UXA2023 Penny Goodwin - Information Architecture and product development

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UX Australia
UX Australia 2023
Friday, 25 August 2023
Captioned by: Kasey Allen & Bernadette McGoldrick

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STEVE BATY: Our next talk this afternoon is coming remotely via video.
Our next talk this afternoon is coming remotely by video. I will stay
here while we bring Penny up on screen. Penny is from Optimal
Workshop. I can see you on screen. That is awesome. You can hear me
OK?
PENNY GOODWIN: Yes, all good.
STEVE BATY: I will hand over to Penny. Please join me in welcoming
Penny Goodwin, thank you.
PENNY GOODWIN: Kia ora kotou, ko penny ahau. Hi, I am Penny, I am
trying to drop my Kiwi accent enough to get my name out because people
are having trouble with that. I work at Optimal Workshop, which is based
in Atura, Wellington and in New Zealand. I am the head of product and
have been in various product roles over my career and I am here to talk
about IA and product development. Hopefully you haven't got those

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letters mixed up and you think I will talk about AI. If I start talking about
artificial intelligence, something has gone very, very wrong.
What is this talk about? Information Architecture and product
development are massive topics in themselves. The crux is the belief that,
through intentional Information Architecture, there is a great opportunity
to improve the products and services that we work on for the people that
need and use them to help us meet business goals. Which kind of all
sounds great, however for some reason, getting this work prioritised can
be really difficult, so what is stopping us?
Product managers. I am a product manager by trade and, to be
honest, I think we might be the problem. I feel better now that I have got
that out in the open. Today, what I want to talk to you about is the
product manager's perspective on how we can embed Information
Architecture into the product development life cycle.
So, sit back and relax while I tell you about how the PM in your life
is stopping you from achieving what you want to do. Hey, I am only
joking. What I will cover is some of the barriers to adopting IA practice
and why those barriers might be there, the opportunity we have with
looking at IA earlier in the process and then some suggested approaches
on how to make this happen.
Now, before I jump right into this, in case you are new to IA, I don't
want you sitting there the whole time going "What is going on?" A
working definition that we use at Optimal Workshop for IA is designing
the information of an environment in a way that makes sense for the
people who need to navigate it. But my assumption here is that most of
the people that are listening know a lot more about this field than I do, so
I am going to jump straight into it.
Sorry to bring the mood down and start with the problems, but
awareness is always the first step and it is much easier to be able to

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address them if we can properly articulate them. Have you ever kind of
had issues where you are trying to get work into a road map or a backlog,
or you have tried to change or evolve the development process in some
way? It can be tricky. Let alone when you are trying to champion
something like Information Architecture work and, for product people, I
think there is a really widespread lack of understanding around what
Information Architecture is and how it can actually help achieve some of
those higher level outcomes. Therefore, I don't think it has been
considered and if the importance isn't understood and if people aren't
comfortable discussing it, it is not going to be debated on and it is not
going to end up on that road map.
At the moment, because IA work isn't considered normal in cyber
scope of product development, Information Architecture considerations
can only come up maybe after something is built and we aren't seeing the
change we were hoping for. We start to look at our IA toolkit and consider
the larger environment that the change operates in and the way that the
information is presented, but it is usually be can a begrudging last resort.
With all these problems, is there hope for IA, this little confused
triangle on one knee is asking? I am saying of course and I think there
are two shifts that I have noticed in the last 10 years in the product
development process that can give us that hope. Firstly, product teams
are getting better at understanding the importance of customer research
within their work. Everyone seems to have had their light bulb moment of
realising that they are not their users or they have had an assumption
invalidated. Secondly, we seem to be getting better at prioritising and
building things in a technically sustainable way up-front since by now we
have all had to deal with the large scale ramifications of putting off the
technical debt and all the costs associated with that.
You could be sitting there going "not at my work", and I get it, I am

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generalising, but in a place that is practising good product development
and management, it is an expected part of the rhetoric when you are
shaping works. It is time to shine a light on Information Architecture and
bring that in as part of the conversation too.
The opportunity that IA presents is a compelling one. As I
personally have learnt more about IA, I have discovered what you already
know, which is Information Architecture is at the core of understanding
human nature, so words, concepts and space can all make a difference in
the usability of your products and services. Words matter. They can mean
different things to different groups of people. For example, efficiency to
some, this word represents streamlining processes to save time and
money, while to others you could be listening to that going "That is
cutting corners and sacrificing quality". The same information can be
interpreted into different concepts and ideas by different groups of people
and then comes spaces and places, buildings and structures, these
communicated things, even without words or diagrams and these all
influence our behaviour.
There is a really great example of this that some of you may
already know. This is a photo of Grand Central Station and there was a
case study of some tweets or whatever they are called now and they
came out of this train station and another train station in the US, Penn
Station, and on the surface, these two train stations are serving the same
purpose, they are getting people where they needed to go. They had the
same issues, delays, communicating changes to schedule but the tone of
the tweets from users in both of these spaces were vastly different. In
Grand Central Station, it was generally really positive, whereas the tweets
that came out of Penn Station were overwhelmingly negative. That is all
to do with the environment that was created. People were starting to
treat Grand Central Station as a destination, above just somewhere that

