An Event Apart: For People Who Make Websites
August 21, 2007

Better Know A Speaker: Liz Danzico

Spend any time at all hanging out with Liz Danzico, and you’ll discover something interesting: she knows everybody in the industry. Designers, developers, information architects, usability experts, publishers, printers—everyone. Of course, given her history—seven years with Boxes & Arrows, director of experience strategy for AIGA, advisor to the Information Architecture Institute, positions at Barnes & Noble, Razorfish, Daylife, Happy Cog, and more—this doesn’t come as much surprise.

So really, the odds are that you already know Liz quite well, and so you already know the answers to the questions we asked her. We forged ahead anyway.

Who or what has had your attention of late?

Without a doubt, Jonathan Harris. Although he does a good deal of work online, he describes himself not as a web designer, but as an anthropologist, and computer scientist, and a storyteller (then lives up to all of them). His work always shows a striking human quality both in the content he chooses and the design itself. What’s most striking about Jonathan is not only the work itself, but the story he crafts around the work. In everything he does, he brings humanity to information design. And does it elegantly each and every time.

What’s the most important thing in information architecture?

When people get lost, they stop and ask for directions. But when people get lost online, they don’t ask—they leave. Helping people find the information they’re looking for is the most important role of information architecture.

Everyone knows that users don’t care about information architecture—when IA is good, it should be transparent. But users care a lot about getting stuff done, the task at hand, and when they can’t, it can cause everything from a mild inconvenience to a catastrophic halt. Good IA helps users get a job done.

What do most people think is important, but really isn’t?

IAs are often accused of transgressing the Consistency Principle. Even early on, good information architects knew that a certain level of consistency was important. Jakob Nielsen evangelized the Ten Usability Heuristics back then, touting the value of consistency and standards. This was a good thing.

But while it’s critical for users to be able to understand a site’s conventions through consistent interface elements, they should not be talked down to. Sometimes, the Consistency Principle is taken too far, relegating every page be exactly the same as all the others. It’s OK to break these kinds of principles. People just need to feel comfortable doing so.

You’re presenting “The Seven Lies of Information Architecture” right after a talk by Lou Rosenfeld, who co-wrote the widely read and respected book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. How’s that feel?

You would ask that, wouldn’t you?

The timing couldn’t be better, I think. My talk isn’t intended to undermine IA in any way, but to point out that blindly following standards for standards’ sake—whether they’re information architecture or other kinds—is downright wrong. Lou and Peter, really the forefathers of web information architecture, set forth principles, methods, and suggested processes in their Polar Bear book. It’s up to web designers now to interpret those in a smart, relevant way.

What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk?

Information architecture has the reputation of being a sort of cloaked discipline, only accessible with passwords or handshakes. I’m not sure why that happened because IA needs to be an integrated part of a team, being informed by everyone. Through examples, people will see that the challenges that information architects face don’t always need to be solved in the same way. Through seven examples of what are sort of IA urban myths, I hope to show people how to deviate from the standards when called for.

Tell us a little bit about the AIGA and why people in the web field should care about it.

When I was first approached by AIGA (to work on the national staff), I wasn’t sure why I should care about them, to be honest. AIGA, the professional association for design, felt like an organization for graphic designers. Print people. I couldn’t figure out why I (as a web person) should care.

But I realize now that was kind of small-minded of me. AIGA is an organization that helps designers be better designers. Its intended to support people through tools, education, and inspiration that help keep designers informed and relevant—no matter what media they use to do design. Web design isn’t just about the web, nor is graphic design just about print.

AIGA is clearly about the bigger picture, giving me exposure to people and concepts that I’d never have stumbled upon otherwise. I know that AIGA is typically off the radar for many people coming to the web from areas outside of graphic design, but I really believe it’s worth a try. At least once.

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