IA Summit 2005
Main Conference Session Descriptions
Opening Plenary |
Saturday, 8:30 - 10:00 |
Sorting out Social Classification |
Saturday, 10:30 - 12:15 It's been called social classification, ethnoclassification, folksonomy, freetagging and metadata for the masses. Services like Flickr, del.icio.us and Furl are creating communal classification schemes by aggregating tags, simple metadata added by each system's users. The remarkable success of these services seems to up-end traditional thinking about classification and information architecture. They work even though they lack controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, facets and other hallmarks of a well-organized information space. And as Jon Udell observes although conventional wisdom says that people can't be bothered to assign metadata tags, users of these systems do -- partly for their own benefit, and partly because the collaborative result is more than the sum of the individual efforts. Is social classification a solution to metadata problems? What lessons can IAs learn from Flickr, del.icio.us and the like? What are the risks and rewards for users of these systems? This panel will pull together experts from several fields to answer these questions (and probably some of their own). back to schedule |
Information Architecture for Content Management |
Saturday, 10:30 - 11:15 Information architecture for content management is a key component of a successful content management strategy. Information architecture formalizes the structure of your content and helps you determine rules for identifying, managing, retrieving, and delivering your content. Information architecture for content management includes content modeling, metadata, content management business rules, repository structure, and workflow. back to schedule |
Thinking Navigation (or Navigation on Vanguard.com Pt.2) |
Saturday, 10:30 - 11:15 One year after the formulation of a navigation strategy for vanguard.com, the results are taking shape. Many lessons were learned and some refinements were made to our approach. Some of the key lessons included how to communicate the decisions and get buy in from different implementation groups and from the business sponsors. We also validated many of the concepts from last year's presentation and created a simplified vocabulary that helped us as we rolled out our solutions to the enterprise. Some of the key concepts in the presentation:
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Faceted classification in the Government of Canada: Toward a Global Approach to Information Architecture |
Saturday, 10:30 - 11:15 The Canadian Government faces many issues arising from inconsistencies in the management of its information resources. Several knowledge representation tools such as classification plans, taxonomies, ontologies, thesauri and metadata standards, are now devoted to the organization and the normalization of governmental information. Unfortunately, even if there is a strong requirement for an alignment within records, documents, Web content and archives continuum, knowledge tools are often used in isolation. Interrelations, complementarities, overlaps and redundancies between these tools needed to be identified and analysed to prepare the foundation for a new Information Architecture. In this session, we explore how facet analysis was used within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFA/ITCan) to help bring together two different views of Information Architecture: a field that can be restricted to the design of web sites, the conception of categorization, classification and labelling systems to improve information searching, browsing and navigation; or one that can adopt a global approach to organize information through its lifecycle and support the multiplicity of informational usages, tasks and policies requirements. DFA/ITCan chose to address the latter view and assess how an integrated structure can standardize the management of departmental information objects without losing focus on the specific information needs of internal and external users. The two major challenges of this project were the selection process of a reasonable number of facets providing a pragmatic view of the department’s information objects and the development of a framework defining the relationship among facets. Significant efforts were made to explore how the multidimensional description provided by faceted classification could be optimized through this framework. The resulting Model (normalized facets and relationships) was used as the "backbone" to develop a consistent and expandable Information Architecture. back to schedule |
Web Content Management Marketplace, Circa 2005 |
Saturday, 11:30 - 12:15 Tony Byrne, founder and editor of CMS Watch, will look at Web Content Management (WCM) trends, technologies, and marketplace from the perspective of a solutions buyer and systems user. Buyers have never had more choices. Despite repeated warnings of consolidation in the WCM space, the number of viable products continues to expand and several very capable mid-tier vendors are making inroads into larger accounts and overseas markets. Participants will learn that they have many plausible options beyond the well-known WCM players. In the meantime, various architectural patterns and organizational best practices are emerging as key determinants for success in managing Web content, regardless of product solution.Tony will provide a brief snapshot of the vendor community, describe some architectural trends, and then examine some WCM approaches that appear to be gaining traction. back to schedule |
The Confidence Game: The Influence of IA on Users' Confidence |
Saturday, 11:30 - 12:15 When shopping for a digital camera, shoppers need to confidently know they've found just the right camera, otherwise they don't purchase. When researching clinical trial opportunities for dealing with a newly diagnosis of Non-Hodgkins-Type Lymphoma, patient caregivers need to confidently know they've found all the relevant information. Recent research suggests that the confidence of the user is influenced, not just by the target content discovered, but by the path they followed to get there. As users navigate a web site, the site's design is either contributing or detracting from the user's confidence. In this presentation, Jared will present some recent research results that show how the choices made by information architects have dramatic influence over the users' confidence. You'll see how different types of navigation pages need to reflect different types of confidence-enhancing design elements. back to schedule |
To Hold or to Access: Building IA of the Canadian Architecture Collections |
Saturday, 11:30 - 12:15 The Digital Collections Program (DCP) at McGill University was built in 1996 and houses digital collections on Canadian arts, architecture, history, culture, map, etc. The DCP aims to provide the preservation of and access to the library's special and rare collections. One of noticeable digital collections is the Canadian Architecture Collections (CAC). Currently, there are nine databases on architecture and corresponding architects, who were alumni or faculty at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, McGill University, such as Bland, Maxwells, Nobbs, Pratte, Safdie, Schoenauer, Schreiber, Taylor, and Traquair. The collections contain their architecture works, drawings, pictures of buildings, projects, and their professional and personal writing and drafts that are created during their professional life. Databases are composed of tables that were normalized by a database designer when database was created. Each table consists of many fields that are defined by attributes, based on their characteristics. One database has one to many tables, up to 14 tables. The total number of tables over nine databases amounts to 55 tables. The total number of fields amounts to 453 over seven databases except Pratte and Traquair databases. These databases have been developed since the early 1990s in different times and by several developers without one standard format, guidelines or classification on how to develop databases. The problems of these databases exist in the management, organization, and retrieval of these tables due to confusion and ambiguity of field names. The lack of uniform policy on how to develop database and how to assign table and field names brought database unmanageable to managers and inaccessible to users. Our research team examined the most frequently used tables and fields over nine databases and grouped them into major categories to identify what needs most in organizing architecture collections. Tables are grouped into seven categories, including data information, library, project, description, type, office files/boxes/folders, and miscellaneous others. Field categories are grouped into eleven categories, including library, project, identification, file information, description and comments, location, type, title, drawings, collection size, and others. Among these, the table category type is used to indicate types or purposes of buildings, which function as controlled vocabularies. There are major typologies that are chosen one from government, educational, commercial, cultural, health, residential, religious, transportation, etc. Under one major typology, there are various sub-typologies available for a more specific classification. These findings of the research, currently in progress, will be compared to two representative metadata sets and thesaurus in the field of architecture: 1) the Description of Architectural Drawings developed by the Getty Research Institute; and 2) categories of the Center for Canadian Architecture collection. In addition, the findings will be also investigated regarding the feasibility of current metadata and specificity of controlled vocabularies of CAC. The result of the research will suggest required and recommended metadata sets to CAC for further development, which might be applicable to similar types of digital collection. back to schedule |
Putting Possibility Thinking Into Action |
