Category: Wikipedia

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Where Should I Post My UI/UX Portfolio? and Is Wikipedia Failing?

I answer questions about UX, Information Architecture and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. Following are selected questions I answered in December.

What are the best websites to put my UI/UX portfolio, both personally and professionally?

Answered December 31, 2017

As an archives focused UX designer I always recommend creating a master portfolio that you have complete control over, whether on your own WordPress site or on your local drives. (Ideally both with backups in the cloud). Having control over the data means that you will always be able to access, edit and customize it regardless of whether the portfolio site of the day is still in business. A platform like WordPress is great because it allows you to import and export the CMS database. You should back it up frequently.

Your portfolio should be customizable content so you can craft a deck specifically for the job or contract you are applying for. It should contain not just your best work, but the work you most want to do and is most relevant for the job being offered. You can create separate portfolios for different kinds of work and direct people to those specific portfolio files. You should also have a PDF or Keynote/PPT version available in case a recruiter wants it emailed and also because it is easy to carry into a meeting and have available offline when internet access is slow or not available. If someone asks for work samples, you can either email the presentation deck or send a link to the relevant samples when highlighting your work history for a recruiter or prospective client, depending on their requirements.

If you use a portfolio site like Behance or Dribbble, only include a few top notch pieces and be sure to link it to your more detailed CV website. Be sure to tag the type of work you do on each sample you upload to these sites, and include a brief explanation of the problem you solved and how you came up with a solution. The story of the design solution is very important for UX work, and I don’t see it done quite enough. Can you explain why you made choices you did? Were there in-between stages that reflect some of the decisions or pivot points in the design? Was it an individual assignment or a team effort? How does your work fit in with the overall team effort? Are you effectively claiming the entire design as your own if you only show end results? How will you explain your role in an interview if the end product is a team effort? Is the visual enough? Usually, it isn’t.

My complete online CV is a WordPress website that lists blog posts (that I republish to a Medium account), speaking engagements (with presentation slides linked at Slideshare), a general resume and a bibliography of published work and exhibitions. My portfolio is just a part of that overall CV website. It is unlikely that a recruiter would make time to peruse it all, but it’s all there should someone want to dive a little deeper into what kind of person I am, what my interests are and what I like to write about.

In fact the website has become a bit of a “catalog raisonné” and to be honest it is due for an overhaul. I have mixed feelings about cutting back and will probably just remove thumbnail shots from some of the earlier work (some of the older visuals look quite naive compared to more recent standards). I’d love to hear how others manage the assessments of older work samples, particularly when it’s the type of project or industry work you want to keep doing.

What crisis is Wikipedia going through as everytime I open it they ask for donation?

Answered December 8, 2017

It’s not a crisis. It’s charity season. As people enter the holiday season, they open their wallets and give to their favorite charities. If you open your mail on any day from mid October through December (at least in the US, probably elsewhere), you will see similar, increasingly desparate-sounding appeals from other charities hoping to get a bit of your annual tax deduction locked in for the year.

That said if you like Wikipedia, use it and find value in it, whether as a source of information, community or for their really cool data tools go ahead and give. It’s a great service.

I use Wikipedia so much I started giving a small amount each month. Is the risk of them going offline as imminent as all that?

Answered December 7, 2017

When you make a donation on the Wikipedia website, you are giving to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs several projects in addition to Wikipedia, including Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons and others. As a Foundation, Wikimedia offers grants to its worldwide chapters, project teams and individuals to cover costs such as travel, Editathons and other events, equipment, research, etc. According to their grants page, they give about $9 million US dollars per year in support to these efforts.

More info and links to awarded grants here:

Grants:Start – Meta

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Wikipedia at IA Summit 2016

As a Wikipedian who has been increasingly involved with editathons in New York City since completing my MLIS degree at Pratt Institute School of Information, I have been interested in creating bridges between the Wikipedia and IA communities. Thanks to a Wikimedia Foundation TPS grant, I was able to represent Wikipedia at the 2016 IA Summit in Atlanta and at the IA Institute’s workshop on Architecting the Information of Georgia House Bill 757, hosted by the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

I am especially interested in the linked data capabilities of Wikipedia and Wikidata as it is a growing topic among Information Architects and increasingly affecting how digital environments are structured and built. Last year, I created WikiProject: Information Architecture to pique interest among the IA community in Wikipedia editing, with the ultimate goal of showing IAs how their knowledge and expertise contributes to engaging Wikipedia users. I also presented a session on IA and Wikipedia at the 2015 Information Architecture Summit in Minneapolis and wrote an article on IA in Wikipedia for the ASIS&T Bulletin, which increased interest in potential editing and collaboration with the Wikipedia community. While I was originally interested in getting more IAs involved to develop Information Architecture topics in Wikipedia, it is becoming increasingly clear that the IA community is equipped to collaborate with Wikipedia on its own technology development and projects.

