Did you know that we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text? That’s according to some interesting research from the company behind the Post-it Note. Humans are visual creatures, and there’s a reason video is hard to beat when it comes to taking on new information – especially interesting video.

With that in mind, we’ve asked our user researchers for their favorite TED talks for people getting started in the UX space. We’ve also included 2 extra videos we think are definitely worth watching.

The beauty of data visualization

What it’s about: David McCandless explains how complex datasets (whether on military spending or even something like Facebook status updates) can be transformed into beautiful visualizations to unearth previously-unseen patterns and connections. The point of this talk is essentially that good design through visualizations is the key to making sense of the huge quantities of data available today.

About the speaker: David McCandless is a data journalist and information designer, founder of the Information is Beautiful blog.

The complex relationship between data and design in UX

What it’s about: Designer Rochelle King explains her journey overhauling the Spotify interface, in which she was challenged to combine the various interfaces of the product into a single layout. She covers the process of redesigning the website as well as how to best manage the relationships between designers, users and data.

About the speaker: Rochelle King was the global vice president of user experience and design at Spotify and is now vice president of product creative at Netflix.

How giant websites design for you

What it’s about: Margaret Gould Stewart (whose designs have undoubtedly touched hundreds of millions of people) speaks about the 3 rules for design at scale, and points out that even tiny tweaks can cause either global outrage or have sweeping positive impacts.

About the speaker: Facebook's Director of Product Design, Margaret Gould Stewart also worked at YouTube. She certainly has the right experience for this topic.

The first secret of design is… noticing

What it’s about: The man (no, not that man) behind the original Apple iPod shares some of his tips for noticing and driving change – specifically the importance of noticing the little things. It’s a light, funny talk that’s as useful for UX researchers as it is for designers.

About the speaker: Tony Fadell is an Apple veteran and creator of the original iPod. After that, he moved onto Nest, the home automation company that was eventually acquired by Google.

Simplicity sells

What it’s about: David Pogue presents one of the more lighthearted TED talks, running through some of the worst user interface designs and some of the underlying principles that went into their design. As just one example, he talks about the different approaches to logging off that Microsoft and Apple use, and at one point he breaks out into song.

About the speaker: David Pogue is a bestselling author, columnist for the New York Times covering personal technology and technology correspondent for CBS News.

The power of vulnerability

What it’s about: Vulnerability researcher Brené Brown delves into one particularly deep human insight she came across during her research. She explains that this insight sent her on a journey to understand both herself and humanity. It’s not strictly UX research, but this talk has valuable learnings for every UX professional.

About the speaker: Brené Brown is a researcher who focuses on vulnerability, courage, shame and authenticity. She wrote the bestselling book Daring Greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead.

Also watch: How to speak so that people want to listen

What it’s about: One of the most important skills for any UX professional is communicating with others, and this talk by Julian Treasure holds some valuable advice. He explains the “how-to’s of speaking”, including how to speak with empathy and exercises for warming up your vocal chords.

About the speaker: Julian Treasure is a sound and communication expert, traveling the world and teaching people and businesses to use sound more effectively.

Also watch: The puzzle of motivation

What it’s about: Figuring out motivation is a constant puzzle for user researchers. Career analyst Dan Pink explores motivation in this talk, examining the fact that traditional rewards aren’t actually as effective as most think.

About the speaker: Dan Pink was Al Gore’s speech writer before heading into the world of career analysis. He’s also written 6 books, including the bestseller When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

"Dear Optimal Workshop

How do I quantify the ROI [return on investment] of investing in user experience?"

— Brian

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Dear Brian,

I'm going to answer your question with a resounding 'It depends'. I believe we all differ in what we're willing to invest, and what we expect to receive in return. So to start with, and if  you haven’t already, it's worth grabbing your stationery tools of choice and brainstorming your way to a definition of ROI that works for you, or for the people you work for.

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I personally define investment in UX as time given, money spent, and people utilized. And I define return on UX as time saved, money made, and people engaged. Oh, would you look at that — they’re the same! All three (time, money, and humans) exist on both sides of the ROI fence and are intrinsically linked. You can’t engage people if you don’t first devote time and money to utilizing your people in the best possible way! Does that make sense?

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That’s just my definition — you might have a completely different way of counting those beans, and the organizations you work for may think differently again.

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I'll share my thoughts on the things that are worth quantifying (that you could start measuring today if you were so inclined) and a few tips for doing so. And I'll point you towards useful resources to help with the nitty-gritty, dollars-and-cents calculations.

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5 things worth quantifying for digital design projects

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Here are five things I think are worthy of your attention when it comes to measuring the ROI of user experience, but there are plenty of others. And different projects will most likely call for different things.