Saturday, 1:45 - 3:30 As information architects, we share a capacity for bringing vision to life. Where does our vision come from? Perhaps we associate vision with mission statements that have no power and make us snore. Vision, however, gives us more. Vision gives us structure, and this structure gives us a framework for possibility. As information architects, we create possibility. So what? Where does possibility start? How can we infuse possibility into the downward spiral of deliverable-focused product development that often leaves us grumpy? In a story-filled, humor-laced presentation, Thom Haller will walk us through personal vignettes, thinking questions, and opportunities for chatting with colleagues. We'll explore how our vision can be solidified (perhaps rekindled) by creating relationships of mutuality, reciprocity, and respect. We'll explore how in the face of difficulties we can choose possibility. We'll leave the session with specific ideas for putting possibility thinking into action. back to schedule |
Content Packaging and Metadata: A Change in the Approach to Content Production |
Saturday, 1:45 - 2:30 The presentation will examine a change in the way the BBC produces and packages content for consumption by its intended consumers (audience) to ensure content is both relevant and reusable. It also argues that this is an approach that all content producers will need to embrace. In a fragmented media market with an expanding number of channels for content distribution, content producers must look at how they create and package content to support more personalised and complex patterns of interaction between audience and broadcaster. Essentially there is an inevitable requirement to embrace the distribution of broadcast media in non-linear forms (i.e. not in a scheduled transmission) and this places responsibility on the content producers to consider how content can be made and packaged in a variety of ways for use across a variety of platforms. A further layer of metadata and structure needs to be built on top of the content to string it together, providing adaptable context through multiple user journeys that deliver additional choice and editorial value relevant to the preferences of the audience. The extensive use of and reliance on metadata for packaging and reuse of content is a difficult challenge to face requiring both a change in technologies and business processes, however it is intrinsic to the future of the BBC, to quote:
The presentation will draw on several key examples that illustrate how this applies to traditional broadcast content, interactive content and the convergence of the two, examples including:
The presentation will be relevant to those interested in:
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Evangelism 101 |
Saturday, 1:45 - 2:30 If you're involved with information architecture, then you're involved with the SELLING of information architecture. Even in the most IA-friendly environments, there's always somebody who is skeptical about the work we do. Frequently, an information architect needs to be as effective as an evangelist as they are skilled as a practitioner. This presentation will provide specific tactics that you can use to make change happen in your company or your client's company. Those tactics include:
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The Faceted Interface: PC Connection Case Study |
Saturday, 1:45 - 2:30 For PC Connection, a reseller of computers and electronics, faceted classification was a no-brainer. Because they knew users wanted to browse products by a wide variety of attributes or facets, PC Connection bought Endeca as its navigation and search solution. Unfortunately, even after redesigning its website in a way that enabled users to navigate products via facets, PC Connection found that many users were still unable to find products. As a result, the site wasn't achieving expected business results. In order to address these issues, Molecular worked with PC Connection to understand what wasn't working and to redesign the interface. Usability testing, user interviews, and log file analysis revealed key information about why users weren't using the facets to navigate. Based on this research, we created a new approach that improved the visibility and usability of facets - an approach we believe will be effective for many sites that use faceted navigation. This approach involves the design and presentation of facets in the interface, as well as their content and structure behind the scenes. The goal: expose users to the power of facets without exposing them to their underlying complexity. Facets continue to become more and more useful as an organizing principle to manage large amounts of content or product offerings. Come learn what we discovered about how to make the interface to facets more intuitive and usable to poor, unsuspecting users. back to schedule |
Content Genres - The Hidden Workhorse of Information Architecture |
Saturday, 2:45 - 3:30 Unlike other information science fields that are oriented toward retrieval, findability, and research, information architecture is keenly responsive to use. What do people *do* with information once they have it? How do the tasks they bring to their information usage affect their strategies, expectations, and appreciation of their information interaction? Not explicitly called out in any information architecture text, but essential to successful practice, are content genres. Genres go beyond typical classifications of document types, to get at how content is developed to satisfy particular purposes, and how its form both guides access as well as sets expectation for use. In the real world, we use genres all the time without thinking about it. Let's say you're visiting a new city. You use the content genre of a guidebook to learn the basics of a place. You use the genre of a map to orient yourself and understand where things are. (You might also use subgenres, like a bus map, or a map of popular sites.) You want to see what's movies or bands are playing in the city? You'll likely use the genre of newspaper, perhaps the subgenre of alternative weekly. You approach each of these with a purpose in mind, and an assumption that these genres can satisfy that purpose. The form of these genres helps us identify them and sets expectation for use. Guidebooks look and work different than maps which look and work differently than newspapers. When we want to know what movie is playing, we would never even approach a map -- it's appearance tells us that it's not for that purpose. On the web, however, there are far fewer cognitive cues to distinguish between genres. Everything kind of looks the same -- a page in a browser. So what do we do? In this session, I'll delve deeply into the subject of content genres, addressing genre theory, research into genre for digital documents, how genres are used on the Web, and how I've used genres to develop information architectures. We'll end with an exploration of opportunities that genre orientation offers, and what that orientation suggests for the development of information architecture across multiple channels and devices. back to schedule |
"Is This Chili Spicy Enough?" Cooking up Effective Shared References |
Saturday, 2:45 - 3:30 Do you invite friends and family to taste the pot you've got simmering on the stove? Do you insist on looking inside books before you buy them? Do you check your watch against clocks in public places? Most of us do. We create shared frames of reference - with our families, with authors, with official timekeepers - and hundreds of others. These shared references give us confidence. They build trust. They help us avoid mistakes and misunderstandings. On the Web, creating shared references means giving site visitors the information they need to make informed choices. In other words, the site owner and visitor have tasted the same bowl of soup. Unfortunately, most websites don't do this very effectively. As a result, visitors are frustrated, usability suffers, and sales are lost. As we cross cultural and international borders along the path to globalization, what can we take for granted? More importantly, what CAN'T we? Cooking Up Effective Shared References is a highly interactive 45-minute exploration of why shared references are necessary and what we, as IAs, can do to create them more effectively. It's a combination of interactive experimentation, practical demonstration, and common-sense review, in a single, high-powered, PowerPoint-free session. We have lots of different conversational phrases from which to choose when we are uncertain as to whether or not we have created a shared reference:
But far too many of us fail to ask these kinds of questions when analyzing our on-line projects. We often take far too much for granted - or fail to take advantage of the various descriptive devices we have at our disposal. During Cooking Up Effective Shared References, we'll take a look at:
But shared references aren't just limited to human-human interaction (I'm assuming content providers are human). Lack of feedback from a site can also undermine a shared reference. For example, when a button is clicked and there is no visible response (a change of color, etc), we don't always know if the site has registered our message. In other words, the webserver and the user lack a shared reference. Hence, we experience a wide range of usability problems - from multiple form submissions and superfluous e-mail queries, to general frustration/anger on the part of the user. Conversely, a good shared reference can actually get people to accept - and sometimes even appreciate - bad site usability. Want to know why? See you at the Summit! back to schedule |
Building on User Testing: The Softchoice.com Search |
Saturday, 2:45 - 3:30 This case study of Softchoice.com will show how user needs for the web site transformed the company's internal structure of product information. Customers who were interviewed complained about cryptic product information that was difficult to find or to interpret once the product was actually found. An enormous internal shift needed to take place around how the employees thought of product information. With a system for product information entrenched since 1989, Softchoice slowly shifted it information structure to be more useful for customers -- and, ultimately, productive for its sales force. We'll talk about how searching multiple databases was consolidated into a single database with more consistent data. Using a third-party source for product information, the quality of product information was dramatically improved. However, it required a redesign of the interface to take full advantage of the faceted product data. We will examine how
business and customer needs both met and conflicted.