This year’s IA Summit was a continued exploration of the relationship between the Wikipedia and IA communities at the 2016 IA Summit in Atlanta. On Saturday May 7, I represented Wikipedia at two events, a workshop hosted by the Information Architecture Institute at the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, and IA Summit Game Night which took place the same evening at the Omni Atlanta Hotel. The workshop, “Architecting the Information of Georgia House Bill 757” was the Institute’s response to the proposal of a bill that would potentially discriminate against the LGBT community. About 30 IAI members attended. The format was primarily discussion and centered on the role and impact of language in legislative processes. My input centered on Wikipedia as an information architecture tool that describes and related concepts internationally through its articles and Wikidata. I proposed that the IA Institute and its members should take a greater role in editing and offer their expertise in the structure of information to the Wikipedia community. I further made an appeal for information architects to take greater ownership of the structure of language and concept relationships as defined in Wikidata and its tools and APIs.

IA Summit Game Night, held immediately after the IAI workshop at the Omni Atlanta Hotel, hosted 85 attendees. Players selected from ten tables, one which was dedicated to Wikipedia. We set up the unofficial Wikipedia game and also used it as a way to introduce information architect practitioners to Wikipedia editing. The evening went from 8-11pm and we played several rounds of the game. Most of the people who stopped by the table who inquired about my role with Wikipedia turned out to already be editors, but mostly on a very casual level. I encouraged them to continue to edit and discussed the structure of Wikidata as a tool that IAs can use in developing information spaces outside of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia Gamers at IA Summit 2016 Game Night
Wikipedia Gamers at IA Summit 2016 Game Night
Wikipedia Swag at IA Summit 2016 Game Night
Wikipedia Swag at IA Summit 2016 Game Night

Game night was a lot of fun and opened a conversation about the ways that IAs can participate in local Wikipedia activities in their areas as well as generally as editors and developers of tools that utilize Wikidata. I handed out pins and stickers throughout the three day conference.

My roommate during the event, Marianne Sweeny, will be one of three co-chairs at the 2017 Information Architecture Summit in Vancouver, March 22-28. She is very interested in developing a greater role for Wikipedia at the 2017 event and has asked me to prepare a proposal for engagement next year. Thoughts include an ongoing Wikipedia booth or table in the exhibition hall, train the trainers events, weekend long Editathon related to the conference theme, Game Night participation and other activities TBD.

I plan to share a report of the event at the May 25 meeting of the NYC Wikipedia meetup.

My goal for this event was to get more information architects involved with Wikipedia: what it is, why it aligns with their own work and how they can be involved. Last year’s editathon in Minneapolis was a good start. I am confident that this has been an important activity to build bridges to ensure that our communities support each other. Over time, the benefit to WMF of a collaboration with the IA community will be improved architecture and user experience based on sound information architecture practices.

As for the conference itself, my notes from the IA Summit sessions are available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14YuldZDpjoe6JEtIxB7qp5Ai0FjILaMc7UYrk8zCrT8/edit?usp=sharing

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Calm Down. Wikipedia is Not Planning to Compete with Google.

I am reading and rereading the discussion/controversy/hype/reporting on Wikipedia’s knowledge engine and wondering exactly what about it should be construed as a direct competitor to Google. Yes. An unbiased, independent, not tied to corporate interests search engine, but of what content? Wikipedia’s, most likely. Surely not all of the internet, since their own data and articles are continually vetted for independence and would provide a test for bias.

Wikipedia’s leaked grant proposal indicates that there is a concern that content delivered by Google search results that originates from Wikipedia is obviating the need to click through to a Wikipedia page, therefore reducing the number of users that might see WMF’s donation pitch and thereby reducing it’s revenues. But if the Knowledge Engine is really just a better way to search Wikipedia content then it seems to be more an effort to keep users on the Wikipedia site by providing better access to search and discovery of Wikipedia articles. But if you are expecting people to start at Wikipedia to use the search engine (or whatever landing page Wikipedia creates), you still have the problem of getting them there. (FWIW, when I find a Wikipedia article on Google or even a bit of information generated from Wikipedia I often if not usually continue on to the Wikipedia article. I may just be an encyclopedia geek, but encyclopedia geeks are the ones making contributions to Wikipedia in the first place.)

Another concern I have heard is that somehow this Knowledge Engine will reduce the need for curated content. Again, this seems to be alarmist. Wikipedia content, whether in the form of articles or data, is submitted and curated by Wikipedia Editors. What “content” would the Knowledge Engine search if not for the content developed and curated by editors? From what I saw of the proposal it didn’t look like the Knowledge Engine was intended to piece together discovery from the wild, but from Wikipedia’s own content. And even if there was an attempt to deliver content from the wild, the best way to evaluate it for bias would be to compare it to the curated content.
What am I missing?

