Interview With Library of Congress Information Architect Meg Peters

In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, has been running an interview series featuring members of the library staff. The series started in late October 2010.

There are more than 80 posts in the series.

This week's interview is with Meg Peters, an Information Architect in the Office of Strategic Initiatives. She is part of the team that designed the new Congress.gov legislative information service:

"What was your role in the development of Congress.gov"

"Congress.gov is part of a three-tiered strategic plan for the Library’s websites created in consultation with web experts from various fields. Based on recent usability testing and interviews with Library stakeholders, the plan provided general guidance for redesigning THOMAS.gov and the internal legislative website, the Legislative Information System (LIS)."

"Initially, I helped define the scope and requirements for the Congress.gov beta site, which synthesizes THOMAS.gov and LIS. Then I created all the page mockups (wireframes), worked with the team to refine them, and co-wrote with Tammie the functional specifications detailing how the site should behave. (For example: 'If the user does this, then the site does that.')"

"In designing the information architecture for Congress.gov, I leveraged site usage metrics for THOMAS.gov and results of past usability testing for LIS. Leading up to the Congress.gov launch, I provided guidance on writing, organizing, and formatting the content."