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Presentation

Enabling Exploratory Discovery Through Taxonomy

Taxonomy Boot Camp 2024

Not everything can just be searched. “Aha!” moments deliver value. Exploration leads to insights and surfaces contexts. How do you prepare your content for these user experiences?

Presentation

AI Explanations as Two-Way Experiences, Led by Users

User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) conference

How do we craft designs that "explain" concepts and respond to users’ intent? Can AI identify, elicit and apply relevant user contexts, to help us understand AI outputs? How do explanations become two-way?

Presentation

Menu Mania: What's Wrong With Menus

User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) conference

Menus are ubiquitous in websites and applications of all types. They are critical to accessing the information and actions that users need. In this presentation we share best practices for designing menus.

Presentation

Connecting Art & Archives for Research, Discovery, and Storytelling

MuseumNext (virtual)

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Design for Context have developed a scalable infrastructure supporting integrated information from art, archival, library, historic home collections and exhibitions. Exploring rich relationships reveals a wealth of contexts, perspectives, events, and places. Learn about how the Museum is envisioning the future of its publishing and collections-based storytelling.

Our insights

All authors
  • All authors
  • Charlie Butcosk
  • Duane Degler
  • Janette Shew
  • Karen Bachmann
  • Kate Blanch
  • Laura Chessman
  • Lesley Humphreys
  • Lisa Battle
  • Rachel Sengers
Information architecture
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  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Content strategy
  • Data-driven design
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  • Information architecture
  • Linked data
  • Project communications
  • Roadmapping
  • Search
  • User experience design
  • Visual design
  • Web accessibility
  • Presentation
    decorative image

    Enabling Exploratory Discovery Through Taxonomy

    Taxonomy Boot Camp in Washington, D.C. – November 18, 2024

    Duane Degler

    Not everything can just be searched. “Aha!” moments deliver value. Exploration leads to insights and surfaces contexts. How do you prepare your content for these user experiences?

    decorative image
    Read more
  • Presentation
    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree

    AI Explanations as Two-Way Experiences, Led by Users

    User Experience Professionals Conference – June 25, 2024

    Duane Degler

    How do we craft designs that "explain" concepts and respond to users’ intent? Can AI identify, elicit and apply relevant user contexts, to help us understand AI outputs? How do explanations become two-way, as users can explain their expectations and offer feedback?

    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree
    Read more
  • Presentation

    Menu Mania: What's Wrong With Menus and How to Fix Them

    UXPA 2024 Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – June 25, 2024

    Lisa Battle, Rachel Sengers

    Menus are ubiquitous in websites and applications of all types. They are critical to accessing the information and actions that users need, yet they can be very frustrating to use. In this presentation we review what we have learned about best practices for designing mega menus, context menus, hamburger menus, full page menus and other types, and share case studies of menu redesigns for enterprise applications, mobile apps, and information-rich websites.

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  • Presentation
    Small image with text for Georgia O'Keeffe and her art

    Connecting Art & Archives for Research, Discovery, and Storytelling

    MuseumNext Digital Collections Conference – October 10, 2022

    Duane Degler, Liz Neely

    If you’ve ever sat in on a discussion between a curator and an archivist, then you understand the breadth and richness of stories hidden in collections. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has developed a scalable infrastructure supporting integrated information from art, archival, library and historic home collections. Collections Online is a vital shared resource for the Museum and the public. Exploring rich relationships reveals a wealth of contexts, perspectives, events, and places. Learn about how the Museum is envisioning the future of its publishing and collections-based storytelling.

    Small image with text for Georgia O'Keeffe and her art
    Read more
  • Workshop
    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree

    IA for AI: Shaping the Experience for Human-AI Systems

    Information Architecture Conference - April 18-23, 2022

    Duane Degler, Carol Smith, Rebecca Evanhoe

    Participants collaborated in building upon the IA-for-AI framework that was first presented at IAC 2021. We explored what it means to understand, translate, and describe the types of situations where human-machine interaction occurs, and the way the relationship changes in real-time. Participants discussed opportunities and responsibilities that IA brings to human-AI relationships.

    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree
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  • Presentation

    Hello, Meet Hola! Design for Mixed-language Interfaces

    UXPA International Conference, Baltimore, MD – September 2, 2021

    Duane Degler, Rachel Sengers

    A global online user population necessitates the exchange of content from different sources, and the ability to aggregate multilingual content is a critical requirement within many research and business contexts. To effectively reach a global audience and provide access to content in multiple languages, we must structure mixed-language content to support its successful presentation and delivery, and provide innovative designs that facilitate exploration. In this interactive session, we provide real-world examples for doing just that.