Facing the challenges of searching both uniquely-identified
content and non-uniquely identified content, this
presentation will explain the process of a site
redesign centered on product search. We'll look at
methods of optimizing third-party data through ranking
more relevant results, adding facets to text searches,
creating filters for users, customizing best-bets,
and handling no results. |
The 2005 Information Architecture Slam: The Second Annual "Workshop with a Winner" |
Saturday, 4:00 - 5:45 In a new edition of last year's provocative hands-on collaborative workshop, we're not looking for a definition, we're looking for results--and we promise a clear-cut winner. The Internet was founded on the concept of collaboration, and this session adds the rhetorical spices ethos, pathos, and logos, coupled with a deadline from hell. The session will foster discussion of the development of practices and products across the disciplines that inform IA. We emphasize creation, presentation, and results. The points are not the point; the point is the information architecture. During the workshop, participants will be divided into groups according to predetermined criteria. Each group will be introduced to a full-fledged hypothetical project, backed up with appropriate client-side deliverables, and will have an opportunity to interview key players on the client's team. Groups will work collaboratively to create and present a complete solution within the deliberately stressful timeframe. The session will conclude with proposal presentations from each of the groups to the clients and the assembled audience. The outcome(s) of the workshop will be presented to the rest of the conference attendees at a pre-determined time the following day, when the fabulous prizes will be awarded by the moderators. Presentations will be evaluated on the merits of the solution in relation to the business goals, an analysis of the client's data, the proposal presentation, and overall congeniality (participants are not required to compete in a swimsuit competition, but bonus points will be awarded for originality and formalwear). back to schedule |
Design Patterns in Enterprise UI Architectures |
Saturday, 4:00 - 4:45 Design for enterprise applications is often a challenging proposition. In consumer or corporate information sites the user usually has one goal or process they are trying to achieve; find information, get support, buy something, etc. In enterprise applications the usage patterns are a complex choreography of decision making and data entry. Also challenging is that these usage patterns of business processes are often convoluted and indeterminate. In the early days of enterprise application architecture the convoluted and indeterminate was handled by giving the user equal access to all of the business objects and letting them decide how to manage their processes. This data-centric view is acceptable for small applications but as applications progressed usability and clients indicated that they wanted business practices, usually in the form of best practices, reflected in the design. Keeping the flexibility as well as the structure proves to be on of the largest difficulties of designing enterprise applications. This presentation describes changes in the design patterns of an enterprise UI architecture from data-centric (e.g. values in a database), through information-centric (data in context), towards knowledge-centric (usable information). It steps from a historical view of a marketing application to possibilities for future architectural considerations. Through the transition the presentation offers an interpretation of how information architecture can be manipulated to produce denser navigational architectures and more flexible flows. The presentation is broken into three main sections: historical, current and future designs. For each of these sections an architecture is described, various points about its design highlighted, and the user flow through the space is discussed. Examples are taken from the Marketing domain to concretize the concepts discussed. The presentation will be given by a single presenter via PowerPoint slides, and will include time for a question and answer session. Diagrams and animations are used to visualize UI architectures and their transitions. Additional slides are devoted to providing background and context for the discussion. This presentation is directed at individuals either designing transactional UI architectures or interested in how information visualization may impact the structure of applications. The audience should take away an understanding of how UI architecture design patterns can evolve and what it might mean for information visualization to be integrated into the UI architecture of an application. back to schedule |
IA for the Personal InfoCloud |
Saturday, 4:00 - 4:45 People spend time and effort finding information. As IAs we tend to focus on the part of the equation of getting the person and information together. It is almost as if this was the end of the ride for the information. To further help the users of the information we also must look beyond this transaction and look at how the information is used. Users want to consume the information they find useful, or may find useful in the future. People want to keep information they have found easy to find again. Many want to have that information available on another device and/or application from the one they found that information. Essentially people have their own Personal InfoCloud containing information they wish to follow them. IA for the Personal InfoCloud presentation will identify a development and design framework to think about developing improved findability. The presentation will also on our helping the consumers of the found information to reuse the information as they desire and need. Once IAs have these toolsets it is easier to think about, plan for, and deliver information that is easy to use cross-platform. These tools also are ease communication when explaining concepts to customers and clients. back to schedule |
Interface Design for Database-Intensive Web Applications |
Saturday, 5:00 - 5:45 This presentation will describe challenges and solutions in designing interfaces for manipulating information in database-intensive applications, such as inventory and bid-management systems. The session will offer practical findings and insights from working with business clientele. The session will begin with some background on large inventory systems. These systems are characterized by:
We will then explore how large inventory systems present special difficulties with navigation (selecting items and operations), orientation (locating one's position within the application), and operations (acting upon selected items). Sample interfaces will be described that blend the features of browse and search processes to provide an approach to navigation, orientation, and group operations that meets the demands of database-intensive applications. The interface designs deviate from traditional approaches to navigation. For instance, displaying the children of parent nodes in side-navigation do not work with inventory systems: many nodes have hundreds of children links that will not fit on the page. Because selections are difficult to show in side navigation structures, orientation likewise is more difficult. Breadcrumbs work slightly better than side navigation with these systems to show orientation. Current use of breadcrumbs, however, is often limited to displaying a single dimension which is insufficient if the application allows navigation by different schemes (e.g. by price, product family, customer type) or to different item collections (e.g., sale items, most recently purchased items). Finally, for operations such as deletion, addition, changing attributes (e.g., price, availability), and reporting, the traditional approach of selecting items from a list and filling out a form does not work well if the items are structured collections, or if thousands of items need to be changed. The approach we took to inventory system design was to blend the features of a browse and search interface. Navigation in our system begins with browsing and ends with a search that is filtered to reflect the browsed-to category. For example, browsing can reflect tasks (work with clients, edit product categories, modify object properties, report profits) while a search filters the selection (sales for Calvin Klein sheets last week). Combining search and browsing in this manner makes it possible to support multiple organization schemes. Orientation within the site is provided highlighting navigation selections, displaying a breadcrumb for deep selections, and annotating the breadcrumb to reflect the search requests. Since multiple searches from the same navigational location is possible, session orientation in the form of history is also provided. Operations act upon items that have been selected by browsing and search. Operations can be applied to individual items, an entire search result set, members of a pre-defined collection, or a collection as a whole. The presentation will provide walk-through of this approach and conclude with the benefits that it provides to interface designers. back to schedule |