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you caught a train, so somehow they tapped into a whole other persona
in there. I was going to put up a photo of Penn Station but, to be honest,
it looks pretty flash and that doesn't illustrate the point I am trying to
make. If you can picture your shitty local train station instead, that would
be great. The point is that space influenced the behaviour of the users of
that service and it is just one example of the effect that great Information
Architecture can have.
One of the biggest light bulb moments for me was the
understanding that Information Architecture is all around you whether
you intentionally do it or not. If it's going to happen anyway, you may as
well think about it from the start. I think the analogy of a garden is
perfect, so we have all seen or maybe own gardens that have just
become completely overrun, or had plants that, even with the best
intentions, haven't grown. You can end up with weeds choking out the
very thing you were trying to grow in the first place and this is so true of
software, where we often build and build and add content and more
content and we get ourselves into a state. Number one, we need to weed
our garden, yes, but, ideally, we should also plan our garden from the
start and any additions that might come in the future. Put your carrots
and leeks together from the start and you will see better growth but don't
put your corn next to your broccoli, apparently. I went down a rabbit hole
on this topic. The point is, intentionality in this area makes all the
difference, so have a think about a product that you may have worked on,
or are working on, and just think about is this a garden of weeds or
flowers?
We know that considering Information Architecture early is a
compelling case, so we need to understand those barriers to getting this
work done and how we can overcome them. One of those barriers will
probably be the person that is in charge of the backlog, so your product

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manager. Let's discuss how we can win them around and the second is
around lack of ownership and who can be the champions of the cause
within your organisation.
Starting with those pesky product managers, many people will know
this but I just wanted to do a quick refresher on how we are making
decisions as product people. Ideally, everyone in the organisation should
care about Information Architecture, but if they don't, you will eventually
get to the person who is in charge of the backlog and we are prioritising
based on a number of things, so we are prioritising based on slices of the
customer journey, data and metrics link to strategy, we are thinking
about UX design, research investing and engineering platform
architecture, looking at what our stakeholders think, our customers, our
customer service teams. We are also trying to shield teams from senior
leadership, as they try to switch the focus to the shiny new things. There
is a lot going on in this space. The ironic thing is when I started learning
more about Information Architecture, I saw a lot of parallels with product
management as a discipline. This idea of taking amalgamous concepts,
putting structure to it, helping various different types of people
understanding and get value from it rings true for both disciplines which is
a good thing because it creates that common ground.
I am not saying we are simple folk but I am saying that we are
usually generous. Our expertise is in the product development process, so
we will understand the fundamental principles behind engineering and
design and research and marketing but when we are given something
new to consider, we are trying to understand how it fits in that bigger
picture. Is it something to bring in or is this a distraction that we should
be shielding the team from? Therefore, being able to communicate how IA
fits in, and specifically the language you use, is really important.
Sometimes I get something like this, "We want to do some

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discovery and exploratory research, including understanding our users'
ontology and taxonomy and after this we plan on modelling our users key
abstractions and concepts and we will complete a heuristic evaluation of
key pages". I am just sitting there nodding along but I am going blank,
and so what I am translating this to in my head is OK, you want to
understand user problems, what words they use and how they make
sense of these concepts and make changes based on best practices?
Really, it is kind of all about this framing and using generalist
language in order to convey the impact of this work. Here is the kind of
framework I want you to think about and the first thing is, as we all know,
always start with strategy. Familiarise yourself with the company
strategy, product strategy and ensure you understand, with the work
you're proposing, that it would fall under that. Then move onto the story.
Qualitative data here, quotes interviews, anything with customers that
illustrate some of the points that you are making. Then, any data
available. Maybe you have drop-off completion rates data or how much
users need to use the help function. I will admit, quantitative can
sometimes be really hard to come across and it is also hard to draw a
definite conclusion of, especially related to something that is kind of a
larger IA issue, but what I will say here is remember that is only one part
of the story, so it is OK if you can't find that perfect metric that will tell
that story for you.
Lastly, a plan with a succinct hypothesis. There is always a problem
that discovery work will spiral out of control, so being really clear on what
we hope to achieve is key. We want to get to a place where Information
Architecture considerations and research are part of the regular
development process, so if you can be consistent with your approach, so
everyone knows what to expect and build that relationship with your PM,
that will help strengthen those future cases too.