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  • Presentation

    Guiding Users Towards Action: Empowering Decisions Through Effective Data Design

    UXPA International Conference, Baltimore, MD – September 1, 2021

    Lisa Battle, Laura Chessman

    Good design can help users quickly grasp a situation, make better decisions, and take productive actions. In this session, we provide a framework that describes a progressive evolution of data displays and actions, and share a broad range of examples, from consumer products to enterprise web applications, to discuss ways to design effective data displays and integrate actions.

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  • Presentation
    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree

    How IAs Can Shape the Future of Human-AI Collaboration

    Information Architecture Conference - April 28-30, 2021

    Duane Degler, Carol Smith

    Sometimes people describe Artificial intelligence (AI) as an “emerging intelligence,” but it is, in truth, the emergent collaboration with humans that fosters positive personal, societal, and environmental outcomes. We outline a framework that Information Architects (IAs) can use to help them think about the key issues in designing for AI systems.

    Circuit board lines, forming the image of a tree
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  • Presentation
    Person organizing their thoughts on post-it notes on a wall.

    Sensemaking as a Learned Experience

    Information Architecture Conference – April 28, 2020

    Duane Degler

    Human ability to “make sense” in both sensory and information experiences is learned, then developed through attention and practice over time. This talk guides IAs, designers, and developers toward creating supportive environments for sensemaking. It outlines the role of language, symbols, structure, and tools that help us make sense of our interactions with information.

    Person organizing their thoughts on post-it notes on a wall.
    Read more
  • Presentation
    snippet of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum home page

    The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Website

    Webinar, IIIF Museum Community Group – January 7, 2020

    Duane Degler, Charlie Butcosk, Rana Chan

    In this demonstration of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's collection browse website, launched as a beta in September 2019, Duane Degler and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's Rana Chan discuss the project background, linked data architecture approach, and the O'Keeffe team's thoughts on the future. This webinar was presented to the Museum interest group of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) community.

    snippet of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum home page
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  • Conference

    Linked Information and an Enhancement Ecosystem

    2019 Information Architecture Conference in Orlando, FL -- March 15, 2019

    Duane Degler

    In his Information Architecture Conference poster, Duane Degler offers key steps in the theory and practice of managing information as linked data, a framework that supports ongoing enhancement of digital resources, and ways to support cross-silo information resources within, and across, organizations.

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  • Workshop

    The Delicate Art of Facilitation

    IAC 2019 in Orlando, FL -- March 14, 2019

    Karen Bachmann, Duane Degler

    Good facilitation skills are essential for many IA tasks and projects. The ability to successfully guide internal colleagues as well as external groups to shared, valuable outcomes serves a wide range of project needs – achieving stakeholder and team consensus, creating a clear vision for IA strategy, refining a taxonomy, to name just a few. This IAC2019 workshop builds activities around real-world scenarios from the presenters' own experiences that participants can use to plan for and guide their own work.

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  • Conference

    User and Information Design Considerations for Effective Semantic Search

    NFAIS 2019 Annual Conference in Alexandria, VA -- February 14, 2019

    Duane Degler

    Semantic search seeks to enhance the meaning in content, to more closely align the searcher and the available information resources. This means there is a strong user-centered aspect needed to unlock the benefits. In this NFAIS Conference presentation, Duane Degler explores strategies and considerations for best supporting your users through effective semantic search.

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  • Conference

    Going Global: The Intersection of IA and UX in a Multilingual Environment

    IA Summit 2018 Conference in Chicago, IL -- March 25, 2018

    Kate Blanch, Rachel Sengers, Janette Shew

    In their IA Summit talk, Kate Blanch, Rachel Sengers, and Janette Shew discuss how to structure multilingual content to support its successful presentation and delivery, and how to provide innovative designs that facilitate exploration of that content.

    Read more
  • Conference

    No Static: IA for Dynamic Information Environments

    IA Summit 2018 Conference in Chicago, IL -- March 24, 2018

    Duane Degler

    In this IA Summit talk, Duane Degler provides an overview of the dynamic information landscape, positions the role of IA firmly at the heart of its ecosystem design, and provides ideas for weaving this into your practice.

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  • Conference

    Linked Collections and an Enhancement Ecosystem

    Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) 2018 Conference in New York, NY -- February 26, 2018

    Duane Degler, Kate Blanch

    In their ARLIS/NA poster, Duane Degler and Kate Blanch offer key steps in the theory and practice of managing collection data as linked data, a framework that supports ongoing enhancement of digital resources, and ways to discuss your approach toward digital scholarship.

