Abby Covert

“I’m an information architect who loves to make sense of messes.”¹ – Abby Covert defines herself with a single sentence. Abby Covert has started off with a graphic design career, working in layout design, printing, concept research, and branding design. Then she switched to Information architecture. Since 2004, Abby devoted to the information architecture community through the roles served. She was the executive producer for Interaction Architect Summit and IDEA, which discuss user interfaces and rich information environments. She worked as an in-house information architect, consultant, and agency and currently works for Etsy as the first Information Architect.²

She participated in the Nike project in 2012 for developing a single digital platform to serve 120,000 users in 9 languages. She did interviews for stakeholders to understand the business goals and challenges. The user interview was also held to understand the users’ behavior and the places that benefit them. She collaborated with the participants: agency, and Nike employees to produce a detailed diagram for reference and collect features and ideas for better user experience. She built a persona, which is a crucial role in the system. The framework is also what she prioritizes for the allocation of resources for users. She comments that the project made the user experience way more informed, clearer mess.³

“My mission is to make information architecture accessible to everyone.”¹

Abby wrote a book about information architecture, ‘How to Make Sense of Any Mess’. She made the book accessible online, which might have derived from her mission to make information architecture available to everyone. In the book, she lists out the process of simplifying the complicated mess of information. The process starts with identifying the mess. Then she states intent: why what, and how the purpose affects the users. Then examine it with the real world to choose a path. She then set a goal and iterate the structures to adjust the plan to make sense.⁴
She is an inspirational person to the interaction design community to share her experience and tips with a clearer idea. She is not a huge supporter of social media platforms, which makes her less exposed to people. However, she still shares her content via email and accepts advice requests to make people understand information architecture better.⁵ I respect her enthusiasm for helping people to understand and acknowledge more of information architecture.

Bibilography

1. Covert, Abby. “Information Architecture, Writing, and Talks by Abby Covert.” Abby Covert, Information Architect, abbycovert.com/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.
2. LinkedIn. “Abby Covert – Inventor and Advisor – World Information Architecture Day | LinkedIn.” LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/abbytheia. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.
3. Covert, Abby. “Nike Digital Sales Process.” Abby Covert, Information Architect, abbycovert.com/ia-case-studies/nike/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.
4. Covert, Abby. “How to Make Sense of Any Mess.” Www.Howtomakesenseofanymess.Com, www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.
5. Covert, Abby. “How to Contact Me.” Abby Covert, Information Architect, abbycovert.com/contact/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.

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