Program Schedule

Join us as Rebecca Klee from Optimal Workshop shares tips and insights on how to:

– source the best content for effective card sorts and tree tests (sounds easy but can be the trickiest part of study design!)
– engage stakeholders and team members to run better studies
– complement quantitative results with live (remote friendly) feedback
additional ways to collect feedback to enhance your analysis

Join Grace, Ken, and Jessi backstage planning as they talk about the information architecture of role-based access control (RBAC) for the IAC Discord server and its impact on the design of the conference experience. Learn about how IAC21 is using Discord to manage backchannel notifications, permissions, and information for its conference and workshops. This event will be recorded.

Conversational experiences are seeing a surge in popularity, but the processes and systems we use to create them are still emerging. Often, the process gets codified as writing a draft script of the conversation, creating a linear decision tree to map out the logic behind it, then bolting on UI elements if needed.

This works ok for smaller systems, but at scale, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain flexibility and capture the rationale behind design decisions.

The result: verbose, inflexible conversations that try to include every possible piece of information (aka ‘kitchen sink design’).

So how can we create more concise, relevant and malleable conversations? This session will explore a high-level approach to prioritizing and choreographing content across the audial, textual and visual elements that go into a conversational experience.

As well as improving the experience for users, this also provides a framework for teams to document the thought process behind their conversational design — information that could one day inform better machine reasoning.

We are living through a board game renaissance. While the pandemic bumped sales by 20% or more, designer board and card games have been growing steadily for over two decades. The most popular titles, such as Ticket to Ride and 7 Wonders, are now easy to find at Target, Barnes & Noble, and other large retailers. But with more than three thousand new games published each year the options are immense. It can be overwhelming.

This AMA-style session will help you navigate the world of modern board games and help you discover great games. The session will begin with a short presentation on the overall landscape, types of games, and things to look for. Then you can ask your questions about board games: where to find them, how to learn more, specific recommendations, the annual IAC game night, and more.

Micro-interactions not only add fun, animated elements to a design, but they also help communicate important information to those using our products. This workshop is perfect for Adobe XD beginners. While not required, you may find it beneficial to download and familiarize yourself with Adobe XD prior to the event.

During the workshop, we will learn how to create several different micro-interactions for a stock trading application, including chart interactions, toggles and more. After Matt’s presentation, we will open the floor for questions and discussion.

First-time attendees of the IAC are invited to attend a welcome meet & greet with experienced members of the IA community.

• Meet other first-timers along with two seasoned IAC attendees
• Ask experienced attendees questions you have about the event
• Meet your first conference friend
• Connect with a potential mentor or a networking contact who knows people they can introduce for you

Kick off IAC21 with a live welcome from the co-chairs before the opening keynote.

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In the Art and Science of Asking Questions, Dan Brown turns a critical eye to the most important tool in our toolbox: the question — how we ask, what we ask, and why we ask.

Language and word choice affect everyone. Why don’t we spend more time thinking about how others will be affected by the words we use? Sam Raddatz and Clair Rock work to break down complex words to make content more usable for any audience.

Learn about the relationship we have with digital technologies and how to evaluate them for dark patterns with Noreen Whysel.

The world of work has changed, has the way you lead changed with it? Come learn with alberta and Martina the why, how and what of effective leadership of teams you can’t meet.

Whether you are senior-level or just starting a new UX career, there will be an opportunity to receive great mentorship from colleagues.

Whether you are senior-level or just starting a new UX career, there will be an opportunity to receive great mentorship from colleagues.

Come learn how to create designs that work for a multi-generational workplace. ‘Cause let’s face it – we’re all aging, but as the old saying goes, it sure beats the alternative.

You get the conversation you design for. This session with David Dylan Thomas will help you design a better one.

Cynicism is easy—and it undermines user confidence, marketing, and trust. Join Margot Bloomstein to learn how IAs, designers, and writers can empower users, renew their trust, and maybe even save society itself.

What does the landscape of online hate look like and how do you visualize it? Join Erin Malone as she talks about her project with ADL’s Center for Technology and Society to map the ecosystems of hate in digital social spaces.

As COVID-19 gripped the world, instructions in public health orders were not Google-searchable. Anita Cheng will recount how IA helped save tens of thousands of lives in San Francisco, by bringing clarity and trust into the equation.

How can we organize spatial data to visualize and predict the future in 3D and Augmented Reality? Join Jordan Higgins to explore the future of immersive experience design.

Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression, and Sarah Roberts, author of Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media, join a fireside chat to discuss challenges we face as information architects.

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Board game night has been an IAC tradition for years. It’s a good way to socialize during the conference. It’s also a great way to discover new games.

We’ve selected seven games that are easy to learn, fun to play, and work well online: Codenames, Spyfall, FunEmployed, Skull, For Sale, Voodoo Prince, and Wavelength.

Volunteers will be available to teach any of these games.

We’ve made it easy. You don’t need to download any apps or create any accounts. All you need is your browser and a microphone. A webcam will help for some games. Then use your IAC registration to join game night in Remo.co

Or play your own games. If you already play games online with Board Game Arena or Tabletopia or some other platform, you can do that too. Just grab one of the open tables.

AI systems’ internal logic can be hard to interpret. Carol Smith and Duane Degler will articulate the vital role that #IA plays in addressing the interactive, collaborative relationship between humans and AI, empowering people, fostering understanding.

What happens when IA doesn’t support seamless multiple channel delivery? Catch Amber Swope and Edwina Lui’s talk, “One is Not Enough: The Case for Separating Management and Delivery Information Architecture.”

Are you ready to test your mind, body, and spirit? Do you dream of language, classification, and dangerous things? If so, you might be ready for this tryathlon led by the authors of the “polar bear book” (Jorge Arango, Lou Rosenfeld, Peter Morville) which features three stages:

1. Wicked Questions (Jorge, Lou, and Peter interrogate each other about information architecture and the meaning of life for 30 mins in front of a live Zoom audience)
2. Run, Bike, Pogo (You spend 30 mins exercising however you damn well please)
3. Polar Bear Plunge (Sweaty people ask polar bears questions for 30 mins via Zoom; there is no guarantee that any or all authors will jump into a frigid body of water)

If you’re ready to emerge from winter hibernation and push your endurance beyond the limits, sign up now before you come to your senses. Registered attendees for the main conference will receive information about how to sign up for this event prior and throughout the conference in daily emails and on Discord.

When you've got tens of millions of pages, stored in dozens of CMSs, managed by hundreds of organizations with no single oversight board, and you know the experience is broken...

How do you fix it? Where do you even begin? How do you reconcile the conflicting goals of multiple business units, of multiple kinds, with multiple disciplines and departments supporting different stages of the customer journey? How can they all act as a single company in service to the customer's needs, instead of a patchwork of competing org charts?

I'm happy to share my ludicrously ambitious work in progress - a topic-oriented information architecture based on data, managed with metadata, and scaled with AI to reorganize ibm.com around customer interests.

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Whether you are senior-level or just starting a new UX career, there will be an opportunity to receive great mentorship from colleagues.

There is no average person. A look at the 150 year old myth of the average consumer and why designing with intersectionality in mind is critical.

This session will be in the Lounge.

As more organizations rely on their digital services, information architects will be asked to take on more prominent roles in enhancing the CX for all audiences. Join Arpy Dragffy for Creating an information architecture for a complex range of user groups.

Clifton Simmons helps you stick to your commitment iterate social change. See how UXers have a unique way to do good.

What’s next in Design after 20 years? Learn to be Certain, Grown and a Model for the coming generations in this talk with Mags Hanley.

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