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(A quick note: There's a lot more to UX than just digital experiences, but because I don't know your specifics Brian, the ideas I share below apply mainly to digital products.)

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1. What’s happening in the call centre?

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A surefire way to get a feel for the lay of the land is to look at customer support — and if measuring support metrics isn't on your UX table yet, it's time to invite it to dinner. These general metrics are an important part of an ongoing, iterative design process, but getting specific about the best data to gather for individual projects will give you the most usable data.

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Improving an application process on your website? Get hard numbers from the previous month on how many customers are asking for help with it, go away and do your magic, get the same numbers a month after launch, and you've got yourself compelling ROI data.

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Are your support teams bombarded with calls and emails? Has the volume of requests increased or decreased since you released that new tool, product, or feature? Are there patterns within those requests — multiple people with the same issues? These are just a few questions you can get answers to.

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You'll find a few great resources on this topic online, including this piece by Marko Nemberg that gives you an idea of the effects a big change in your product can have on support activity.

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2. Navigation vs. Search

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This is a good one: check your analytics to see if your users are searching or navigating. I’ve heard plenty of users say to me upfront that they'll always just type in the search bar and that they’d never ever navigate. Funny thing is, ten minutes later I see the same users naturally navigating their way to those gorgeous red patent leather pumps. Why?

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Because as Zoltán Gócza explains in UX Myth #16, people do tend to scan for trigger words to help them navigate, and resort to problem solving behaviour (like searching) when they can’t find what they need. Cue frustration, and the potential for a pretty poor user experience that might just send customers running for the hills — or to your competitors. This research is worth exploring in more depth, so check out this article by Jared Spool, and this one by Jakob Nielsen (you know you can't go wrong with those two).

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3. Are people actually completing tasks?

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Task completion really is a fundamental UX metric, otherwise why are we sitting here?! We definitely need to find out if people who visit our website are able to do what they came for.

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For ideas on measuring this, I've found the Government Service Design Manual by GOV.UK to be an excellent resource regardless of where you are or where you work, and in relation to task completion they say:

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"When users are unable to complete a digital transaction, they can be pushed to use other channels. This leads to low levels of digital take-up and customer satisfaction, and a higher cost per transaction."

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That 'higher cost per transaction' is your kicker when it comes to ROI.

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So, how does GOV.UK suggest we quantify task completion? They offer a simple (ish) recommendation to measure the completion rate of the end-to-end process by going into your analytics and dividing the number of completed processes by the number of started processes.

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While you're at it, check the time it takes for people to complete tasks as well. It could help you to uncover a whole host of other issues that may have gone unnoticed. To quantify this, start looking into what Kim Oslob on UXMatters calls 'Effectiveness and Efficiency ratios'. Effectiveness ratios can be determined by looking at success, error, abandonment, and timeout rates. And Efficiency ratios can be determined by looking at average clicks per task, average time taken per task, and unique page views per task.

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You do need to be careful not to make assumptions based on this kind of data— it can't tell you what people were intending to do. If a task is taking people too long, it may be because it’s too complicated ... or because a few people made themselves coffee in between clicks. So supplement these metrics with other research that does tell you about intentions.

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4. Where are they clicking first?

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A good user experience is one that gets out of bed on the right side. First clicks matter for a good user experience.

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A 2009 study showed that in task-based user tests, people who got their first click right were around twice as likely to complete the task successfully than if they got their first click wrong. This year, researchers at Optimal Workshop followed this up by analyzing data from millions of completed Treejack tasks, and found that people who got their first click right were around three times as likely to get the task right.

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That's data worth paying attention to.

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So, how to measure? You can use software that records mouse clicks first clicks from analytics on your page, but it difficult to measure a visitor's intention without asking them outright, so I'd say task-based user tests are your best bet.

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For in-person research sessions, make gathering first-click data a priority, and come up with a consistent way to measure it (a column on a spreadsheet, for example). For remote research, check out Chalkmark (a tool devoted exclusively to gathering quantitative, first-click data on screenshots and wireframes of your designs) and UserTesting.com (for videos of people completing tasks on your live website).

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5. Resources to help you with the number crunching

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Here's a great piece on uxmastery.com about calculating the ROI of UX.

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Here's Jakob Nielsen in 1999 with a simple 'Assumptions for Productivity Calculation', and here's an overview of what's in the 4th edition of NN/G's Return on Investment for Usability report (worth the money for sure).

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Here's a calculator from Write Limited on measuring the cost of unclear communication within organizations (which could quite easily be applied to UX).

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And here's a unique take on what numbers to crunch from Harvard Business Review.

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I hope you find this as a helpful starting point Brian, and please do have a think about what I said about defining ROI. I’m curious to know how everyone else defines and measures ROI — let me know!