Information Objects |
Saturday, 5:00 - 5:45 While user-centered design has grown to dominate how information is presented and the interfaces available to users, it does not account other key drivers that should influence information and interaction design. While UCD speaks to an important aspect of sound design, it does not address and speak to many of the more basic aspects of human cognition that can be leveraged - most notably, our most fundamental assumptions about the real, three-dimensional world. This presentation is an attempt to apply some of the fundamental tenets of how we perceive and deal with objects in the real world to information architecture. In short, it asserts that by objectifying information, complex information can be more easily understood and manipulated. back to schedule |
The Process of Curriculum Development for Information Architecture |
Sunday, 8:30 - 10:15 This panel/presentation will review the pros and cons of the growing possibilities for an Information Architecture curriculum. With the growing interest in IA, many educators are seeking to build a set of IA curricula that is not only theoretically sound, but also current and practical for students. Various IA resources will be overviewed and compared with current IA syllabi from several university IA classes. Issues discussed over the breadth of these sources will seek to find optimal balances between:
The session is intended to encourage dialog with, and feedback from, the IA community regarding the state and direction of what is considered critical for a practical IA curriculum. |
A Foray across Boundaries: Applying IA to Business Strategy and Planning |
Sunday, 8:30 - 9:15 The context: Vanguard is a major provider of financial services. Its business units execute a three-to-five month planning process that identifies and prioritizes business capabilities to be developed over the next three years. Embedded in this planning process is an effort to understand client tasks and points of pain, Vanguard's business goals and strategies, and best practices in the marketplace. What we did: To extract and interpret the information contained in interviews with clients, business stakeholders, and users of competitive services, we used open and closed card sorts, mental models, process models and visual displays to help the business gain insight into two key strategic planning questions:
The presentation: This case study presents the process we used to analyze and present the data, and the tools and techniques that we found effective at each step in the process. We also describe our experience in crossing boundaries as we promoted understanding and decision-making among business stakeholders. The presentation will include our lessons learned (what worked and what didn't), which may be useful to IAs attempting to exert a similar influence in their organization. back to schedule |
The Information Architecture of Things - Part I: What If a Button Really Is a Button? |
Sunday, 8:30 - 9:15 What if a button really is a button? As technology marches on, things you can actually touch and hold are increasingly incorporating user interfaces and information systems. As these pocket-size interfaces become more complex, traditional industrial design firms must look to the core skills of information architects to develop products that are enjoyable and intuitive to use. How do our web experiences in IA translate to the design of devices? Which skills transfer, which don't, and which do we need to explore? How do our deliverables change when interaction expands beyond the mouse and keyboard to buttons, knobs, sliders and more with visual, audio and tactile feedback? As things increasingly incorporate information, what additional competencies and vocabulary do we need to develop the information architecture of things? back to schedule |
Testing Translations: Content, Images, and Perception |
Sunday, 8:30 - 9:15 Over one year, usability tests were conducted on print guides, websites, and multimedia content with native English, Spanish, and French or Creole speaking adults and students, most of lower income status. The tests were conducted throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. The goal was to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of the original content of the materials developed and printed in English. The test also examined the designs of the print jackets, websites, and promotional material (marketing materials) to determine how usable or effective the Spanish translations of the materials or media were for communicating the points to the native Spanish speaking audiences. To conduct the tests across such a broad set of print media, web, multimedia -- we adopted several test protocols to conduct the tests, resulting is several novel approaches (from our experience) to traditional testing techniques such as combining aspect of a survey with a focus group and in another test combined an open card sort to determine the attractiveness and value of the marketing material among English and non-native English speaking participants. Our presentation will cover the test strategies we developed to test such different sets of content across different media to provide IA members with an assessment of what we learned about translated content, color, images and colloquialisms, and what we think is an important discovery which is participant perception of the value of translated content, whether in print, on the web, or embedded in a slideshow or movie. back to schedule |
Change, Influence and IA at the BBC |
Sunday, 9:30 - 10:15 Can IA influence the business? It is something all IAs have aspired to in our roles as change managers as well as documenters of existing and future functionality on web sites; the ability to one day say, My IA changed the way the organisation works! At the BBC, we are beginning to see results of a product that is changing little by little; the way programme information is held, managed and used. For the last year, we have been developing PIPs (Programme Information Pages) a data store of programme information that is used to automatically create pages for every programme broadcast; the first network being Radio 3 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3). PIPs has unexpectedly been a catalyst for change; changing the way programming information is written by schedulers and content producers, to the way this information is stored and pushed out of broadcast systems. This presentation will talk about IA and change and how it happens in unexpected places. back to schedule |
The IA of Things, Part Two: Twenty Years of Lessons Learned |
Sunday, 9:30 - 10:15 It's the dawn of an age where interactive functionality and information is available and intertwined everywhere. The past two decades have been a pre-dawn period where products, software, environments, functionality, and interaction with information have gradually converged. What lessons have been learned within a single consulting design career during this period, pursuing from the beginning, convergence in these areas? What are some examples of these design disciplines overlapping in past projects? How do the constraints of limited physical affordances computing power, and small displays affect the user experience of devices, and what are some strategies for designing them to be more successful? How can a rewarding balance between efficiency, friendliness, flexibility, and inevitably expandability, be achieved when designing in these areas? What design strategies can help devices, their software, information architectures, and network infrastructures leverage each other for greater rewards? back to schedule |
Practical Global IA |
Sunday, 9:30 - 10:15 This panel will discuss strategic and tactical information architecture issues around global websites: What are some of the different ways a global site can be structured? How do you structure a good gateway? How should you decide on your locales? Should locales be defined on basis of geography, language or culture? Should taxonomies be developed centrally or locally? What are challenges with translating taxonomies? We will include examples of how companies have addressed these questions, and discuss with the audience. back to schedule |
