the city is not a sitemap*

The City is not a Site Map*World IA Day 2012 – Vancouver

Gordon RossVice President, OpenRoad

email / gordonr@openroad.catwitter / @gordonr

*with apologies to Christopher Alexander

Why is this a problem?

Richard Nisbett

CUTE

OVERLOAD

LATCHLocationAlphabetTimeCategoryHierarchy

Richard Saul Wurman

LATCHLocationAlphabetTimeCategoryHierarchy

Ambiguous classification schemes

Richard Saul Wurman

LATCHLocationAlphabetTimeCategoryHierarchy

Ambiguous classification schemes

Richard Saul Wurman

Resident Business Visitor

Who am I?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?Based on who the City thinks I am, where would they put what I’m looking for?

Who am I?Who does the City think I am?What am I looking for again?Based on who the City thinks I am, where would they put what I’m looking for?

Uh… what am I doing again?

1. What are you trying to accomplish today?2. Why? Can you explain that further?

Man, there’s no pleasing this Gord guy… #civicIAsucks #WIAD

city of Vancouver City of Vancouver

What is a city?

Lewis Mumford

• Geographic plexus• Economic organization• Institutional process• Theatre of social action• Aesthetic symbol of collective unity

Big C City of Vancouver = that which they come into contact with, but might not even realize it

Small c city of Vancouver = that which is in focus for most of the citizens, most of the time

Our City IA Manifesto

Everybody's last stop,refuge,terminus,lotus land,Shangri-la,Canaan,utopia.Paradise colonized.Babylon unbound.

Wayde Compton Performance Bond

map of Vancouver: Charles Demers, Vancouver Special

Design Implications

From City A to Z, Pile & Thrift, 2000

• Categories• Time• Geography (Space)• Personal Geography (Place)• Maps• Conflict• Demand

• Transparency/Translucency• Visibility / Invisibility• Jurisdictional Boundaries• Seasons• Voluntary/Mandatory• Language• Channel Preference• Engagement

Jurisdictional Boundaries

Different levels of government are responsible for different aspects of our everyday lives. It is often not clear who is responsible for what.

Citizens are interested in who is responsible in order to seek action and resolution to a particular issue. They have a problem that needs resolution and want to find out who to contact.

The seemingly arbitrary by-products of the design of government need to be clearly communicated to the citizen user, even if the responsibility for the service is not entirely that of the City’s. Examples of jurisdictional boundaries that affect citizens include transportation (City owns streets, TransLink runs the buses); animal control (stray dogs are City, stray cats are BCSPCA); and water (pipes are City, water itself is Metro Vancouver).

observation

conclusion

designimplication

The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, Central Office of Design(Creative Commons - CC BY-ND 3.0 )

The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, Central Office of Design(Creative Commons - CC BY-ND 3.0 )

Happy World IA Day

We’re OpenRoad

We’re always looking for interesting new projects

We’re hiring IA / UX / ID talent

We’d like to meet you

I’m Gordon Ross, Vice President & Partner at OpenRoad.

Email me at gordonr@openroad.ca or follow me on twitter at @gordonr

Find out more about OpenRoad at http://www.openroad.ca