Abby Covert

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 the Information Architecture Summit, and Executive Producer of the I.D.E.A Conference. From 2016-2020, Covert served as Etsy's senior staff information architect as they grew to become a multi-billion dollar eCommerce business.

Covert is a founding faculty member of the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design graduate program. She also managed the team that helped Rosenfeld Media start the Design Operations Summit and Advancing Research Conference. Her most proud achievement is coming up with the idea for World Information Architecture Day, which brings accessibly priced education to thousands in their local communities annually.

Covert 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 make the unclear clear, many of which she makes available for free on her website, abbycovert.com, or at accessible price points in her popular Etsy shop, AbbytheIA.

Her diverse portfolio includes work for Etsy, Hanna Andersson, Microsoft, HUDL, Blissworld, John Hardy, Worth, Staples, Nike, IHOP, Herman Miller, Kraft Foods, Sharpie, JELL-O, Prismacolor, Expo Markers, Valspar, KMART, Taco Bell, KFC, State Farm and The United States Postal Service, BlueCross BlueShield, JSTOR, Fidelity Investments, Bank of America, and The Hartford Insurance.