Within the UX industry, there are myriad terms and concepts you’ll need to understand in order to get your job done. One of the most common you’ll come across is information architecture (IA).

What is it? How do you find it? How do you research it? And how do you create it?

We’ve compiled an extensive directory where you can find authoritative content from information architects all over the world.

You’ll find this resource useful if:

• You’re new to UX
• You’re a writer, intranet manager, designer, marketer, product owner or content strategist
• You want to further your knowledge of information architecture

How to get the most out of this guide:

• Bookmark it and use it as a learning resource
• Share it with colleagues, students, teachers, friends
• Read it and share some of the basics to create an awareness of IA and UX in your workplace
• Check the health of your current IA with this handy guide.

Read on to learn all the ins and outs of IA including topics for beginners, those with an intermediate skill level, and some bonus stuff for you experts out there.

Information architecture is the system and structure you use to organize and label content on your website, app or product. It’s the foundation on top of which you provide the design.

• "How to make sense of any mess" - This book by Abby Covert is one of the quintessential introductory resources for learning about information architecture. It includes a great lexicon so you can understand all the jargon used in the IA world, and shows you how to make sense of messes that are made of information.
• "Intertwingled" - A book written by Peter Morville that discusses the meaning of information architecture and the systems behind it.

Ways of understanding information (and how to design for them)

Information seeking behaviors

• "Four modes of seeking information and how to design for them" - How do your users approach information tasks? Everyone can be different in their information seeking habits and patterns, so it makes sense to do your research and take a deep look into this. In this article, Donna Spencer explains the four different modes of seeking information: “re-finding”, “don’t know what you need to know”, “exploratory” and “known-item”.
• "How to spot and destroy evil attractors in your tree (Part 1)" - People can get lost in your site due to many different things. One that’s easily looked over is evil attractors, which appear in trees and attract clicks when they shouldn’t. This can confuse people looking for certain things on your site. This article by Dave O’Brien explains how to find and get rid of these evil attractors using tree testing.

Defining information architecture

Ontology, common vocabulary

• "Ontology Dojo: Learn how to use ontology to define your information and supercharge your deliverables" - People interpret the meaning of words differently to one another. So when you communicate with someone, the meaning you had in mind may be interpreted different to the other person. Ren Pope’s presentation from the IA Summit 2016 explains who can use ontology, the history of ontology, and how it relates to metadata.
• "What we talk about when we talk about ontology" - What does the word ‘catalog’ mean to you? What you think it means could be completely different to someone else. In the business world, it’s important that words and their meanings are considered. This article from David Peter Simon discusses ontology, why it’s important, and how to put it into practice.
• "The Accidental Taxonomist" - This book by Heather Hedden provides a definition of taxonomies and the different types out there, the skills needed to become a taxonomist, and how to design taxonomies for humans versus automated indexing.

The relationship between information architecture and content

Content inventories and audits

• "How to conduct a content audit" - Before you begin a redesign project, you must perform a content analysis of your existing website or app to get an idea of the content you already have. This article (and accompanying video) from Donna Spencer explains the basics of a content audit, how to perform one, and why people conduct them. As a bonus, Donna has included a downloadable content inventory spreadsheet that you can use for your own project.
• "Content analysis heuristics" - Before you get started on an information architecture project, it’s a good idea to first analyze what you already have. To do this, you use content analysis heuristics. In this article by Fred Leise, you can learn how to conduct a qualitative content analysis, and what each of his heuristics entails.

Content modeling

• "Content types: The glue between content strategy, user experience, and design" - A lecture and slideshow presentation from Hilary Marsh at the IA Summit 2016 that explains the importance of creating a good understanding of “content types” so people can all be on the same page. Hilary discusses content lifecycles, workflows, relationships, and includes a handy checklist so you can easily identify content types.

Content prioritization

• "Object-oriented UX" - When you’re designing a new page, website or app, many people look to a content-first approach to design. But what if you’re working on something that is mostly made up of instantiated content and objects? This is when it’s useful to add object-oriented UX to your design process.

Ways of organizing information

• "Classification schemes — and when to use them" - How do you organize content? Should it be in alphabetic order? Sorted by task? Or even grouped by topic? There are many different ways in which content can be grouped or classified together. But which one works best for your users? And which works best for the type of content you’re producing? This article from Donna Spencer discusses some of the different types of classification schemes out there, when to use them, and which projects you can use them for.

Research for information architecture

Every successful design project involves a good dose of user research. You need to be able to understand the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of people.

Here’s an overview of the different types of user research you can conduct for information architecture projects.