Rich Internet Applications (PANEL) |
Sunday, 10:45 - 12:30 RIAs, as stateless GUIs that are distributed and utilize a (live) network connection to provide the perception of real-time activity, can often provide better IA solutions than traditional web-based applications and also provide methods for improving find-ability and reducing user frustration. The challenges we will investigate are how to make sure these RIAs are usable and that users can find what they want, the product has a positive impact on the business' bottom line, it's sustainable, it's viable, etc. Through various examples and case studies we will address how can we as IAs can tap the power of RIAs, but also only use RIAs when it's appropriate and prevent the spread of RIAs for RIAs sake? back to schedule |
Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo! Case Study |
Sunday, 10:45 - 11:30 This presentation will discuss the realization of the need for a pattern and standards library at Yahoo!, the process for defining the requirements of a repository and how the library would be implemented and stored, the building of the CMS tool and the process for defining the lifecycle of a pattern. We will also discuss the organizational challenges, the process for evangelization, for authorship and consensus for use in the lifecycle of the patterns themselves. back to schedule |
IA and the Small Screen |
Sunday, 10:45 - 11:30 More people are using the Web as a primary source of information and more people are using small mobile devices as either their preferred or secondary information platform. One can anticipate that most of these users also access the Web from standard sized devices, wired or wireless. Users expect full access to the Web on the small device, expect a full range of functionality on those pages, and expect the freedom to move from one device to another relatively seamlessly. In this session we will examine the factors relevant to Information Architects whose users may be using small screens. In the first part of this session we will examine the growing body of research that may provide guidelines for the design and presentation of large amounts of information on small screens. The goal is to synthesize the results of current research into best-practices. In the second part of this session we will examine factors that affect the user experience when they access Web pages that have been previously used on large screen devices, such as desktops or laptops, on small screen devices. These include factors related to changes in the cognitive model of the user and of changes in the navigational structure of the data. Interface designers and information architects of these systems must be aware of the collateral effects that design decisions made in the creation of large web pages may have on the performance of users when using small devices. Web pages that can be expected to be used on a variety of devices should be designed to minimize transformational overhead for the user. back to schedule |
Select Country: The Art of the Global Gateway |
Sunday, 10:45 - 11:30 Much overlooked in Web design is the navigation system that directs users to their localized Web sites, known as the global gateway. A global gateway is much more than a select country pull-down menu on the home page. The most successful global Web sites rely on a mix of technologies and techniques to provide an effortless navigation experience for Web users, regardless of their language or country. This session provides a four-step global gateway strategy that will seamlessly deliver Web users to their appropriate language or locale. We'll profile the gateways of such Web sites as Google, FedEx, IBM, Ikea and Starbucks. This session also presents a number of global navigation trends based on studying the evolution of the global gateway across hundreds of Web sites over the past four years. back to schedule |
Deconstructing Design - How did we get from there to here? |
Sunday, 11:45 - 12:30 There is a creative step that occurs between research activities and a draft design. During this step we combine what we have learned during research with our professional experience to create a new design (such as an information architecture or a page layout). For newer designers, this step is a mystery - a magical process in which research goes in and a design emerges. In attempting to break it down to make the process more approachable, it sometimes appears that particular activities (for example a card sort) lead directly to design outputs (an information architecture). In practice, this is not the case - a wide range of activities provide input for each element of the design. In this presentation, I will show a number of completed site designs that I have been involved in during the past year. For each, I will 'deconstruct' each design - pull it apart to show how various inputs (such as research, activities, politics, guidelines, previous experiences) informed the design. The presentation will highlight that each design element is informed by more than one input; and that each input contributes to more than one part of the design. It will also show how important it is to undertake a range of research activities and not rely on just one or two inputs. back to schedule |
Information architecture for mobile devices and the mobile internet |
Sunday, 11:45 - 12:30 Mobile internet access is exploding, both in numbers of users and uses, but also in terms of range of devices and technologies. This is bringing a unique set of new challenges to information architects, that force us away from our familiar PC-centric ways of thinking. This presentation will be a general introduction to the different issues an IA is likely to encounter working with online content and services for mobile devices. It will provide practical knowledge and ideas, as well as review commonly encountered technical issues and IA strategies for overcoming them. The areas covered will be:
No prior knowledge or experience of working on mobile device IA will be required. Examples and case studies based on Sony Ericsson projects will be used throughout. back to schedule |
Creating the Experience: When Does Empowerment Become Oppression |
Sunday, 11:45 - 12:30 Information Architects have always struggled with the issue of how much control to give to users of a particular system. Systems with more flexibility increase the burden of management placed on the user, while those with more rules may not offer enough flexibility. This problem has historically been present in the design of content management systems. During the early days of the web, content management systems did not exist and web masters were responsible for administering web content. When content management systems were first introduced, they were based on templates with specific locations for specific content types. Templated systems, however, did not always provide enough flexibility to meet the evolving needs of an organization. Recently more modular approaches that offer more flexibility have been developed. These systems blur the line between designer and content administrator by enabling the administrator to define the interface. Interestingly, a recent trend in consumer products (e.g. the IPod, Delicious Library) allow users to create their own libraries and collections of content has emerged. With these products as with content management systems, the ability to define the experience comes with the cost of managing it. This session will explore the issue of flexibility in system design and the burden of content management. It will address questions surrounding content management systems such as: How does a designer determine how much flexibility or control to build in to a system? How can a system be designed to mitigate the risk of a user breaking it? Where is the line between empowering the user to create a new experience and hindering him/her from breaking the design? Additionally, it will look at issues when management of content becomes overwhelming and whether the threshold for managing information is different among various groups or situations? back to schedule |
Leading a team of IAs: The Manager's Perspective (PANEL) |
Sunday, 2:00 - 3:45 This panel of speakers has more than 20 years of combined experience in managing groups of information architects. In this discussion, they'll cover topics of interest to both new and experienced IAs, including: - Getting Hired: resumes, portfolios, and interviewing skills - Learning on the Job: training and skill development - Performance Management: annual reviews and conflict resolution - Next Steps: career growth opportunities back to schedule |
