What happens when teams have more research, dashboards, documentation, messages, and AI-generated content than ever before, but still struggle to understand what actually matters?
Modern organizations rarely suffer from a lack of information. The challenge is making sense of it. More documents do not automatically create more clarity, and adding another dashboard, guide, or AI-generated summary can sometimes make the underlying complexity even harder to navigate.
In this episode of UX Spotlight by Userlytics, host Denis Cristea sits down with Abby Covert, author, teacher, information architect, and Chief Sensemaker at The Sensemakers Club, to explore how individuals and teams can make better sense of increasingly complex information environments.
Drawing on two decades of experience in information architecture, Abby explains why shared language matters more than perfect terminology, how organizational silos create both technical and understanding debt, and why teams need to become active participants in creating clarity rather than expecting another tool to solve the problem for them. The conversation also turns to AI, information overload, and why discernment may become one of the most important skills people can develop as technology continues to change.
What You’ll Learn
- Why more content does not necessarily create better information. Abby explains the difference between the content organizations produce and the information people actually take away from it and why adding more documentation can sometimes deepen confusion rather than resolve it.
- Why shared language is essential for healthy teams. When teams use terms inconsistently, collaboration gets harder. Abby explores how even a small terminology change can remove significant organizational friction.
- How silos create understanding debt. Separate teams can build similar products, features, labels, and systems without realizing how those decisions will collide later in the wider customer experience.
- What collaborative sensemaking looks like in practice. Strong teams are curious about one another’s expertise, share skills across disciplines, and use documents as spaces for thinking together rather than simply as handoff artifacts.
- Why AI may increase information overload instead of solving it. AI can organize messy information and produce polished outputs quickly, but Abby warns that well-formatted documentation can still leave people with very little meaningful understanding.
- Why discernment matters more than mastering every new tool. As technologies, interfaces, and workflows change faster than anyone can learn them all, the ability to make thoughtful decisions under imperfect circumstances becomes increasingly valuable.
- Why teams need to understand their current state before designing the next one. Mapping the existing environment makes structural problems visible and gives teams a shared picture of what they are actually trying to change.
Key Takeaway
“The solution doesn’t already exist, you will have to make it.”
— Abby Covert
Listen to the Episode
Hear the full conversation with Abby Covert on UX Spotlight by Userlytics.
Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Userlytics.
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About the Guest
Abby Covert
Abby Covert is an author, teacher, community leader, and information architect whose work focuses on helping people make the unclear clear.
Abby Covert is an author, teacher, community leader, and information architect whose work focuses on helping people make the unclear clear.
After spending two decades working in information architecture across internal, agency, and consulting environments, Abby now serves as Chief Sensemaker at The Sensemakers Club, a community built around helping people working with information, content, knowledge, and data develop stronger sensemaking practices.
She is the author of How to Make Sense of Any Mess, Stuck? Diagrams Help., and Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers. Her work explores how language, structure, collaboration, discernment, and information architecture can help people navigate complex and ambiguous environments.
About the Host
Denis Cristea
Denis Cristea is the host of UX Spotlight by Userlytics, a podcast featuring conversations with UX researchers, designers, product leaders, and industry experts. With a background in media, content production, and UX-focused storytelling, Denis brings a conversational and practical perspective to discussions about research, insights, technology, and digital experiences.
Denis Cristea is the host of UX Spotlight by Userlytics, a podcast featuring conversations with UX researchers, designers, product leaders, and industry experts.
With a background in media production, content strategy, and UX-focused storytelling, Denis leads conversations exploring the ideas, practices, and technologies shaping research, product design, and digital experiences.
About UX Spotlight by Userlytics
UX Spotlight by Userlytics features conversations with UX researchers, designers, product leaders, and industry experts exploring the ideas, practices, and technologies shaping modern user experience.
Each episode goes beyond surface-level trends to examine how teams understand users, make better decisions, navigate change, and create stronger digital products.
