Lessons From a Factor Intern
Hello! I’m Xavier, and I’m the current summer intern at Factor. I had the opportunity to focus on taxonomy, user research, and data governance. I’d like to share a few tips on entering the IA field for the first time.
Perspectives
Stop Requiring Remote User Research Participants to Share Their Webcam
“Body language says so much!” Says every user researcher ever. But I’d argue that this information is not as important to your research as so many people say it is—particularly during remote studies, which are more popular than ever now during the pandemic.
Ambiguity in Times of Crises
If you feel like you’re experiencing Information Anxiety right now, you’re not alone. We’ve been trying to make sense of all the COVID-19 information being thrown around. It is now more important than ever that we rely on IA fundamentals to clarify, communicate, and even comfort.
Words have meaning. Words have context.
Taxonomists spend their time wrestling with words, categories, relationships, and meaning. In so doing, it immediately becomes clear that context is an essential part of the work.
When “Broken” Search is a Trailing Indicator of Deeper Issues
Often, after digging into projects it becomes clear that “search” is a trailing indicator of more systemic problems. Fixing or replacing a search engine is not always sufficient to address the underlying goals (even though it is necessary in some cases). “Search” projects often morph into knowledge management, content strategy, or information modeling initiatives…
Taxonomies and AI Chatbots
This blog post is adapted from a Presentation by Gary Carlson at Taxonomy Bootcamp, November 2018 Taxonomies, AI, and Chatbots: Connecting People With Information There is a natural relationship between AI chatbots and taxonomies—but how do they work together? More importantly, how can taxonomies/ontologies support best AI practices? Taxonomies and ontologies interact with, support, and …
Scalable Taxonomies
In working on enterprise taxonomy projects, the issue of scale always comes up. “Scale” is a word that gets tossed around a lot but what does it really mean for taxonomies? How can taxonomies scale? What do organizations need to think about when considering requirements for taxonomy scale? We’ve found that the best way to …
Bram Wessel speaks at Interaction 18 in Lyon, France
Bram Wessel speaks at Interaction 18 in Lyon, France
“Was Nate Silver Wrong?” Bram Wessel’s talk at the 2017 IA Summit
Transcript of Bram Wessel’s talk at the 2017 Information Architecture Summit in Vancouver, BC, Canada: “Was Nate Silver Wrong? The Crisis of Modeling in an Era of Clickbait, Fake News, and Alternative Facts.”
Learning by Teaching: Building the Community of Practice
This spring, Factor has three wonderful opportunities — two past, one yet to come — to grow our community of practice.