Developing a Faceted Classification |
Sunday, 2:00 - 2:45 This presentation outlines how a faceted classification was developed in conjunction with a major site redesign for a large chemical company serving a global audience. After performing detailed content analysis (bottom-up) and user research (top down), a set of facets motivated by the content, user needs, and business context was produced for a web site. Sources used to produce the terminology for each facet, as well as user testing of the terminology and the results will be presented. Issues relating to translation of the classification system into 5 different languages will be discussed. Methodology and lessons learned will be presented in the context of this particular site redesign. At the conclusion of the presentation, the audience will have an understanding of the breadth, depth and scope of a project where a faceted classification and metadata schema development are required. The methodology, which includes understanding the business context, content analysis, extensive user research and vocabulary development, will be reviewed. There will be time allowed at the conclusion of the presentation for Q&A. back to schedule |
The Practice of Enterprise IA: 10 Giant Mistakes I Made This Year |
Sunday, 2:00 - 2:45 Lou Rosenfeld has described the brave new world of Enterprise Information Architecture in the second edition of the Polar Bear book. It's a place in the business world where you can do IA as your own business unit. Establishing yourself requires an entrepreneurial spirit, an understanding of your company's business needs, and more detente than Nixon brought to China. After the first year of EIA, we've made a lot of mistakes. Fortunately, we fail forward. Check out the top ten mistakes, and hear the solutions so that you profit from our pain. The Ten Giant Mistakes (with subtitles):
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Everyday life through the eyes of the IA |
Sunday, 2:00 - 2:45 IA has made itself known in the world of monitors, right now; it has begun to be realized in the bigger scope. One of the notions of IA practices that I guess it was not just me who discovered along the practices is to make the information known to user, make things speak themselves. By discovering this, wearing IA glasses will let us understand the world in other perspectives, and vice versa, understand IA in other perspectives as well. As an IA, one might believe that everything has its own message. For example, how a chair tells us it is a chair, how a movie tell us it is interesting, how we know where the toilet is in an unfamiliar building. In this session, we will learn to see how things tell their own information and how to do so. The presentation will provide various examples, such as movies, lyrics, everyday things, documents, interfaces, and so on. The initial idea of this session came from the book “The Psychology of Everyday Things” and “Emotional Design” both by Donald A. Norman. back to schedule |
One Size Does Not Fit All: a Story of Faceted Browse at Yahoo! |
Sunday, 3:00 - 3:45 This presentation will explore how a user's various information seeking needs can impact a faceted browse system's design. Yahoo! had several new faceted browse needs in the past year. For the benefit of users, designers, the Yahoo! network, and the bottom line, a small group worked together in search of a consistent solution. Our conclusion was not one inflexible faceted browse system, but a few different variations based on the type of task the user would likely be performing. Some examples of these tasks are known-item seeking (that Italian restaurant that started with an A), exploratory search (I'm looking for a new digital camera; it must be less than $200 and can be Canon or Sony) or exclusionary search (I'm looking for a flight to Seattle; I won't fly Alaska and I won't leave earlier than 8am). We will begin the presentation with a brief introduction to faceted browsing, and then draw from our experiences with Local Search, Travel, Shopping, Autos and Hot Jobs to share a few different approaches. The audience will come away from the presentation with new ways to think about faceted browsing. back to schedule |
Enterprise Information Architecture Methodology |
Sunday, 3:00 - 3:45 Many large enterprises' websites and intranets are really a disjointed conglomeration of dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller sites, all controlled by different business units. The result? Users can't find the information they need, and managers are stuck with an expensive, underperforming web presence. The good news: enterprise environments may generate the bulk of new information architect positions for decades to come. The bad news: as a field, we are woefully unprepared to tackle enterprise information architecture (EIA) challenges. The tools and techniques that make up the field's traditional methodological canon may not scale--or work at all--in large, distributed, highly political environments. If "textbook" information architecture methodology won't cut it, then we need to invent new methods or find new fields to borrow from. Lou Rosenfeld will briefly describe the unique challenges that enterprises place on information architects, and will describe some new methods that can help information architects gather data to support their design decisions in enterprise environments. Specifically, Lou will briefly cover:
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Information Architecture and Alzheimer's Disease: Using IA to Improve the Lives of Those with Impaired Cognition |
Sunday, 3:00 - 3:45 This presentation will demonstrate the importance of Information Architecture principles to the design of information systems for those suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and other similar forms of dementia. By offering a summary of empirical research both in cognitive psychology and in nursing and caregiving literature, we hope to show that the potential value of developing a set of IA standards and practices that will extend the access of AD patients to information systems and resources. The field of library and information science has always been committed to fostering both information and computer literacy in elderly persons. As our population ages, however, diseases such as Alzheimer's are now afflicting those who have used computer systems and information networks for a considerable time, and have acquired both significant competence with information systems, and significant dependence on these skills. In these cases, decades of experience, sophisticated motor skills and a rapid intuitive grasp of new systems are being undermined by cognitive impairments such as an inability to recall names, reduced attention span and compromised spelling and categorization skills. back to schedule |
Traversing the Corporate Web: IA and Taxonomy at IBM (PANEL) |
Sunday, 4:15 - 6:00 Knowledge-driven corporate Web sites rely on both a consistent and intuitive design as well as a strong Information Architecture to increase findability. IBM's intranet and internet teams have evolved into groups of expert practitioners, including information managers, taxonomists, information architects and directory specialists who work together to help build IBM's information discovery experience. In this panel, core members of IBM's intranet and internet teams will discuss the accomplishments as well as the challenges associated taxonomy integration strategies and the collaborative development of corporate data standards to create consistent findability across IBM. back to schedule |
STUX - Integrating IA deliverables in a web application development methodology |
Sunday, 4:15 - 5:00 EzGov (www.ezgov.com) uses the Rational Unified Process (RUP) to design and implement transactional web applications for e-government clients. But RUP was not developed for front-end heavy projects and Rational's fix, the User Experience (UX) model, was not developed to model the non-technical aspects of the user experience. So EzGov's UX department added non-technical roles and deliverables:
We assigned these roles and deliverables to the RUP phases and described their relationships. The result is STUX: a deliverables diagram and deliverables descriptions. This presentation shows how EzGov integrated the roles and deliverables into the existing methodology and will show the impact it has had on the way we design our web-based applications. back to schedule |
