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IAC: the information architecture conference

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Home / The IAC20 Program

The IAC20 Program

The IAC is where information architects, UX designers, content strategists, and other design practitioners meet.

The Main Conference is taking place between April 16th-18th at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. While you’re booking the conference – make sure you make your reservation at the conference hotel to get the full IAC experience.

Register now

We’ve also gathered talented and seasoned workshop leaders to help advance your skills. We present two days for workshops in addition to the main conference program. If you are seeking specialized training about information architecture and experience design, it doesn’t get any better than at the IAC. These workshops will take place on April 14th and 15th and are charged at $350 for a half-day workshop and $650 for full day workshops.

Tuesday, April 14 Pre-Conference Workshops

TrackSession
Morning
8:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Introduction to Knowledge Graphs
With: Ahren Lehnert and Bob Kasenchak
Full Day
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Values in Information Architecture: The 8th Academics & Practitioners Roundtable at the 2020 Information Architecture Conference with Dan Zollman, Jeffrey Ryan Pass, Andrea Resmini, Sarah Rice and Stacy Merrill Surla
Building Up, Building Down: Content Modeling For Projects That Have To Ship
With: Greg Dunlap and Jeff Eaton
Applied Designing Connected Content
With: Carrie Hane
Information Architecture Essentials
With: Jorge Arango
Low-Code Data Analysis with Jupyter Notebooks
With: Kellie Carter and Boxu Fan
Managing Tough Conversations for Information Architects: How to have them, how to make them productive, and how to survive them
With: Dan Brown
Afternoon
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Effective Human-Machine Conversation
With: Phillip Hunter

Wednesday, April 15 Pre-Conference Workshops

TimeSession
Morning
8:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Leading Transformation
With: Alberta Soranzo
Lessons from a Jazz Musician: Improvising in User Research
With: Rachel Price and Horyun Song
Practical Large Scale Content Analysis - Andy Fitzgerald
With: Andy Fitzgerald
Sense-Making, Search Systems, & Site Optimization
With: Shari Thurow
Full Day
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Designing and Building Taxonomies for Enterprise
With: Gary Carlson
The Visual Display of Information
With: Stephen Anderson
The Art and Science of Workshop Design
With: Bern Irizarry and Stacy Merrill Surla
Afternoon
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Selling-In Design Innovation
With: Jon Kolko and Matt Franks
Planning for Strategic Design
With: Peter Morville
Courageous Coaching and Forthright Feedback: Improving your Leadership Practice by Doing Both
With: Jenny Shirey
Collaborative Improv: Building Better Products Through Improvisation
With: David Farkas

Note: Pre-conference workshops are an additional cost. You don’t have to book main conference registration and workshops together. 


Thursday, April 16th 2020

TrackSensing the worldMaking SenseImpact and provocation
Track Rooms
7:30 AMRegistration Opens
8:30 - 9:00 AMOpening Remarks
Location: Room TBC
9:00 - 9:45 AM

Keynote by Abby Covert


Location: Room TBC
10:00 - 10:20 AMSense-Making vs. The Curse of Knowledge with Paige DuPontMaking sense of tabular information on mobile: The re-emergence of the Rolodex in digital form with Scott Ryan-HartMeta Information Architecture: Let's See How Far Down the Rabbit Hole We Can Go with Ren Pope
10:20 - 10:50 AMMorning Coffee
10:50 - 11:35 AMGentle Change with Peter MorvilleSense-Making and Wayfinding: Improving Team Outcomes with Matt ArnoldHow to Use Content Modeling to Define Your Taxonomy Framework with Theresa Putkey
11:45 - 12:05 PMMaking Sense of a Place: Lessons from Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City, and Urban Design with Aditi RaoHow Visualizations Improved AI Algorithm Performance with Jordan ThayerSecret Searches: How to Understand Your Audience When They Don't Want to Talk About It with Clair Rock and Sam Raddatz
12:15 - 12:35 PMSemiotics of Knowledge Graphs: Fixing Meaning in an Unfixed World with Bob KasenchakThe Conversational Impulse: Challenges in Assessing Virtual Agent Systems with Sharon SternPlay in Difficult Times: Fostering Conversation on Challenging Topics Through Collaborative Gameplay with Danielle Chen
12:35 - 1:50 PMLunch
Location: Atrium A/B and C/D
1:50 - 2:35 PMMaking sense with business object models with Daniel O'NeilInformation Architecture for Headless Structured Content with Michael AndrewsThe Changing Face of Ethical Design: Why Responsible Intent Matters More Than Ever with Andy Vitale
2:50 - 3:10 PMMaking sense of complex information to build skills and invent the future with Ana Luisa PonsirenasAdventures in User-centric Taxonomy: Getting Job Seeker Feedback into the Back-end with Alexandra Teodorescu, Amanda Krauss, and Leora YardenayDefining the "UX Critique" How to Level up your team by creating a culture of feedback with Nicole Coumes
3:10 - 3:40 PMAfternoon Tea
3:40 - 4:25 PMNavigation: Correlations in Digital and Physical Spaces with Nico Raddatz and Sam RaddatzA Different Animal: .govs and Designing for a Dead Horse with Jaime Shycko and Javier RuizEmpathy-Based Personas: Shifting Your Organization’s Thinking from Inside-Out to Outside-In with Esteban Gonzalez and Hilary Marsh
4:40 - 5:10 PMLightning talks
Embracing Ambiguity with Andrew Hinton
The Ethics Canvas: A tool for practicing ethics in information architecture with Sarah Rice
Making sense of time, or: chronemics as a resource for multimodal design with Lara Portmann
5:10 - 5:55 PM

