Categories - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 46

In 2012, Dan Klyn borrowed this theory to re-frame the relationship between user experience
and information architecture. In his account, using centered sets is like herding cats. The center
is a pail of milk that draws cats. For user experience designers “the pail is design, and it's situ-
ated in a place where users and their experiences are the center of gravity.” xlii And what about
information architects? What's their center? Well, those crazy cats are centered on meaning. Or
is it placemaking or planning or cognition?
To be sure, we can (and should) argue about the centers, but that's not the most pivotal point. If
we connect the dots from facets and tags to fuzzy, centered sets, we begin to see the silliness of
playing zero-sum games. As Schrödinger tried to tell us, a cat can exist in multiple categories at
once.
There's a wonderful scene in Life of Pi in which young Pi and his mother and atheist father are
walking down the street and bump into Pi's pandit, priest, and imam all together. After an
angry debate, Pi is told “he can't be a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim. It's impossible. He must
choose.” In response, Pi blurts out “Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love
God.” xliii Sometimes, we must choose which story we prefer, but not always. All too often we
use radio buttons when checkboxes or sliders would reveal the truth. We do it to users and we
do it to ourselves.
Figure 2-24. Radio buttons, check boxes, and sliders.
We can and will do better. It starts with awareness. There's more than one way to classify a cat.
Once that door of perception is open, we can nudge ourselves and our colleagues towards celeb-
rating both difference and similarity.
The org chart is a place to start. Is the hierarchy reinforcing the unhealthy division of discip-
lines? Might a “holacracy” of self-organizing, multi-disciplinary, cross-functional teams work
better ? xliv In holacracy, authority and decision-making are distributed, and members can be in
more than one circle. Zappos and Medium are giving it a try. Maybe we should too.
Once the org chart's okay, layout is a lever worth a pull. Where we sit relative to our colleagues
can unlock creativity and drive collaboration. While hot-desking is going too far, musical chairs
reminds us we're not stuck in our seats. We shape our buildings; we can re-shape them too.