The Role of Metaphor in Interaction Design |
Sunday, 4:15 - 5:00 The role of metaphor in interaction design has oft been maligned and usually misunderstood. Alan Cooper has called metaphor not only unhelpful, but harmful in design, and it's typically thought of as being limiting, scaling poorly, and leading to faulty thinking about how products work. However, properly used, metaphor can be a powerful tool for designers, in both the process of designing and within the products themselves. Metaphor can help redefine design problems and help solve them. They can be used as a research tool, to understand new subject areas, or as means to generate new ideas about familiar subjects. They can help sell a product, both to internal stakeholders and teammates as well as to consumers. Metaphors can provide cues to users how to understand products: to orient and personify. It is not hyperbole to suggest that without metaphor, design today would be severely limited, especially in the digital realm. After all, no one addresses their computer without some metaphoric mediation; we do not speak machine language. Metaphor provides us with the means to understand our complex digital devices. In this presentation of my master's thesis research, I will be exploring how designers can use metaphor in their work: first in the process of design and secondly within interactive products. I'll give a brief overview of metaphor: some historical and current views, then examine some of the criticism leveled at metaphor in design. I'll finish by looking at some common metaphors in digital design and suggest some future directions for metaphor. back to schedule |
Designing the Enterprise Experience: How IA Advances UCD in Complex Environments |
Sunday, 5:15 - 6:00 This talk describes how IA fits into and advances a UCD process, helping designers and stakeholders arrive at useful, usable enterprise software. The purpose is to introduce enterprise-level problems while showcasing how IA can help UCD teams craft a user experience. This talk is open to all IA and UCD professionals, but especially those working in contexts featuring system-wide integration, dense functionality, and specialized user types. Specific IA artifacts like object models, taskflows, and wireframes will be highlighted. These artifacts can foster dialogue with teams, guiding them towards understanding a problem and discovering optimal solutions. Outside this talk's scope are consumer websites (i.e., stocks, photos, mail) and usability testing methods. Instead, the focus is on design problems intrinsic to e-business software (i.e., fun acronyms like CRM, ERP, IDE, etc.). Attendees should walk away with a richer insight into the kinds of issues inherent to enterprise systems, along with an understanding of how IA can provide focus and clarity to an iterative UCD process. back to schedule |
Understanding Interaction Design |
Sunday, 5:15 - 6:00 What we do as Information Architects is always part of a greater wholistic unit. Call it Digital Design, User Experience Design, whatever, but the Information Architect (not in human, but in role) is a piece that helps to deliver a much stronger total solution. Information Architecture is also most heavily influenced by that segment of the digital design community that uses methods and processes under the umbrella term of User Centered Design. Yes, there are variants, but the main meaning for our purposes is the consideration of the end-user as the primary affinity for design decisions over those of even business in the end will actually help drive business advancement and general innovation. My presentation will first outline the various pieces that make up User Experience Design--those that impact the design and those that form the design. Then once this foundation is in place it will show how these have been organized by others and using these existing visualizations show how IA relates to and requires the other formative areas of User Experience Design, mainly Interaction Design and Presentation Design (Info Design and Graphic Design). The last part of this presentation will focus on the direct relationship between Information Architecture and Interaction Design, or more precisely the design of structure and definition and the design of behavior. These two areas of User Experience are ambiguous to many however, there are clear ways we can take these two formative areas and have them help each other, especially if we think how those that focused on one area have ways of modeling and thinking than those in the other can share. My focus will be on how Interaction Design can offer perspectives that can help in problem sets most usually placed in the hands of information architects: search engines, result set interactions, and forms. The Interaction Designer's focus at the widget/component level of understanding behavior is a great asset to the Information Architect. back to schedule |
Working with Content Management Systems: Process, Architecture and Design (PANEL) |
Monday, 8:30 - 10:15 Open source content management software desperately needs some work. It's currently obtuse and complex, packed with gratuitous features at the expense of usability and user experience. But it doesn't have to be that way. Much of the software available was written by geeks for geeks; this whole category needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Join Jeffrey Veen for a panel discussion on how to improve open source content management software. After some recent research at OpenSourceCMS.com and drawing on his knowledge of content management systems, Jeffrey wrote seven guidelines for improving open source CMS. These guidelines include:
After posting these recommendations online, Jeffrey received hundreds of comments from designers and users across the globe either agreeing with his assessment or defending their work. Many of his readers sympathized with his frustrations; some even said they were abandoning any attempt to use open source programs and were instead writing their own programs. Professionals who both write and use content management systems should join this discussion on how to make across-the-board improvements to open source CMS so that future versions reflect the needs of both creators and users. back to schedule |
Information Visualization: the Information Architecture Connection |
Monday, 8:30 - 9:15 Leading edge information visualization tools have been introduced on the Web for information retrieval, and the question emerges as to their pragmatic application to the field of information architecture. Visualization systems are theoretically rooted in the efficiency of pre-attentive visual processing, and in practice offer overviews of retrieved Web search output as well as item-level perspectives of digital entities. The visualized structure of information lends itself well to the browsing and navigation principles of Web site design, and the application of visualization to Semantic Web initiatives is promising. To address the practical issues surrounding the relationship between information visualization and information architecture, this presentation examines: 1) research into user interaction with visualization systems which assesses their viability as usable interfaces for Web information architecture; 2) the most prevalent information visualization models among current operational systems; and 3) the information visualization tools which can be used to improve Web site design. The findings generated by research and practice will be explicated to present an agenda to advance the incorporation of information visualization tools in the information architecture domain. back to schedule |
Inspire Designers, Persuade Stakeholders: The Twin Goals of Customer Research |
Monday, 8:30 - 9:15 The goal of customer research is to create a vivid picture of customers and their goals/mental models for effective design. But customer research also offers an opportunity to persuade skeptical business stakeholders that a redesign is needed, the design direction is correct, or that the design can positively impact business metrics. In this talk, I will describe how customer research can also persuade business stakeholders about the importance of design. The need for user experience (UX) to be more business friendly is a hot topic, but there are few concrete proposals about ways to achieve this. I will describe how we have addressed this issue in our own work through four case studies. For each, I will describe the research challenge, the organizational challenge, and the research plan we crafted to address both issues.
