Donna (Maurer) Spencer is a freelance information architect and interaction designer, a mentor, writer and trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing both strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets & websites, e-commerce & search systems, complex business applications, a set of design patterns and a content management system.

She believes deeply in the value of user-centred design and uses a range of user-centred approaches on her projects – from quick analysis of existing research to deep ethnography. She also believes deeply in team-based and iterative design – continually surprising her colleagues by talking to people rather than computers and designing the old-fashioned way with pencil, sticky notes and much coloured paper.

Donna is an experienced speaker who has taught full-day workshops and presented sessions at many local and international conferences, on the topics of information architecture, interaction design and whatever else crosses her mind.

She spends her remaining spare time weaving, gardening and working on the board of the IAI.

Donna got into card sorting by trying it out on a hard project and finding out that it didn't give her the easy answer she hoped for. She has since spent much time trying to figure out when it works, when it doesn't and what to do about that.