I am on a mission to make the world a clearer place, one sensemaker at a time.

A hand drawn cartoon of a person deep in thought looking at a mess with a thought bubble showing an imaginary order for the mess.

**I want to help you to make the unclear, clear.**

I am an author, teacher and community leader in the field of information architecture. My work aims to make information architecture and sensemaking skills accessible to everyone.

I spend my time writing for, speaking to, and mentoring people who are bravely facing messes.

I have written two books to help my students:

How to Make Sense of Any Mess, demystified information architecture into a practical skill set that anyone can apply to any context.

Stuck? Diagrams Help., is a field guide for the trek from diagram novice to diagram nerd.

In 2020 I started an Etsy Shop to share low cost products and guides from my toolkit and started to gather a community of sensemakers all over the world via a monthly mailing list.

In 2022 I officially created The Sensemakers Club to produce education for and opportunities to connect more deeply with that community.

I host Makesensemess, an annual celebration of sensemaking on November 4th. Each year I work with a group of sensemakers to share stories of messes they have made sense of. I usually leave with a hundred new friends, and it’s a blast.

In addition to Makesensemess I also have two eCourses via The Sensemaker Club:

IA for Everybody, a FREE 30 minute video course introducing the concept of IA.
The Practitioner’s Guide to How to Make Sense of Any Mess, a seven week written course taking you from IA curious to practicing IA confidently. This includes access to my monthly office hours where students can ask questions and meet sensemakers from all around the world.

My goal in 2023 is to write about IA for a wider variety of audiences and contexts and to produce educational materials and events highlighting fresh voices at The Sensemakers Club. Foreshadowing intended …

A picture of Abby Covert at home in her studio, amongst her books many of which are about information architecture and design

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

I am an active organizer and mentor within the design and technology community. I wrote about my early journey towards community leadership and have been interviewed about my work on plenty of podcasts.

Here are some of the roles I have been proud to serve in:

Inventor of World Information Architecture Day, a free global celebration of IA serving thousands in their local communities annually
President of the IA Institute from 2014–2016
Co-chair of the IA Summit in 2014
Executive Producer of the IDEA 2009 & 2010
Executive Producer of the IA Summit 2010 & 2012
Founding faculty member of SVA’s Products of Design Masters Program
Founding curator of the Design Operations Summit
Founding curator of the Advancing Research Conference

If you want to keep up with my work, the best way is to join my email list where I write a monthly update on what I am working on or thinking about.