This book didn’t come from nowhere – it came from teaching information architecture in workshop form for many years – at loads of conferences and in-house for clients.
So the first thank you goes to everyone who has been in one of those workshops and asked good questions and shared good stories. I don’t figure things out until I have to do them or answer questions about them, so a lot of my thoughts are a direct result of questions people ask me.
Thanks to all my clients who have let me play with their content, and paid me to do it. How cool is it to be paid to do something so fun!
I sent a really rubbish draft out to a pile of smart people to see what they thought. Thanks to the following folks for reading the draft and sending me comments – they really did help make this book better. In first name order (yes, I am an IA): Arun Martin, Brian Hoffman, Christopher Frost, Daniel Souza, Gary Barber, Kirsten Hall, Kushal Pisavadia, Margaret Hanley, Marianne Colwell, Mike Pauley, Nathan Wall, Rachel Peters, Rowan Peter, Ruth Ellison, Patrick Foster and Steph Beath. And thanks to everyone who shared stories that helped to emphasise points in various chapters.
My editor Bill Harper was amazing. I looked at the first chapters he sent back and thought he hadn’t done anything – I couldn’t see any differences. But he had done tons of work – he’d managed to improve my writing out of sight and still keep it sounding just like me. Bill, I hope you can edit for me for every other book I write (and I’m glad you’re my friend).
To my lovely kid who has just spent months watching TV and reading books while I work evenings and weekends – thanks for putting up with me as your mum. I promise to spend more time with you until the book bug bites again.
And to Steve who has only known me in writing mode – thanks for saying “I understand” and meaning it.