Session type: Single Day Workshop (Virtual)

Virtual workshops on a single date

Sessions
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2021 IA Conference

April 19, 2021

Beginner

This workshop is sold out.

More of our lives are happening online every day. We interact and transact through digital systems on a growing variety of devices. More understandable and coherent systems = better experiences. As a result, information architecture (IA) is more important than ever.

In this fast-paced workshop, you will:

  • Understand the primary goals of information architecture
  • Learn how people find and understand information
  • Learn to define conceptual models
  • Master necessary IA components
  • Identify essential IA collaboration skills
  • Learn how to communicate IA concepts
  • Discover how architectures evolve over time

Structure

This workshop has been a staple of the IA Conference for the past three years. Now, it's been wholly restructured for effective remote instruction.

The online workshop consists of three components:

  • Pre-recorded video lectures, which you can view on your own before real-time group activities
  • Real-time hands-on group exercises via Zoom
  • Asynchronous Q&A sessions via Discord

Lectures consist of our parts:

  1. Introduction to information architecture
  2. Conceptual modeling
  3. Basic IA components
  4. Basic IA skills

This new structure maximizes learning by making the most of our time together and makes it easier for distributed teams with busy schedules to participate.

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Sessions
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2021 IA Conference

April 22, 2021

Intermediate

As a digital designer, you must think beyond the user interface to the underlying structures that give your systems coherence. These structures should serve the needs of your users, your organization, and society. To do so, you must understand your organization's strategic directions. This fast-paced workshop introduces strategic thinking for designers.

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Sessions
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2021 IA Conference

April 20, 2021

Beginner, Intermediate

When people want to locate and discover information, they can simply type keywords into a search engine (not only Google) and select items from the first page of search results, right? This is the current mental model of how search/retrieval works for most users of all ages.

Sense-making is a searcher behavior that information architects, user experience (UX) and usability pros should not ignore. Search listings not only should make sense to individuals, they should also make sense to groups of people.

This workshop will answer the following questions:

  • Which parts of a search listing must make sense to people before they will click (or tap) on a link?
  • Where does sense-making occur during different parts of a search task?
  • What do common search systems use for display in search listings?
  • Does the type of search query affect the type of information that must make sense in search listings? (Short answer: yes!)
  • Do document owners have complete or limited control over how search listings appear?
  • How can we architect search listings so that they make sense for multiple target audiences?

Downloadable materials included. Workshop also includes a Sense-Making & Search Clinic to address your most pressing architecture questions.

The session will be recorded and made available to registered attendees.

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Shari Thurow
Sessions
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2021 IA Conference

April 23, 2021

This workshop is sold out

This immersive workshop provides practical tactics for designing, building and maintaining taxonomies and ontologies. Based on hard-won lessons learned from work with everything from large fortune-50 enterprises to small ecommerce sites.

The workshop provides:

  • Taxonomy/Ontology basics: a foundation to start creating a consistent vocabulary within your organization. We also call out the unique needs of building a taxonomy to serve the needs of large enterprises.
  • A framework for shifting to an enterprise taxonomy model that meets the needs of your enterprise and the individual business units, systems, user profiles, and interfaces.
  • Discussion of the impacts of a taxonomy project on technology, governance, workflows, marketing, analytics, search, compliance, and the interaction with master data management
  • Practical tips for providing stakeholders with resources to navigate internal tensions around implementation
  • Examples and case studies of large scale enterprise taxonomy projects.

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Sessions
home / Pre-Conference Workshop / Single Day Workshop (Virtual)

2021 IA Conference

April 19, 2021

When we design our IA and other key design elements guided by a Usage Maturity Matrix we ease users into, and draw users deeper into, our design ecosystem. We intentionally emerge richer information, features and functions as our users are ready to experience them. In this workshop, participants will learn what a Usage Maturity Matrix is, will then breakout into an exploratory exercise using a UMM on their own digital spaces (or samples provided.)

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Alesha Arp, woman of European descent wearing blue top, half-rimmed glasses, and smiling, Chin-length hair
Alesha Arp
Scott Ryan-Hart