Testing IA

• "Tree testing: A quick way to evaluate your IA" - When do you need to run a tree test on your IA? And how do you do it? This article from Dave O’Brien runs through a project he worked on, the research methods his team faced, and the results they received. He also shares a few lessons learned which will serve as handy tips for your next tree test.
• "Tree testing 101" - If you’ve never conducted a tree test before, our Tree testing 101 guide will fill you in on all the basics to get you started. This guide tells you when to use tree testing, how to set your objectives, how to build your tree, and how to run a study in our tree testing tool Treejack.
• "Card sorting 101" - A guide we put together to explain the basics of card sorting and how to use this method for information architecture. Learn about the three main types of card sorting, how to choose the right method for your project, and how to interpret your card sorting results.
• "How to pick cards for card sorting?" - An article on our blog that explains which types of cards you should include in your study, and how to write your card labels so that your participants can clearly understand them.
• "Choose between open, closed or hybrid card sorts" - A section from our Knowledge Base that explains what you need to know about running different kinds of card sorts. Learn what’s involved with open, closed or hybrid card sorts and which one best suits the project you’re working on.
• "Why card sorting loves tree testing" - Another article from our blog that explains the relationship between card sorting and tree testing and how you can use the two research methods together for your projects.

Advanced concepts in information architecture

IA in a world of algorithms

• "Information architecture in the age of algorithms" - How do you design information architecture for a system based on algorithms? Giles Colborne’s presentation at the IA Summit 2016 provides insight into the work behind this design process, as well as thoughts about the future of interaction design.

Cognitive science for IA

• "The pop-out effect: How to improve choice through information architecture" - At the IA Summit 2016, Stefano Bussolon and Luca Rosati discussed the paradox of choice, choice overload, and how to improve the way people make choices through information architecture.

IA at scale

• "Time, space and information architecture" - An article on our blog penned by BBC’s Creative Director of UX Architecture Dan Ramsden. Dan explains what he believes IA is, how to define it, and the various ways it can affect our lives. Watch his full UX New Zealand 2016 presentation or read a text version on his website.

IA and SEO

• "Information architecture for SEO" - When you’re organizing content on a website, you really have two audiences: people and search engines. So how do you make sure you’re doing a good job for both? In this “Whiteboard Friday” from Moz, Rand Fishkin talks about the interaction between SEO and IA, and some best practices involved with organizing your content for both audiences.

Information architecture (IA) is everywhere. Like the best websites and apps in the digital world, information architecture also brings clarity and understanding to the real world. It helps us navigate complexity and clutter, enables us to get things done more easily even with enjoyment, and reduces our cognitive load as we go about our lives.

As Abby Covert, IA advocate and author of ‘How to Make Sense of Any Mess’, puts it: 

‘I believe information architecture has the power to make the world a clearer place’

We share five examples of information architecture at work in everyday life.  

Access Apps

Does your phone home screen look like a random bunch of icons or a well-laid-out work of art? Fitness, entertainment, shopping, transport, banking…these days there’s some kind of app for every aspect of your life. While it’s handy to be able to access all these apps on the go, keeping track of them can be a mission unless you have some kind of system. If finding the right app at the right time is driving you crazy - maybe it’s time to give your phone information architecture some love?

Look up books

Are your books arranged by subject, category, author, size, color, or something else? Do you go for the common approach that everyone understands like a library or something more personal like ‘books I read a lot’ or ‘books I’ll never read’? However you do it, there’s some kind of system, (or information architecture), at work that drives your decisions about where individual books end up on your shelf - what’s yours?

Enlist a list

When you’ve got lots on and feeling overwhelmed or you’re packing for that well-earned holiday and don’t want to forget anything, chances are you enlist the help of some kind of list. What a relief to get all that stuff out of your head somewhere, in some kind of order. Whether you put pen to paper and stick it on your fridge or carry it around on your phone, the main thing is you’ve got a list somewhere - that’s a great information architecture starting point.

Shop around

Supermarket shopping - love it or hate you - it’s got to be done.  Do you browse the aisles or aim to get in and out as quickly as possible?  Whether you’re pushing a trolley around your local haunt, out of town in unfamiliar territory or simply shopping online, you’re relying on some kind of signposts to guide your way through the myriad of products.  Phew - Information architecture can be a lifesaver.  It can also change lives as Jennie Leng discovered in her case study on online shopping at Countdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abnHLaGV_aw&list=PLKQWFP9YS6b479paxcG89cOjHUjQcPlem&index=19&t=7s

Find who's who

Imagine you’re doing a spot of research ahead of a job interview,  looking for the right person in a big company to pitch your product or you’re the newbie at work and unsure who’s who - an organizational chart can save time, and embarrassment - and generally make life easier. All power to information architecture!

So there you have it. Information architecture isn’t all about content audits, complex site maps or complex tree testing projects. It’s also about systems and structures that help us navigate everyday life in the real world.