The Informed Life

My guest today is Andrew Hinton. Andrew has worked in the digital design field for two decades. He’s one of the founders of the Information Architecture Institute and author of the book Understanding Context. In this conversation, you’ll learn about the foundations of information architecture and why Andrew thinks of himself as a “radical information architect.”

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-informed-life-episode-26-andrew-hinton.mp3

Show notes

• Andrew Hinton
• Helix (database)
• Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture by Andrew Hinton
• The Information Architecture Institute
• The Information Architecture Conference
• The Informed Life Episode 21: Vanessa Foss on Event Planning
• Shared Information Environment: let’s unpack that, shall we? by Andrew Hinton
• MUD
• Interactive fiction (e.g. text adventure games)
• World of Warcraft
• O’Reilly Media
• Peter Morville
• Ecological psychology
• James J. Gibson & Eleanor J. Gibson
• Phlogiston
• The Copernican Revolution
• Cartesianism
• Play-Doh
• Contextual inquiry
• Service design
• Ecosystem Map
• Bodystorming
•  Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• The Informed Life Episode 15: Jeff Sussna on Cybernetics
• Norbert Wiener
• Claude Shannon
• Due app
• Apple’s Reminders app
• Steve Jobs: “Computers are like a bicycle for our minds”
• The Mother of All Demos
• Doug Englebart

My guest today is Mary Parks. Mary’s background is in communications and applied linguistics, and for the past twenty years she has worked on designing voice user interfaces for digital systems. In this conversation, we focus on what voice interfaces are and how voice-driven systems work.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/the-informed-life-episode-25-mary-parks.mp3

Show notes

• Mary Parks on Twitter
• Nuance Communications
• Honeywell
• Applied linguistics
• Siri
• Natural language understanding
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking
• The uncanny valley
• Pixel 4
• 
  

My guest today is Michael J. Metts. Michael designs digital products and services, with a focus on the impact of writing on the user’s experience. He and co-author Andy Welfle have written a new book on this subject. In this conversation, Michael and I discuss the relationship between writing and design, and how being more aware of how we use language can make us more effective.

Show notes

• Michael J. Metts on Twitter
• Michael J. Metts on LinkedIn
• Michael J. Metts on Instagram
• Michael’s blog
• Writing is Designing: Words and the User Experience, by Michael J. Metts & Andy Welfle
• Card sorting
• Tree testing
• The Informed Life Episode 11: Lisa Welchman on Governance
• Microsoft Word
•  GOV.UK highlighter method
• IA Writer
• Ulysses
• Markdown
• Slack
•  Microsoft Teams

Disclosure: I received Michael's book for free as a previous Rosenfeld Media/Two Waves author.

My guest today is Carol Smith. Carol is a user experience researcher at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Her focus is artificial intelligence, and prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, she worked for Uber’s Advanced Technology Group and IBM Watson. In this conversation, we discuss the benefits and limitations of artificial intelligence — and machine learning, more specifically – for our day-to-day information management.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/the-informed-life-episode-23-carol-smith-2.mp3

Show notes

• Carol Smith on Twitter
• Carol Smith on LinkedIn
• Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute
• AlphaGo
• Gmail
• Multi-factor authentication

My guest today is Andrea Mignolo. Andrea is VP of Product and Design at Movable Ink, a marketing technology company based in New York. In this episode, we discuss design as a way of being in the world, and why it matters.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/the-informed-life-episode-22-andrea-mignolo.mp3
 

Show notes

• Andrea Mignolo’s website
• Andrea Mignolo on Twitter
• Andrea Mignolo on Medium
• Oberlin College
• Free Speech TV
• Rails
• Ember.js
•  Reflections on Business, Design, and Value by Andrea Mignolo
•  Learning Through Worldmaking: The Design Way by Andrea Mignolo
• The Interaction Design Association
•  VUCA
• Peter Senge
• Phil Gilbert
• Sketch
• Photoshop
• New Ventures West
•  Andrea’s Experiential Learning Cycle diagram
• Case Western Reserve University
• Fernando Flores
• BEING IN THE WORLD (2010 documentary file)
• Martin Heidegger
• Humberto Maturana
• John Dewey

