Intuition at Work

Technology and the Internet are so dependent on logic and rational thought that it might seem strange to be reviewing a book called Intuition at Work (Currency, $26). But our overreliance on statistics, historical data, and the traditional ways of doing things is exactly what author Gary Klein warns us against in this impressive tome. In fact, making decisions “by the book” can cause you to overlook the most important data point of all: what your gut tells you.

Using examples drawn from architecture, banking, health care, the military, and weather forecasting, Klein shows us where the system got it wrong but where intuition got it right. Anyone who’s ever seen Microsoft Word auto-replace “your” with “you’re” knows firsthand that computers are fallible and can actually make things worse instead of better. At the same time, our reliance on machines to do the heavy thinking for us paralyzes us into making “safe” decisions. But as Klein writes, “We are more than the sum of our software programs and analytical methods, more than the databases we can access…The choice is whether we are going to shrink into these artifacts or expand beyond them.”

While Klein’s case studies (usually presented in sidebars) are fascinating and eye-opening, his narrative isn’t overly inspiring. As the book’s subtitle suggests, it wants to help you in “developing your gut instincts.” After running through the exercises employed here—brain teasers, role playing, and the like—I feel a little smarter but not much more intuitive. However, a few of his formalized planning processes are thought provoking, such as not only preparing for the worst
in the abstract but generating specific disaster scenarios and making concessions for them.

In the end, Intuition at Work is not a perfect book, but my gut tells me that it’s a pretty good one.

—Christopher Null

Information Architecture

Most Web applications are the product of two distinct camps. Designers control the front-facing look and feel of the project, while engineers develop the back-end plumbing. The one voice that’s all too seldom heard is that of the information architect—particularly given today’s budgets, which rarely leave much room for additional specialists. That’s a shame, because poor information architecture (IA) can doom a site just as easily as unappealing graphics or buggy code can.

Christina Wodtke’s Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web (New Riders, $30) won’t help you find the extra cash to hire an information architect, or convince your clients that they need one. Instead, Wodtke shoots for the next best thing: She’ll make you an IA expert yourself (or nearly).

Wodtke begins by debunking the approach taken by so many other books, insisting that there are no hard-and-fast rules or “magic numbers” when it comes to good site design. Good IA comes from remembering some basic principles, she explains—and, more importantly, from understanding your users.

With that introduction, this slim volume takes the reader through a series of exercises and scenarios that aim not so much to explain how to design IA, but how to think about IA so that the resulting designs are the right ones. Wodtke introduces such concepts as archetypal personas, controlled vocabularies, sitepath diagrams, and user-centric design, all using fun, plain English that’s easily accessible.

Accompanying the discussion are myriad screenshots from familiar, real-life Web sites that effectively illustrate both good principles and bad mistakes (though a little color might have been nice). The result is a clearly expressed, lively package that will get you up to speed with IA, and help keep your next project on the right track.

If you’re already well versed in IA, this isn’t the book for you. But if you’re in need of a good introduction to IA, and you’re short on time and money, you probably won’t find a better crash course than Information Architecture.

—Neil McAllister