When I was offered an opportunity to teach User Experience to industry professionals, I knew Information Architecture was going to be a key part of the curriculum. It would be easy to justify to students that it should be covered, as Jesse James Garrett’s model of UX was well known IA had a secure place in his model nestled tightly next to its more popular brother Interaction Design. As well I felt I had to teach IA. I was growing increasingly concerned about my industry’s fading interest in it. Where I live, in the Silicon Valley, the title has almost completely disappeared, unfortunately taking with it the skills and knowledge IA’s posses. Workshops and lectures with Information Architecture in the title are poorly attended, despite the knowledge they’d impart would radically improve the bottom line of the companies that eschewed it. IA was deader than God in the software industry. I had to convince students of its relevance, rather than let them think of it as some quaint holdover from the dot-com era, like the single-pixel gif hack. I did that Upworthy-style, with humor, storytelling and sharing. Beyond caring, I wanted them to retain the knowledge i imparted. If they did not internalize the knowledge, they would not keep it. So how could I help them understand the power of a taxonomy when often I had only 4-8 hours of class time to cover all of IA? In five minutes, I will take the room though my model of teaching, which is stories/making/reflection. I will cover the stories that resonated most deeply with the students, from Netflix's race to find a better algorithm to the catholic reclassifying Cabybaras are fish so people could have protein on a Friday. I'll discuss my fun "bouncy ball" exercise, where students make four different classification systems for a ball store as they giggle over inappropriate puns. And we'll discuss the power of reflection through discussion, diarying and presenting. When we learn skills with our hands and our hearts, we keep them into all the aspects of our lives. What other point is there for teaching? 

1. I teach unicorns
Teaching Tangibly
on Rodents and Religion
Christina Wodtke | eleganthack.com | cwodtke

2. I teach unicorns
THIS PRESENTATION IS ANNOTATED.
THAT WHAT THESE BIG GREY BOXES
ARE!
I don’t teach future information
architects, I raise unicorns. But I care
about IA as part of that equation.

3. We are in the middle of the second
information tsunami. This one is
made of personal data. We need IA.

4. THE DEFINITION PROBLEM
1. The structural design of shared information
environments.
2. The art and science of organizing and
labeling web sites, intranets, online
communities and software to support usability
and findability.
3. An emerging community of practice focused
on bringing principles of design and architecture
to the digital landscape.
The practice of deciding the order in
which the pieces of a whole should be
arranged to uphold the integrity of the
meaning that is intended by the maker.
Unfortunately this is not helping me.
IA needs to know what it is and why
it matters, and how to explain that.
Can we get behind one of these?

5. IA is boring
This simple reality is students find IA
boring.
Which is sad, because it really isn’t.

6. reflection
instruction
practiceHow I
teach

7. Sorting candy, then making the
homepage creates the first cognitive
shift
I start with ACTION:
This is the bouncy ball exercise (also
done with candy)
First students sort candy as they see
fit. Then the make a store for the
candy. This is the first time they
realize they have to resort the candy

8. Find a after dinner mint
Find a candies for a upcoming party for a 57
year old
Make users aware some candies are on sale
Find again a good choice for that party that
you saw earlier
I then teach them Donna Maur’s Four
Modes of Information Seeking
(INSTRUCTION), and have them alter
their org again based on tasks.
http://boxesandarrows.com/four-modes-of-seeking-

9. METADATA
FACETS
I teach them about metadata, and
we work with that. We make facets.
They redo their organization.

10. They do, learn and redo.
I teach them about associative terms,
and how it can sell or repulse.
Instruction
(lecture)
Reflection
(discussion)
Action
(studio)

11. This preso from Upworthy gave me
insight on how to motivate.

12. 12
China cap = chinois = strainer
This is the pragmatic reason: so I can
sell more stuff.

13. This is the personal reason: as
students, they know these sites suck.

14. Classification is
Contextual
Students laugh that the capybara is
a fish. They get upset at inherit
culture patriarchy of dewey.

15. This I never need to comment on.

16. MetadataINTRINSIC, ADMINISTRATIVE, DESCRIPTIVE
I teach all the most boringest stuff!
And have fun!

17. Intrinsic is useless, tagging too
much work
17
How can I teach intrinsic? By
showing how even smart ppl can’t
be bothers, and machines don’t
know much. +cute dogs.

18. Handcrafted FTW
• Add pic of netflix
18
I show how radical innovation
comes form descriptive metadata.

19. And I show how administrative
metadata can help protect kids. I tell
a personal story about how a guy
was bookmarking semi-nude kids on
Flickr, and how metadata helped me
reset permissions.

20. DRAW
YOUR
WEEK
I finally talked about how reflection
can be more than just diaries and
papers, but drawing.

21. Which is sometimes a therapeutic
necessity.

22. THE FUTURE
MUST GIVE A DAMN
Thank you
@cwodtke