If we don’t understand the data, information, and content we’re working with, how can we attempt to explain it to others? Worse yet, how can we (and they) make informed decisions based on it if none of us really understands? I’ve spent the past year and a half finding and experimenting with tools to help solve some gnarly enterprise information architecture problems. I was immersed in a world of information that is often duplicated, stale, or untrustworthy, and I was asked to make sense of it. Traditional IA tools couldn’t provide the answers. I wasn’t trying to design a website or app, or produce a deliverable for its own sake — I was trying to understand the information piling up around me, and help others make decisions based on it. Using my own work as an example, I’ll help you answer and explore questions like: - Should we choose our tools not for what they produce, but for what we can learn from them? - Where can we even start when we’ve got a large amount of data to figure out? - What can we learn by playing with information and transforming it in different ways? - How might we better understand the scope, limits, relationships, patterns, and structures in our information? Finding useful tools can be difficult, and they can be found in unlikely places. We’ll look at several uncommon tools that have been valuable in my own work, including Gephi, Google Refine, and Tiddlywiki. I’ll share my successes and failures and discuss how I’ve learned to evaluate these tools. If they are unfamiliar, I’ll show you enough to get started using them immediately. After brief overviews and basic examples, you’ll be armed with ways to improve your own work, and new directions to explore!

1. @adcockm
IA Summit 2014
San Diego, CA
Michael Adcock

2. @adcockm

3. http://iainstitute.org/en/learn/research/25_theses.php
@adcockm

4. @adcockm
Responses to Fred’s question included: SPSS, Nvivo, Dedoose, ATLAS.ti

5. @adcockm

6. @adcockm
https://medium.com/p/f755c6515368

7. @adcockm

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12. @adcockm
http://www.jarango.com/blog/2013/06/28/for-the-world-wide-web/

13. Thanks to @Katalogofchaos for the inspiration!
@adcockm

14. http://understandinggroup.com/2013/07/presentation-at-uxpa-2013-understanding-information-architecture/

15. Dan Klyn proposes: FRAMES
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16. Karl Fast (or maybe Stephen Anderson!) in
Wednesday’s IA Summit “Design for Understanding” workshop
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17. Adapted from Abby Covert’s “Make Sense: Information Architecture for Everybody”

18. @adcockm

19. “But simple is good, in my view, because you can carry it
around in your head. And simple is also good because
you can combine many small, simple things to figure out
a big, complex thing.” -- Andrew Hinton
http://understandinggroup.com/2013/03/some-simple-models-for-user-context/

20. “Allow the information to tell you how it
wants to be displayed. As architecture is
“frozen music,” information architecture is
“frozen conversation.” Any good
conversation is based on understanding.”
-- Richard Saul Wurman
January 2000 issue of Knowledge Management
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21. @adcockm

22. http://www.slideshare.net/The_Understanding_Group/what-before-how-
making-a-home-for-information-architecture

23.  WHAT
 does the tool want to do?
 is the tool good for?
 does it consume?
 does it produce?
 is the effort required to learn & use it?
 HOW
 can we trust the tool?
 can the tool(s) be adapted if necessary?
 do the tools fit together? (possible? anything missing?)
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25. http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
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26. http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
@adcockm

27. https://code.google.com/p/google-refine/
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28. https://code.google.com/p/google-refine/
@adcockm

29. https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine
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30. http://googlerefine.blogspot.com/
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31. http://classic.tiddlywiki.com/
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32. http://classic.tiddlywiki.com/
@adcockm

33. @adcockm

34. @adcockm

35. @adcockm
http://charts.tiddlyspace.com/recipes/charts_public/tiddlers.wiki

36. @adcockm
https://github.com/abego/YourSearchPlugin

37. http://tiddlywiki.com/
@adcockm

38. http://www.giffmex.org/tw5mall.htm
@adcockm

39. https://gephi.org
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40. https://gephi.org
@adcockm

41. Plugin from: https://marketplace.gephi.org/plugin/gexf-js-web-viewer/
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42. https://code.google.com/p/gource/
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43. @adcockm

44. http://d3js.org/
@adcockm

45. http://d3js.org/
@adcockm

46. http://christopheviau.com/d3list/gallery.html
@adcockm

47. http://raw.densitydesign.org/
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48. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
@adcockm

49. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
@adcockm

50. @adcockm

51. @adcockm

52. @adcockm

53. @adcockm

54. @adcockm

55. @adcockm

56. http://www.animaps.com/
@adcockm

57. http://www.animaps.com/
@adcockm

58. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
@adcockm

59. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
@adcockm

60. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
@adcockm

61. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
@adcockm

62. http://alternativeto.net/
@adcockm

63.  What have we learned by playing with information
and transforming it in different ways?
 Do we use tools we’re comfortable with, or tools that
help us frame information in certain ways?
 Would we rather be an expert at using certain tools, or
an expert at choosing effective tools to use?
@adcockm

64. @adcockm
Tools for Uncovering Arrangement & Meaning
Michael Adcock