Donna Spencer: Information Architecture Educator and Author – Episode 112

Content Strategy Insights

Donna Spencer Donna Spencer has practiced information architecture at the highest levels for more than two decades. She has taught innumerable workshops and courses, and she wrote an entire book on the subject. Still, to this day, when she teaches IA, she feels inadequate. This speaks in no way to her professional knowledge or her skills as a teacher. Donna knows this field as well as anyone and speaks eloquently about it. Rather, it gets at the "jigsaw mess" of the practice of information architecture and the constraints of modern educational environments. We talked about: her work at MakerX and its alignment with her natural maker tendencies her definition of information architecture, and the importance of foundational structure work how IA work has changed over the years, in particular the shift from manual to automated processes the challenges of teaching structural concepts to modern UX practitioners, who tend to focus on journeys and flows the importance of metadata in digital product design how to get action-oriented designers to consider the structural side of design, and accounting for these different mindsets in your IA work her approach to teaching IA the importance of understanding how people operate, especially differences in communication styles how she teaches her students to model content how her academic background in economics prepared her to be a modeler Donna's bio Donna Spencer is an independent design consultant. With 20-ish years experience, she has expertise across the entire design spectrum – from strategy to delivery and everything in between – and loves all of it. She has designed for a wide range of problems across all kinds of industries, with a particular emphasis on information architecture and complex employee experience problems. Recognised internationally as a leading UX practitioner, Donna is a regular conference speaker and has written five UX-related books. She created UX Australia and ran it for 9 years. Connect with Donna online Maadmob LinkedIn Twitter Donna's books Presenting Design Work, 2020 How to Write Great Copy for the Web, 2011 A Practical Guide to Information Architecture, 2010 (free download) Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories, 2009 Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/0Q458NdHXwU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 112. The practice of information architecture used to be pretty straightforward. You organized a bunch of web pages and created navigation schemes to help readers find their way to the content. Nowadays, websites and apps are more likely to assemble and serve content on the fly. This requires a new approach. Donna Spencer has practiced IA across the lifespan of the discipline and can help you navigate these new ways of structuring and organizing information. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 112 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I am super-delighted today to have with us. Donna Spencer, Donna is currently a principle product designer at Maker, but she's been known as an information architect for a long time. I mean, I first discovered her book in ... I don't know, 15 years ago, whenever that was. So anyhow, welcome, Donna. You want to tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days? Donna: Thank you very much. Well, so firstly, I just should disclose that what I'm up to at the moment is painting my new house. So, it's me, safety glasses and a lot of paint all over me. Larry: Nice. Donna: Because if anybody's looking at it going, "Why does she look so weird?" That would be why. Aside from painting an old house, because we're talking between Christmas and New Year, so this is the time when I'm not thinking much about work. As you just said, I've just joined this little new company as a principal product designer.