IA Tools: What I use

It’s a fun time to be involved with the web. I’ve seen it evolve over the last 15 years from a tool used by academics to share knowledge and information, into a tool for companies to make money, and then back into the hands of people so they can share knowledge and information (and have fun doing it).

As an Information Architect (IA) I’ve got a lot to do: from (business) analysis, user experience design, interaction design, information design, taxonomy design, systems prototyping, and channel analysis, to project management, solutions architecture, change management, and communications strategy development and implementation. The tools that I use to do this ’stuff’ are:

• Methodologies - like the Human-centred design in ISO 13407:1999(E) and various cool user-experience design stuff from Jesse James Garrett
• Personas of archetypal ‘users’ of systems - showing users wants and needs
• Business Process Maps - showing information, decision and process flow
• Storyboards - showing in a graphical way how people might interact with a system given existing or future-state processes
• Want Maps - showing aggregation of wants and needs further categorised by, for example, system requirements, information requirements, channel selection … anything really!
• Card Sorting - often in workshops with real business stakeholders
• Prototyping tool (like Axure) - so I can build something without actually building it and then show it to users and get their acceptance of the system sooner rather than later

I use these tools in different ways for different projects. So, I figure I’ll start to blog about each of these and share some of my experiences with you.

M