Sessions

Design for digital technologies continues to grow exponentially, but the digital/analog divide has been proven to reinforce a damaging false dichotomy. Separating designed products into digital and analog experiences reiterates mind/body dualism in ways that neglects the embodied user experience and results in harmful rather than beneficial user experiences.

This talk will encourage IA practitioners to shift from viewing digital and physical spaces as separate entities. We begin with recent developments in neurobiology and a review of discussions on embodiment and tacit knowledge. We connect these ideas with practice through the research area of Blended Spaces, a concept developed by Andrea Resmini (et. al.), which merges physical and digital spaces to form environments with unique structures and affordances. The talk will give examples from medical, shopping, news, and entertainment spaces where considering blended spaces would enable experiences that are an improvement on what currently exists. Finally, we will share structure, objectives, and insights from a “Vancouver Walkshop,” an immersive experience which let participants build embodied understanding and tacit experience in a world today that is neither purely digital nor purely physical. 

Through this presentation, we aim to advance our conceptual and experiential, tacit knowledge by sharing opportunities to transition away from digital/analog dichotomies. These shifts carry implications for the decolonization of design practices beyond the limitations of traditional taxonomies; capturing the fluidity and interconnectedness of complex information modeling, including knowledge graphs in Information Architecture (IA) and embeddings in Artificial Intelligences (AI). This project ultimately aims to recognize the politics of information, and promote equity, representation, and recognition of diverse perspectives in information organization and design.