UPDATE (2016/02/16 4:34pm): And the response from Wikipedia (found almost immediately after I added my post):

Clarity on the future of Wikimedia search « Wikimedia blog

“What are we not doing? We’re not building a global crawler search engine. We’re not building another, separate Wikimedia project….Despite headlines, we are not trying to compete with other platforms, including Google. As a non-profit we are noncommercial and support open knowledge. Our focus is on the knowledge contributed on the Wikimedia projects. ”

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IA in Wikipedia

I am currently working on developing a WikiProject for Information Architecture at Wikipedia. I welcome participation from interested Wikipedians, with or without editing experience. Please view my IA Wikipedia Editathon tutorial and resource guide which I presented as an interactive session of the Information Architecture Summit, on April 22-26 in Minneapolis. ASIS&T Bulletin published my article on Information Architecture in Wikipedia in its June/July 2015 edition, outlining the history of this project and how you can help.

As an amateur IA historian and keeper of many things IAI for several years, I pressnted a proposal to the WikiProjects committee to create an Information Architecture group at Wikipedia. I was inspired by Christina Wodtke’s Medium article, Towards a New Information Architecture, from just over a year ago, where she urged those of us in the discipline to recommit to IA and the IA Institute, to “look beyond the title people have and instead at the work being done,” and to “Invite the innovators in understanding in, and make them part of Information Architecture.”

This is exactly what I plan to do with your help. Many artifacts from the initial establishment of the Information Architecture Institute, including the “25 Theses,” ASIS&T’s SIG-IA, and the now defunct IAWiki (via archive.org) hold testament to the evolution and collaboration of practice and community over the past 15-20 years. These are artifacts that deserve to be preserved and made discoverable. And what are we if not uniquely skilled to do exactly this?

This is our livelihood. While we have been defining the damned thing within our own, relatively closed community, Wikipedia editors have been labeling our artifacts “stub” to “start” quality and of “low” to “mid-importance.” Years-old, unaddressed criticism of the Information Architecture article on Wikipedia includes the admonishments that we have no academic conferences or publications, that we use “peacock” terms and unverified claims. Much of this can be easily debunked, but a lot of information on these wiki pages should be edited, sections on academic research and proceedings should be added, and more complete cross referencing of IA practitioners and thought leadership should be included, so that these criticisms can be put to rest.

You can help by joining me and supporting my proposal. To do this follow these steps:

To join the IA WikiProject:

  1. Sign up for a Wikipedia.org account or login to your existing account if you already have one.
  2. Go to the WikiProjects page:
  3. Click “edit” next to the Members section.
  4. Type ~~~~ on new line. (This is Wikipedia’s simple way to add your account name and time stamp.)
  5. Click Save.

Once you have signed on, and even if you are not ready to add your name to the list, you can use the WikiProject Information Architecture Talk page (a tab at the top left of the proposal page) to add any comments or suggestions for content.

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Information Architecture Wikipedia Editathon at IAS15

I am very happy to announce that I will be presenting an Information Architecture Wikipedia Editathon as an interactive session of the Information Architecture Summit, on April 22-26 in Minneapolis.

As an amateur IA historian and keeper of many things IAI for several years, I have decided to go one step further and present my proposal to the WikiProjects committee to create an Information Architecture group at Wikipedia. I was inspired by Christina Wodtke’s Medium article, Towards a New Information Architecture, from just over a year ago, where she urged those of us in the discipline to recommit to IA and the IA Institute, to “look beyond the title people have and instead at the work being done,” and to “Invite the innovators in understanding in, and make them part of Information Architecture.”

This is exactly what I plan to do with your help. Many artifacts from the initial establishment of the Information Architecture Institute, including the “25 Theses,” ASIS&T’s SIG-IA, and the now defunct IAWiki (via archive.org) hold testament to the evolution and collaboration of practice and community over the past 15-20 years. These are artifacts that deserve to be preserved and made discoverable. And what are we if not uniquely skilled to do exactly this?

This is our livelihood. While we have been defining the damned thing within our own, relatively closed community, Wikipedia editors have been labeling our artifacts “stub” to “start” quality and of “low” to “mid-importance.” Years-old, unaddressed criticism of the Information Architecture article on Wikipedia includes the admonishments that we have no academic conferences or publications, that we use “peacock” terms and unverified claims. Much of this can be easily debunked, but a lot of information on these wiki pages should be edited, sections on academic research and proceedings should be added, and more complete cross referencing of IA practitioners and thought leadership should be included, so that these criticisms can be put to rest.

You can help by joining me and supporting my proposal. To do ths follow these steps:

To join the IA WikiProject:

  1. Sign up for a Wikipedia.org account.
  2. Go to the proposal page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals/Information_Architecture
  3. Click “edit” next to the Support section.
  4. Type ~~~~ on new line. (This is Wikipedia’s simple way to add your account name and time stamp.)
  5. Click Save.


Once you have signed on, and even if you are not ready to add your name to the list, you can use the Talk page (a tab at the top left of the proposal page) to add any comments or suggestions for content.