My guest today is Vanessa Foss. Vanessa has been planning and managing conferences for twenty-five years. She’s the founder and president of Kunverj, an event planning and management company. Vanessa and her team run one of my favorite events of the year, the Information Architecture Conference. In this episode, we discuss what it takes to manage such an event.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/the-informed-life-episode-21-vanessa-foss.mp3

Show notes

• Kunverj
• ASIS&T
• Information Architecture Conference
• Cvent platform
• Euro IA Conference
• SoftConf
• Slack
• Mailchimp
• Zoom
• RDAP Conference
• Kunverj upcoming events

My guest today is Chris Chandler. Chris is a partner at Philosophie, a strategic software design and development studio. He’s also a self-described “agilista,” and in this episode we discuss how designers — especially those working in agile environments — can embrace an ethical approach to their work.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/the-informed-life-episode-20-chris-chandler.mp3

Show notes

• Chris Chandler on Twitter
• UCLA Department of Information Studies
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
• Marcia Bates
•  Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
•  Magic Bands at Walt Disney World
• Kevin Cheng
• OK/Cancel
• Philosophie
• The Informed Life Episode 15: Jeff Sussna on Cybernetics
• DevOps
• Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World and What We Can Do to Fix It by Mike Monteiro
• Future Ethics by Cennydd Bowles
•  Arturo Perez Bridges the Gap Between UX Design and Metaphysics
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Jacques Derrida
• Jean Baudrillard
• Stephen Colbert
• Existentialism
• The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir
• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Peter Singer
•  Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women

My guest today is Eduardo Ortiz. Eduardo is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former Director at the U.S. Digital Service. More recently, Eduardo co-founded &Partners, a social impact design and engineering studio that works with organizations to help improve their communities. In this episode, we discuss how they manage their information to drive change.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/the-informed-life-episode-19-eduardo-ortiz-2.mp3
 

Show notes

• @EduardoOrtiz on Twitter
• Eduardo on LinkedIn
• &Partners (Eduardo’s company)
• ASIS&T Sigia-l mailing list
• Louis Rosenfeld
• U.S. Marine Corps
• U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• U.S. Digital Service
• healthcare.gov
• 18F
• U.S. General Services Administration
• U.S. Small Business Administration
• U.S. Department of Defense
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• U.S. Department of Education
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Dana Chisnell
• New America
• Vera Institute of Justice
• Jennifer Anastasoff
• Asana
• Google Forms
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• @andprtnrs on Twitter
• &Partners on LinkedIn

My guest today is Thomas Dose. Thomas is the head of Music Services at DR, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. In this role, he works with a massive archive of physical and digital music files. In this episode, we talk about how DR organizes it all and what we can learn to help us manage our own music collections better.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/the-informed-life-episode-18-thomas-dose.mp3

Show notes

• Thomas Dose on Twitter
• DR
• Spotify
• IDAGIO
• Jorge’s blog post about Idagio
• Apple Music
• Tidal
• Qobuz
• MusicBrainz.org
• RuneAudio
• The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
• Acousting fingerprint
• Shazam
• AcoustID

My guest today is Rachel Price. Rachel works as a Senior Information Architect at Microsoft and teaches Information Architecture at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. Her background is in music, and in this episode we talk about how structures can serve as a foundation for improvisation.

Listen to the full conversation

 https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/the-informed-life-episode-17-rachel-price.mp3

Show notes

• Rachel Price on LinkedIn
• Rachel Price on Twitter
• School of Visual Concepts
• Magic Eye optical illusions
•  The Informed Life Episode 11: Lisa Welchman on Governance
• Improvisation: Methods and Models by Jeff Pressing (PDF)
• Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovitch
• New York Times iOS app
• Screen Time on iOS
•  How to Use App Limits and Downtime in iOS 12
• Kind of Blue by Miles Davis