A potential client and I were recently discussing how she definitely didn't want her women-focused organization's new website to be either "cute" or "pink" since she wanted it to appeal to both sexes. We discussed why some companies alienate the opposite sex (and half your sales) by making a neutral product pink?    

This brought to mind Jessica Ivins' presentation at IA Summit 2011: On “Shrink It and Pink It”: Designing Experiences for Women

Here are links about avoiding the “shrink it and pink it” attitude and using "transparent design" principles that appeal to both men and women like the Flip camera.

• About Femme Den: “Good products balance the needs of men and women to the benefit of both. They’re not male products masquerading as unisex or–-worse–-hiding under a coat of pink paint. They don’t alienate anyone with over claims of being women-focused or women-friendly. They just are.” 
• Femme Den applied “transparent design” principles when they designed the Flip Camera -- see slides 34-36 in On “Shrink It and Pink It”: Designing Experiences for Women 
• Additional Femme Den articles in the Fast Company Masters of Design issue

At the IA Summit 2011 in Denver, Andrea Resmini, Andrew Hinton and Jorge Arango presented More Than a Metaphor: Making Places with Information. This session discussed the relationship between information and architecture and IA's as designers of information spaces that people spend a significant amount of time in. 

Andrew Hinton discussed architect Julia Morgan who designed the Asilomar Conference Center (birthplace of the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (AIfIA) which then became the Information Architecture Institute).  Julia Morgan noted that "the design of the Asilomar Conference Center doesn't engineer the behavior of its inhabitants. It encourages and accommodates their behavior."  In terms on IA, you don't design the user experience. You make the site accommodate what the user needs. It's not about controlling, it's about enhancing, empowering and enjoying the space. (See Vivienne's picture with Andrew Hinton at the IA Summit on ASIST@DU)

Andrea Resmini described space as not homogeneous. All references happen within a subjective system. It is a space of relationships, built with connections and how we perceive those connections.  See Andrea Resmini's new book, Pervasive Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences and Andrew Hinton's reprint of his contribution to the book.

Jorge Arango discussed being a "Digital Placemaker" and doing for the client's online digital properties what architects do for their physical properties.

See photos of Andrea Resmini and Jorge Arango at IA Summit 2011 

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. ~ Archilocus
As quoted in The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953) by Isaiah Berlin

Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog?  Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, keynote speaker at the IA Summit 2011, discusses the differences between Foxes and Hedgehogs in terms of IA. See Conference Reviews on UXMatters.com:

FOXES (good for IA practitioners) 
multidisciplinary
adaptable
admits to errors
tolerates complexity
pragmatic

HEDGEHOGS ( good for business owners)
specialist
goes all-in
doubles odwn
abhors uncertainty
ideological

Talk about the stars aligning. This quarter, I'm taking an Information Architecture course being taught by Alex Martinez in my MLIS Program at the University of Denver. Several of us in the ASIST DU Student Group were fortunate enough to attend the 2011 IA Summit for FREE in exchange for volunteering. Thank you to ASIST for making this possible. 

The IA Summit was INCREDIBLE! View the presentations on slideshare and some pics on the ASIST DU Groupsite. There are two of my Polar Bear book autographed by Louis Rosenfeld! And one of me with Andrew Hinton whose article, The Machineries of Context, had a huge impact on me and I blogged about earlier this year. 

See photos from IA Summit 2011

I'm super excited that I'll get to volunteer at the 2011 IA Summit. The ASIS&T @ DU Student Chapter at the University of Denver was fortunate enough to secure volunteer positions through ASIS&T.  Shameless plug for our student group's new ASIS&T @ DU Groupsite. Please join us!!

The Program starts with Pre-Conferences on Wed 3/30 and Thur 3/31, the Annual Membership Meeting on Thurs night followed by a karaoke party at Wynkoop Brewing Company and then the Main Conference from Friday to Sunday.  See you there!