Unconscious IA

I didn't want to break the spell

I was in a meeting today, about keywords.

One attendee had an Excel sheet where they listed certain words, grouped under a headings. We all chimed in about where, and when, they could & should be used. What would need updating. What's missing. The potential impact these would have.

Maybe they didn't realize it, but we were talking about ontologies, taxonomies, and systems. This was "IA Thinking" bubbling up.

I'd seen one of the latest 'A Lens A Day' videos where Andrew Hinton summed up IA Thinking...

It's about what things are? How they relate to one another? And what kind of place you are making when you do that?

— Andrew Hinton, in discussion with Dan Brown.

...which was exactly what we were doing in that meeting.