Keynote by Cassini Nazir


Location: Room TBC
5:55 - 6:30 PM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions | Sign up now!
5:55 - 6:30 PMGroup Mentoring
6:30 - 8:00 PMPoster Night
8:00 - 9:00 PMDinner in New Orleans
9:00 PM - 12:00 AMAcoustic Jam Night

Friday, April 17th 2020

TrackSensing the worldMaking SenseImpact and provocation
Track Rooms
7:00 - 8:00 AMPolar Bear Yoga
Location: Room TBC
8:00 - 9:00 AMPolar Bear Run: 5K
Location: Room TBC
7:00 - 9:00 AMPolar Bear Run: 10K
Location: Room TBC
9:00 - 9:30 AMRegistration Opens
9:30 - 10:00 AMMorning Coffee & Book Signing
Location: Room TBC
9:30 - 10:00 AM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions
Location: Room TBC
10:00 - 10:45 AM

Keynote by Mutale Nkonde


Location: Room TBC
11:00 - 11:45 AMFight Bias with Content Strategy with David Dylan ThomasA hard look in the mirror: language, structure, and privilege in IA with Lara PortmannTesting Structures with Dumb Prototypes with Joe Elmendorf
12:00 - 12:45 PMTime Structures for Emerging Design Scenarios with Marsha HavertyThe Design Leader’s Secret Guide to Measuring UX with Jared SpoolAll Sorts Great and Small: Reflections on Card Sorts, Citizen Engagement, and Creating Better Federal Government Website IAs with Jeff Pass
12:45 - 2:00 PMLunch
Location: Room TBC
12:45 - 2:00 PMGroup Mentoring
Location: Room TBC (bring your lunch)
12:45 - 2:00 PMIAC20 Diversity & Inclusion Roundtable - ROOM TBD (bring your lunch)
Location: Room TBC
2:00 - 2:20 PMStay out of the dark side: How to use cognitive biases for good your design and user research with Jennifer BlatzAn exciting thing...Coming soon...
2:30 - 2:50 PMSafety First: Creating a Sense of Psychological Safety in Your Team with Jenny ShireyPanel Discussion
3:00 - 3:45 PMSemantics, structure, and sense-making of information spaces for people with disabilities with Francis StorrTalking about IA: A practical way to talk about, compare, and evaluate any kind of information architecture with Austin GovellaPanel Discussion
3:45 - 4:15 PMAfternoon Coffee and Book Signing
Location: Room TBC
3:45 - 4:15 PM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions
Location: Room TBC
4:15 - 5:00 PMBecome a Synthesis Savant – From Messy Data to Meaningful Insights with Sarah Flamion and Kellie CarterThe Truth Can’t Save Us: Ethical IA through Epistemic Nihilism with Kat KingStructured ArgumeIntation: An old, new method of design and resource planning with Dorian Taylor
5:15 - 6:00 PM

Day 2 Closing Keynote by Regine Gilbert


Location: Room TBC
6:30 - 8:00 PMDinner
Location and Details TBC
8:00 PM - 1:00 AMKaraoke
Location: Room TBC
8:00 PM - 1:00 AMGame Night
Location: Room TBC

Saturday, April 18th 2020

TrackSensing the worldMaking SenseImpact and provocation
Track Rooms
7:00 - 8:00 AMPolar Bear Yoga
Location: Room Room TBC
8:00 - 9:45 AMRegistration Opens
7:30 AMRegistration Opens
9:45 - 10:30 AM

Day 3 Opening Main Stage Talk


Location: Room TBC
10:30 - 11:00 AMMorning Coffee & Book Signing
10:30 - 11:00 AM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions
Location: Room TBC
11:00 - 11:20 AMTax and taxonomy: the music of accounting with Morgen KimbrellSpelling UX D-E-I: Strategies and Ideas for Centering Your UX Practice around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Ashley BrewerModeling as Organizational Awareness with Dan Cooney
11:30 - 12:15 PMSensemaking as a Learned Experience with Duane DeglerBuilding conversational interfaces for e-commerce with Pooja DhakaA Sensible Framework for Information Architecture Projects with Bob Royce
12:15 - 1:45 PMLunch
Location: TBC
1:15 - 1:45 AM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions
Location: Room TBC
1:45 - 2:30 PMDesigning to Change User Behavior in Digital and Real Places: Three Case Studies with Michael Haggerty-VillaMetadata strategy for beautiful nerds with Anna McHughMaking New Mistakes: what bad things happen when we get things right with Dana Chisnell
2:30 - 3:00 PMAfternoon Coffee & Book Signing
2:30 - 3:00 PM1-on-1 Career Advice Sessions
Location: Room TBC
3:00 - 3:20 PMFacilitating Structures: Toward a New Way of Working and Learning Together with Stephen AndersonPersonalisation Foundations with Jeff EatonGoldilocks and the Enterprise ŒŠí_íñ Chasing value in complex systems with Alberta Soranzo
3:35 - 4:05 PMLightning talks
4:05 - 4:50 PM

Closing Keynote by Christian Crumlish


Location: Room TBC
4:50 - 5:35 PMClosing & 5-minute Madness
Location: Room Room TBC

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