IA One Sheeters

One-Sheeters are quick and easy marketing tools for information architects. They're like mini brochures to advertise IA deliverables and promote the IA practice in your company. One-Sheeters help people envision what deliverables you produce and where they fit into a project. They're quick to produce and easy for anyone to understand.

One Sheeters donated by Tom Dell'Aringa (thanks Tom!)

Card Sorting 112KB PDF
Content Inventory 104KB PDF
Content Map 108KB PDF
Design Standards Guide 112KB PDF
Mental Model 112KB PDF
Personas 120KB PDF
Task Analysis Grid 112KB PDF
Use Cases 116KB PDF
User Flows 104KB PDF
Vision Scope 124KB PDF

One-Sheeters are a good starting point for lengthier conversations about what IA is and how it can help.
One-Sheeters help business people understand how IA deliverables can be used to improve their own work.
One-Sheeters illustrate the difference between different types of deliverables and the unique value that each brings.
One-Sheeters elevate the context of the discussion from specific projects to the core problems that IAs solve.
One-Sheeters can be left behind for people to look at and think about later. They're like the elevator pitch that keeps on pitching.

Title - Be sure to pick a title for your deliverable that's memorable and that you're prepared to use consistently. Once you've trained your business friends that it's a wireframe, don't go calling it a gray-screen.

Overview - "What problem does this tool solve?" (In a few punchy sentences.)

Beauty Shots - Include some pictures of noteworthy examples. Often this will help people realize that they've seen this kind of document before, and oh by the way, it's called a wireframe!

Who Benefits - This section describes exactly who on the project team will use the material and how. This helps people understand that IAs impact not only the product but also the process.

What to Expect - This piece lays out the key steps in the process. Spelling things out in this way makes a new and unfamiliar process feel knowable and doable. This reinforces that working with an IA isn't an aimless exploration for design magic, but a structured approach with a clear end goal.

What Next - Now that you've got them interested, give them somewhere to go to learn more. The goal is to get prospective internal clients to look at past deliverables and begin dreaming about how they can be applied to their own projects.

This site is based on a poster that was presented at the 2007 IA Summit. Anyone is welcome to borrow or adapt the material found here for use in his or her own information architecture practice. If you have ideas for additional one sheeters or would like to contribute some of your own, please email me at leahbuley at gmail dot com.

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