With the interactive digital world always evolving, keeping up with the latest trends and innovations can become a full time job on its own.  Reading books, online articles, blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter are all great ways to stay informed but sometimes nothing beats a good discussion with your peers as a learning tool.

On Wednesday I participated in a bi-weekly UX mentorship group that included IA’s and UXers of various levels of experience and from various companies in Toronto such as Delvinia, Critical Mass, Klick and Rogers to name a few.

On the agenda this week was a common task of most web projects: creating a Site Map.  We began by discussing how we approach creating a site map, common roadblocks and methods for presenting the site map and other site map creating best practices and tips.  We moved on to a hands-on exercise where we created a site map with continued discussion.

It is refreshing to know that the Toronto IA and UX community is always ready, willing and able to share their knowledge and expertise with their peers. We don’t discuss clients or specific projects, we concentrate on the challenges that we’ve encountered giving us the freedom to just talk openly about the tasks and end solutions.  As an IA/UXer I know that it’s our jobs to craft the best user experience we can. It only makes sense that we take the time to help each other out while doing it.