Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Donna Spencer

171 Reputation points | Submitted 3 stories | Posted 57 comments

Donna Spencer is a freelance information architect and interaction designer, a mentor, writer and trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing both strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets & websites, e-commerce & search systems, complex business applications, a set of design patterns and a content management system. She believes deeply in the value of user-centred design and uses a range of user-centred approaches on her projects – from quick analysis of existing research to deep ethnography. She also believes deeply in team-based and iterative design – continually surprising her colleagues by talking to people rather than computers and designing the old-fashioned way with pencil, sticky notes and much coloured paper. Donna is an experienced speaker who has taught full-day workshops and presented sessions at many local and international conferences, on the topics of information architecture, interaction design and whatever else crosses her mind.
She spends her remaining spare time weaving, gardening and writing a book on card sorting to be published soon by Rosenfeld Media.

Stories written by Donna Spencer

• Card-Based Classification Evaluation [15 comments]
• Card sorting: a definitive guide [45 comments]
• Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them [32 comments]

Comments made by Donna Spencer

• I too would prefer to see a comparison than an advertisement… [1 points]
• I have no idea why two of these are stuckthrough (and I can'… [0 points]
• It's hard to explain it more in this limited space. That's w… [0 points]
• Interesting, but sounds like you still haven't thought it ri… [0 points]
• It will cover the afters as well. 'Exploratory' & 'revisitin… [0 points]
• This is just not relevant to anything I do or can see myself… [0 points]
• OK, so maybe one of us has misunderstood. I like the idea an… [1 points]
• I love Jorge's Mantra box list - both the idea and the conte… [2 points]
• If you partner with someone who knows Visio, you could cover… [0 points]
• Background pages (which are nestable and work well for big d… [0 points]
• Thank you so much for the update. I was reading the old arti… [1 points]
• I like it. Professional look, and pulls together some of the… [0 points]
• I think there is probably plenty of this type of information… [0 points]
• But how will it be interesting for information architects? [0 points]
• I think this would be valuable as long as it is not a sales … [0 points]
• Web 2.0 is irrelevant here. This is just poor research and d… [0 points]
• 'Don't know' is a little different in that they may think th… [-1 points]
• Great example Eddie. So think about how to answer the questi… [-2 points]
• Sounds interesting. [0 points]
• Innovation and the way it happens is very interesting (I eve… [0 points]
• You should have a look at these two, which are two of my fav… [0 points]
• I really liked the presentation and think there is great val… [0 points]
• I so love you guys. Thanks for enhancing the article with gr… [-3 points]
• I love the dogmas - they are a great approach to thinking, b… [1 points]
• Holy cow. This is amazing!!!!! [0 points]
• Normally I would have just ignored this because I dont agree… [0 points]
• Austin - I know Adam's writing is well researched and tight.… [0 points]
• Completely off topic, but that second paragraph in my previo… [0 points]
• I would actually like to see more information about your cor… [0 points]
• This is something we all should know but is often done so po… [1 points]
• I missed your talk but read your slides. I think this would … [0 points]
• I love these types of practical articles. [0 points]
• A good enhancement & neat visualisation of outcomes! [1 points]
• I'd love to read this Andrew. [0 points]
• This is more like an article series than an article. I'd lik… [0 points]
• Thanks Prof Coxon. I'm always surprised at what I don't know… [0 points]
• Thanks Owen - that's good to hear! [-2 points]
• This may sound crabby, but this may be a better article for … [0 points]
• Are you proposing a general article on wireframes or a detai… [0 points]
• This would be great. I still spend many hours doing inventor… [0 points]
• Sounds good. I haven't seen an article on this elsewhere [1 points]
• This sounds good. I'd like to hear about the differences as … [0 points]
• This would be a great story [0 points]
• Ooh, this could be a long article ;) [0 points]
• Good response Jamie. I think you might need to focus the sto… [0 points]
• Do you mean only software tools, or techniques? [0 points]
• I have just released the <a href="http://www.rosenfeldmedia.… [0 points]
• I have released a free <a href="http://www.rosenfeldmedia.co… [0 points]
• I'd like to hear more about what you do think this book coul… [0 points]
• What an interesting frame. [1 points]
• I definitely think you should write an article about this as… [1 points]
• Thanks [0 points]
• This is such a fantastic book - I actually read to the end (… [0 points]
• Maciej Lipiec - have a look at Optimal Sort: http://www.opti… [0 points]
• Hi Joanne. For a good approach to task-driven user research … [0 points]
• Hi Vanessa I think the incentive for a card sort would be t… [-1 points]
• Great article and all matches with my experience. This is ex… [1 points]