Everything is getting more complex. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information we encounter each day. Whether at work, at school, or in our personal endeavors, there’s a deepening (and inescapable) need for people to work with and understand information. Information architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole. When we make things for others to use, the architecture of information that we choose greatly affects our ability to deliver our intended message to our users.We all face messes made of information and people. This book defines the word “mess” the same way that most dictionaries do: “A situation where the interactions between people and information are confusing or full of difficulties.” — Who doesn’t bump up against messes made of information and people every day? How to Make Sense of Any Mess provides a seven step process for making sense of any mess. Each chapter contains a set of lessons as well as workbook exercises architected to help you to work through your own mess. Who is the book for? I wrote this book for anyone making anything. And vague as I admit that to be, I believe it to be most useful framed that way.  Because in my opinion, the same advice could be given to someone organizing a bake sale as someone organizing a global cross-channel campaign. I also think the same high-level process and consideration set could apply to a student making their first website as a major corporation redesigning their digital ecosystem. We have spent the last thousand years inventing ever-stronger ways to transport messages from one point to another. But along the way, we haven't spent as much time considering how our messages will be interpreted and how that might impact the way people understand and use the information that our messages contain.  We spend most of the time talking about the practical and predictable parts of our world. The steps we will take, the deliverables we will produce, the thing we are making, even the value we will be creating by doing so, the organization of teams and projects to get us there -- but we spend much less time (if any at all) talking about the perceived meaning of choices we make, the impact language has on our communication's effectiveness, or playing with structures that would best serve our intent before we start to layer on the details of design and execution. I wanted to write a book that taught those lessons. Abby Covert is an information architect, writer and community organizer with two decades of experience helping people make sense of messes. In addition to being an active mentor to those new to sensemaking, she has also served the design community as President of the Information Architecture Institute, co-chair of Information Architecture Summit, and Executive Producer of the I.D.E.A Conference.  Abby is a founding faculty member of School of Visual Arts' Products of Design graduate program. She also managed the team that helped Rosenfeld Media to start both the Design Operations Summit and Advancing Research Conference. Her most proud achievement is having come up with the idea for World Information Architecture Day, bringing accessibly priced education to thousands in their local communities annually.  In addition to running events, you may have seen her presenting her work on stage at: Blend, Business to Buttons, Confab, Creative Mornings, Designing for Digital, EdUI, EMACTL, EuroIA, Generate, GIANT, IA Summit, IA Conference, Italian IA Conference, Interactions, Midwest UX, Mind the Product, Momentum, Plain Language Summit, SearchLOVE, STC Summit, TalkUX, UI21, UI22, UX Cambridge, UX Ottawa, UX Lisbon, UX Tokyo, UX Week, Webstock, Wharton Web Conference, World IA Day  Abby has written two books for her students. In 2014 she published How to Make Sense of Any Mess, a book to teach IA to everybody. In 2022, she released her much anticipated follow-up, Stuck? Diagrams Help. She currently spends her time making things that help you to make the unclear, clear, many of which she makes available for free or at accessible price points. Abby lives and writes from Melbourne, Florida where her most important job title is 'Mom'.