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Let's do an example and speaking of unruly gardens, earlier, this is
Amazon in 2002 and there is a lot going on and apologies if you worked at
Amazon in 2002 but if you did, come and chat with me. If we take that
framework we were talking about before, first we want to start with that
strategy. We can see here, retrospectively that, at the time, they wanted
to encourage customers to buy more products, by bundling items and
offering a discount. Because DVDs are the way of the future, they wanted
to start there. I shouldn't laugh because they are doing very well. Point
here is that the intent was around encouraging purchase of more related
items.
What we want to do next is start to create the story of what the
journey is like for these users. For example, there is already an iteration
out and that is where we do your usability tests and gather quotes like "I
didn't even see that down there. I didn't see it as an option" but this
could also mean broader strokes, exploratory research on this area. At
this point we might be trying to highlight to the PM that no matter how
much work is done on this little section down here, it won't mean
anything if it persists inside this larger mess.
Then we want to start talking data, so we might know at the
moment that it happens all the time or users drop off at a checkout point
at a high rate. This is why we have to start creating this case, then we
want to move into providing the steps and approach. The hypothesis
shaping. I think this is something you can do in conjunction with your
product manager. I don't think you have to come up with this yourself,
these people are experts in this kind of thing, bring them in on this. Your
steps, they can include your customer interviews, your concept mapping,
prototypes, A/B testing and I know this feels like a lot more work up-front
to create the case but it makes it a lot easier to prioritise and get your
product manager comfortable with this Information Architecture

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discussion. I think you are going to get a really excited PM if this is what
you present to them.
Just to round off this case study, I went into Amazon the other day
and it is still a hectic place, but they have changed the words from "Great
buy" to "Frequently bought together". They have weeded their garden to
create more space around the feature, so who knows, maybe an
Information Architecture got in their ear over the last 21 years to ensure
that though decisions were a little bit more intentional. One can only
hope. Also, side note, they tried to upsell me from $23 to $102 which is
outrageous.
Earlier, I mentioned that apart from PMs, the other barrier that can
exist to getting IA work done is lack of ownership and the confused
triangle is back to ponder that question "Who owns the IA?" I groan
whenever I hear someone say "Everyone owns it" because as we know, if
everyone owns it, then no-one will own it. I guess my answer is a bit of a
cop out too but the reality is, to make IA a normal part of that product
development, life cycle, somebody needs to champion it and I think
product managers, as generalists, are not the right role for this but I think
we can be a really strong advocate. I think there is a really strong case
for designers, researchers, product marketing as specialists in this area,
so my suggestion is one of these faculties can own this or find those
individual champions, as long as someone does it, but that is just an
opinion, I am happy to debate that one.
The role of championing Information Architecture about in sense is
about bringing awareness to it. The suggestions on the screen, sharing
examples with the company, telling a good story, getting stakeholders
involved, those are general pieces of advice and I would be telling you
that anyway, but I think the difference with Information Architecture is
that many people don't realise an IA problem when they see it. It is one

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of those things where, if you get it right, no-one will notice it, but if
something goes wrong and you tweak wording or navigational - maybe
you change the structure to appeal to a different mental model, letting
people know those are intentional IA decisions, you can make those next
time ahead of time, that is starting to get people more comfortable with
discussing it. Let's just revisit the kind of sentiment from earlier around
how we can embed IA into the development life cycle and I think there
are three main takeaways that I think can help.
The first is understand the opportunity. IA helps us build in a way
that works with humans and we are still building for humans at this point,
so it's still relevant. Everything has an IA, so you may as well be
intentional about it and IA work can be an opportunity for business value
too. Make sure we sing that kind of loud and clear.
The next is work on that framing. Identify who your key
gatekeepers are and work to understand what systems are in play. Spend
time to frame it with language that will resonate most.
Lastly, champion the IA in your organisation by adopting it as a
faculty and becoming responsible for it. Report on IA with stories, data,
tie it to company and product strategy, don't try and fight that good fight
by yourself. Help others see their part into play and the benefits that they
will be able to get from this.
Get in touch with me if you want to discuss this debate, or maybe
you just want to actually tell me how much you love the product
managers in your organisation. That is always nice to hear too.
Otherwise, we would always love to hear from you at Optimal Workshop.
Thank you for listening. (APPLAUSE)
STEVE BATY: Thank you, so much, Penny. I think we have got time for
one question for Penny, if someone from the audience has one? You OK to

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take a question, Penny?
PENNY GOODWIN: Yes, sure.
STEVE BATY: I look around expectantly. I think you are off the hook.
There you go. Thank you, no questions. Awesome. Keep an eye out for
Penny. You may find her over here later on but please join me in thanking
Penny. (APPLAUSE)

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UXA2023 Penny Goodwin - Information Architecture and product development

UXA2023 Penny Goodwin - Information Architecture and product development

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UXA2023 Penny Goodwin - Information Architecture and product development

UXA2023 Penny Goodwin - Information Architecture and product development

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