. Some people just want to go to a conference and listen to leaders in their field speak (and maybe get their two cents in during a 5-minute madness session.) But the detrimental side effect of this is one of virtually the same A-listers disseminating to the flock year after year. And this where BarCamp provides a democratizing alternative, where talking is just as important as listening. The informal feel of the event also makes people less concerned about presenting fully developed ideas, instead, increasing the comfort-level of throwing out off-the-wall ideas just to see what the response is. And by the same virtue, an audience who, in a more formal setting, might politely listen quietly to a not-so-great presentation, is more comfortable speaking up, maybe even turning the presentation into a workshop to see how a bad idea can be turned into a good one.

As of this writing, at least three more BarCamps are being planned. In addition, several spin-offs are in the works, including WineCamp, in which developers mingle with non-profits at a vineyard to explore how one can support the other. As with BarCamp NYC, the events have been mostly technology-centric. But there is of course no reason why this low-cost, yet amazingly fruitful, event model can’t be applied toward IA and UX-oriented events. In fact, because the work of user experience professionals is so much about listening to and communicating with technology and business groups, an event where everyone presents and participates seems tailor-made for this field. At least one such event already is being planned, with Dave Heller heading up the planning of UXCampNYC, expected to take place sometime in May.

Boxes and Arrows: Stories by Anders Ramsay

New Challenges Retreat: ideas, discussion, and a call to action

An Open-Source Conference: BarCamp

Structure

Presentations

Planning

Next