I draw boxesA blog on user experience & design

So this is my first post…

I’m not sure what this site will develop in to – if anything (useful). But I’ve created it because I think it’s important to share ideas relating to making and planning web sites. Information architecture is such a new and evolving discipline, I wanted to get involved in the community to let other know what it is to me, and to find out what it is to them.

I’ve created this blog because I think it’s important to share ideas and get involved in the community

I’ve been a full-time IA for nearly a year now, and in that time have come across such a variety of ways of practising the work. That’s partly what I love about the role – it’s quite fluid and multidisciplinary. Whereas project managers, designers or developers have their job specs fairly closely nailed down by now, I get the feeling IA is still being defined.

So on these pages I intend to share ideas on:

• Day-to-day issues and problems I come across
• Projects I’m working on (often this will have to be in the abstract, due to client confidentiality)
• Discussions of past work and IA strategies
• Things I’ve read online or heard at conferences
• The nature of information architecture, usability and interaction design and the relationship between the three
• The relationship between an IA and the rest of the web dev team, including: Project Managers, Account Managers, Clients, Front- and Back-End Developers, Graphic Designers, Analysts etc.
• Share practical and techinical information about software and technology, including Visio, and also geeky stuff like LAMP

And so I draw boxes is born… I hope it becomes a reasonably interesting resource.

A brief note on the name…

The name of this site is blatantly inspired by Boxes and Arrows. I love the simplicity of the name because it encapsulates what I do for a living nicely – although of course spectacularly fails to communicate any of the thinking involved. But hopefully the rest of the site will do that.