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  • White paper

    Understanding How Content Is Used in Enterprise Settings

    March 16, 2016

    Duane Degler

    Enabling knowledge management capabilities through search and discovery can benefit from richer data to learn the ways users think about the information they find and use. This article describes an approach we developed to support enterprise search and content synthesis for case management and research in legal and scientific/academic domains. We use an extremely lightweight (yet powerful) mechanism to bridge the silos and establish a network of data around the use of information.

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  • Publication

    Intelligent Understanding of Content Use

    Published in KMWorld Magazine, March 1, 2016

    Duane Degler

    Using a rich network of data about how people actually use content, we can find insights by integrating it with other enterprise information sources. In this article, Duane Degler explores how it becomes a valuable input to governance processes, at both the organizational and content levels.

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  • Presentation

    Building Bridges with Taxonomy: Enabling Semantic Integration

    Taxonomy Bootcamp, associated with KM World, Washington, DC - November 2, 2015

    Duane Degler, Jayne Dutra

    Taxonomies should be designed with enough flexibility and transition points to be a bridge to other taxonomies and datasets. Enabling your taxonomy to fit into the larger universe of partner companies, industry standards, federal requirements and complementary term sets gives it a solid foundation for future growth. We explore which vocabulary sets are available for reuse by the enterprise information architect and demonstrate how thinking about semantic integration from the beginning of the design process helps build a taxonomy that endures.

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  • Publication

    7 Steps for a More Accessible Association Information Ecosystem

    Published by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), Associations Now Plus - October 5, 2015

    Duane Degler, Jacqui Olkin

    It can be easy for associations to get buried under all the information they produce and curate. Here are seven steps create an information ecosystem in which resources are accessible and up to date.

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  • Presentation

    Creating Personal Profiles Across Time and Distance

    SmartData Conference, San Jose, CA - August 19, 2015

    Duane Degler

    Personal data capture and algorithmic modeling of user preferences and interests is maturing. In this talk, Duane Degler explores some of the considerations for longitudinal preference management, how adaptive interfaces might play a role, and how users could interact with a model at a particular time in an application.

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  • Workshop
    Museum exhibit

    Emerging Tastes: Considering How Preferences Evolve

    International Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage (PATCH 2015), Atlanta, GA – March 29, 2015

    Duane Degler

    Experiencing cultural heritage is a voyage of discovery and learning, where emerging insights and serendipity play a significant role. The experience also happens in a blended personal and social context. At the broader level, engagement is longitudinal – what we learn from modern cultural experiences (daily life in our surroundings) can provide clues to analogous interests in cultural materials, and vice versa. This paper addresses richness of personal experience poses challenges and opportunities for capturing preferences in ways that support a user’s experience with cultural heritage across institutions and over time, both in the digital realm and where digital interaction blends with a physical space.

    Museum exhibit
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  • Presentation
    Information architecture design with sticky notes

    Positive Psychology and the Architecture of Information Happiness

    World IA Day, Washington, DC - February 21, 2015

    Lesley Humphreys

    The science of happiness has come a long way in recent decades: prominent scholars such as Martin Seligman, Tal Ben-Shahar, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have studied and written about the impact that positive psychology can have in our lives. Csikszentmihalyi’s research on the concept of flow, in particular, is relevant to our work as information architects. Can we find the right mix of skills and challenges to bring our clients, our end users, and ourselves into the “flow” state of optimal experience? If we can achieve the right balance (in the stretch zone, as opposed to the panic zone!) happiness is found in the sense of accomplishment at what we’ve achieved.

    Information architecture design with sticky notes
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  • Publication
    Reframing Information Architecture book cover

    Dynamic IA: External & Internal Contexts for Reframing

    Springer - 2014

    Duane Degler

    The world of information architecture has changed, and a reframing is moving the conversation forward. Duane Degler contributes a chapter called “Dynamic Information Architecture—External and Internal Contexts for Reframing” to Reframing Information Architecture, a book edited by Andrea Resmini.

    Reframing Information Architecture book cover
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  • Presentation
    Designing information architecture

    IA 2.0: An Open Conversation about Context, Mobility and Semantics

    IA Summit, Denver, CO – April 2, 2011

    Duane Degler

    Information Architecture has the potential to take a leading role in making the next generation of web and mobile applications more valuable for our users. We have key skills to clarify structured data relationships, identify relevance and context, and streamline the usefulness of information. In order to lead, IAs need to understand and address the implications of an environment that is changing fundamentally from what we've known in Web 1.0 and 2.0. What does it mean to design for a Context Web? Note: This file contains points transcribed from the conversations with participants.

    Designing information architecture
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