Sessions

2023 IA Conference

March 31, 2023

This case study reviews the successes from a recent knowledge management implementation that used new ways to harvest knowledge from the minds of scientists and engineers at a small tech company near Seattle, while providing a systematic way to enhance internal search and content management systems. Implementing a knowledge management framework has been (and still is) a mystery to many knowledge workers. These examples will help you understand more about KM and how to make it work at your company, regardless of its size. Includes discussions about creating information personas, taxonomies, journey mapping and content type development.

Sessions

2021 IA Conference

April 30, 2021

Beginner, Intermediate

You’ve protested. You’ve made public statements to do better. After nearly a year, are you still asking, “What now?” Learn how companies can start to fulfill their promises today to create social changes and a more diverse UX design workforce.

As UX practitioners we pride ourselves on human-centered design, but do we really practice what we preach when statistics continually reflect a staggering lack of diversity? And, does our work reflect biases that exist in ourselves and our companies? If so, how to we move toward positive changes?

The information presented here will be a conversation starter to help you start, if conversations and actions have stalled. It will also provide observations and checklists to help you iterate toward making a difference.

Sessions

2021 IA Conference

April 28, 2021

The use of complex words can make your users feel confused, frustrated, or offended – potentially so much so that they give up on a page or process. When we use words that are familiar and make people feel welcome, we are making that content usable by anyone!

So, let’s spend more time thinking about how others will be affected by the words we use! We’ll examine several examples of complicated or complex words and share how to develop the best solutions, breaking down examples of difficult phrases and how they can be simplified to feel more welcoming and accessible.

Sessions

2021 IA Conference

April 29, 2021

This session will share a project done in collaboration with the Anti Defamation League’s Center for Technology and Society to visualize this ecosystem in a series of models and to discuss the questions we looked at, the questions we still have, the continued investigation and how we are using these models to stimulate conversations about policy, product design and moderation with industry, academia, law enforcement and civil society organizations.


Sessions

2021 IA Conference

April 30, 2021

Beginner

This year has accelerated the pace at which critical infrastructure has had to move to digital primary. Where these platforms had often been designed and tested for the primary user groups, they must now consider the needs of a much more representative set of audiences. Some of these audiences have mitigating issues that the IA needs to consider: a reluctance to use the platform; misinformation; or are facing a range of accessibility and exclusionary concerns.

Public health and higher education in particular, are two of the industries that were forced with accelerating their digital experiences. They have had to adapt to the reality that users at all stages of the customer journey will be relying on this digital experience.

In this session we'll explore how public health and higher education have had to adapt. We'll discuss case studies conducted by our team where we applied service design methods to assess and synthesize the needs of a representative audience. Through targeted recruitment and rapid prototype testing we developed an information architecture model for a complex range of user groups that helped to bring down barriers.

As more organizations rely on their digital services, information architects will be asked to take on more prominent roles in enhancing the customer experience. This session will help you prepare for that shift.