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Persuasive Taxonomies that Promote Enterprise Goals |
Monday, 8:30 - 9:15 Persuasive taxonomy was first introduced at the 2004 IA Summit in Austin by Katherine Bertolucci, who developed the technique independently of 2005 keynote speaker B.J. Fogg. In this program, Katherine will expand on her ideas by exploring techniques that she uses to promote enterprise goals through the use of persuasive methods. She will also examine some of the similarities in approach that she shares with Dr. Fogg. Drawing upon her 26 years experience in the development of perceptive organizational structures, Katherine will first look at perspective taxonomy, a technique that reflects the information seeking behavior of the client. Customization is achieved through vocabulary, category placement and structural methods. In the program, Katherine shows how separate groups within the same profession seek information differently. She gives specific ideas for customizing information structures from the perspective of the client. Persuasive taxonomy is a more advanced technique. Here, the same methods of vocabulary, category placement and structure are employed to promote enterprise goals. Synonym selection and alphabetical order are among the methods that can be manipulated to encourage positive results in the information seeking experience. Persuasive techniques are transferable to any organizational situation where a specific outcome is desired, a concept well articulated by Dr. Fogg in his book Persuasive Computing. back to schedule |
New perspectives on interaction: What information architecture can learn from research on visual mathematical cognitive tools |
Monday, 9:30 - 10:15 What does information architecture have in common with mathematics? They both require people to work with large, complex, abstract structures. A well-designed interactive system can dramatically simplify the task of understanding, exploring, and making sense of these structures. For example, the relationship between an icosahedron and a truncated dodecahedron is easier to understand with an interactive visualization tool than with traditional algebraic notation (Morey et. al., 2001). Similarly, an effective information architecture substantially reduces the challenge of searching a large document space. Our research group has developed a suite of tools for interacting with visual mathematical representations (VMRs). These tools provide rich, interactive environments that allow learners to explore and investigate complex mathematical concepts. The key to these tools is the use of interaction techniques to support the cognitive tasks of the learner. Research with these tools has led to a framework that characterizes these interaction techniques according to their common characteristics, goals, and benefits (Sedig & Sumner, in press). Although these tools are designed to support thinking and reasoning about mathematics, the individual interaction techniques have application to any system in which people must navigate, search, explore and make sense of large, complex, abstract structures. This presentation will show that interaction techniques developed for visual mathematical cognitive tools can be applied to information architecture problems. The suite of tools developed by our research group will be used to demonstrate various interaction techniques and how they support thinking and reasoning about mathematical structures. These techniques will then be re-examined in terms of information architecture problems. Because these are visual tools, specific attention will be given to interaction with visual representations of information structures. The goal of this presentation is to raise questions about interaction in information architecture, and show that new perspectives on interaction are essential to the advancement of the field. Information architecture has traditionally positioned itself as distinct from disciplines in which interaction is a foundational concept, such as interaction design, human-computer interaction, and information visualization (Rosenfeld & Morville, 2002). Interaction is an important concept in information architecture, but it is not a foundational one. However, the evolution of information architecture theory and practice will require a greater emphasis on interaction and more diverse interaction techniques. This presentation seeks to further this evolution by demonstrating how research on visual, interactive, mathematical learning tools can be applied to information architecture problems.
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Experience Cards |
Monday, 9:30 - 10:15 This presentation will reveal the prototype Experience card deck based on the needs of experience design. This is an introduction to design elements as within a model of gaming, a selection of elements, and as an interactive system in itself. The name of the deck is Experience. This deck and the cards within it are modeled after the design scenarios that the IA community faces every day. The deck is aimed at the decision making process. This is a tool for making quick design decisions, leveraging the ability to use chance as a design element and perhaps circumventing problems of internal politics. Using the Experience cards is similar to flipping a multi-faceted coin, a tool for use in situations where design is stalled or has become indecisive. The deck is for anyone involved in experience design, but will hopefully involve more fringe groups and external parties such as development teams and business professionals. The aim is not to supply the field with another model of design, but to create an enlightening and joyful situation from which well rounded designs can be made reality. The presentation will explain the need for such a model of design and the various examples that are out there of using cards as a model for representing something else. Following this, we will break down the Experience card deck into it's suites and levels, explaining the relative meanings of different cards when designing a system. When the deck has been explained I intend to discover the potential of the deck with the audience. In a quick game using the cards, we will discover a design for a hypothetical system which meets the needs of our experience designers. The validity of the cards will have to be seen to be proven, after all it is all about the Experience. back to schedule |
Making the Most of Controlled Vocabularies in Search Interfaces |
Monday, 9:30 - 10:15 If you have invested the time and effort to index a large set of content, it is critical to leverage this metadata in your search interface in ways adapted to your users' needs. End users often do not know what to put into the search box. In many cases they are not aware of the powerful indexing and facetted metadata included in content-rich sites. For the past several years Chris Farnum, an Information Architect at ProQuest, has been exploring solutions to this problem through user research and interface design. One strategy is to offer opportunities to let users explore controlled vocabularies while constructing or refining a search. Another strategy is to create a system for suggesting index terms and narrowing searches based on the original keyword queries entered by users. Chris will discuss these techniques and others for making controlled vocabularies, indexing, and metadata accessible to searchers. He will talk about the strengths and goals of each approach and will show examples from his work at ProQuest and also from other search engines. back to schedule |
Talking the Talk: Helping IAs Speak the Language of Business (PANEL) |
Monday, 10:45 - 12:30 Information architects have significant strategic insights to offer, but often find that we're not listened to by business decision makers. Traditionally, our approach to this challenge has been a call to understand business strategy . However, too often even strategy-savvy IAs fall short of changing business direction. And too often, IAs fall short because they think IA is the point. It's not--the point is to make customers happy, increase revenues, or improve shareholder value. It's not enough to understand strategy--to increase our influence, IAs have to speak the language of business. Speaking the language of business means talking about what's important to business success instead of what's important to IA practice. To make a breakthrough with business leaders, we need to leave the details of IA in the background and put business goals first. Processes and methods are important, but only in how they relate to achieving those goals. Our credibility increases when we focus our conversations on business successes like profits or customer loyalty instead of jumping to early solutions with wireframes, site maps, or taxonomies. This panel will focus on the language of business, and how IAs can talk with business leaders to have greater impact and influence with their clients or organizations. Key concepts for connecting with business decision makers will be outlined, and the panelists will discuss examples of both business understanding and misunderstanding. Panelists will share lessons learned from their extensive experience communicating with business in a wide variety of situations--from creating next generation mobile devices to creating management innovations, in organizations ranging from startups to the Fortune 500. back to schedule |
Beyond the Page |
Monday, 10:45 - 11:30 Since the beginning of the web, the page--an HTML document with links and content--has been the predominant metaphor for organizing and viewing information online. Not only is it an essential part of users' vocabulary, the page is deeply ingrained in IA literature, tools and deliverables. But the importance of the page is being eroded on several fronts:
This session will look at why the page model has endured and explore tools and techniques IAs can use to architect beyond the page. Those techniques include:
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Machines of loving grace: User experience for ubiquitous-computing environments |
Monday, 10:45 - 11:30 Ubiquitous computing, ubicomp, is the introduction of information-processing devices into the background of people's lives. Unprecedented networking and computational power and miniaturization define a ubicomp future that presents challenges which go beyond the expertise of traditional design disciplines. These devices will be more flexible than those created by traditional industrial designers, yet more narrowly task-oriented than general-purpose computers and software. Thus, just as the definition of experience design starts to stabilize, ubicomp poses new questions about information presentation and organization.
This presentation will cover issues specifically addressing the ways that information architecture is a critical component of ubicomp user experience. back to schedule |
Applying IA to community: a case study on the next-generation Information Commons |
Monday, 10:45 - 11:30 Human services professionals and others in the public sector typically struggle with disparate sources of information that lack organization, accessibility, and a guarantee that they're reliable. As a result, genuinely empowering information is often out of their reach, compromising their ability to recommend the best treatment options or other community services. To solve these problems, MAYA Design has created an information architecture (IA) for a next-generation, digital Information Commons that provides unprecedented, easy access to factual data. This IA application leverages a breakthrough, peer-to-peer database technology to allow users to create, fuse, and retrieve information, regardless of its original location. The IA is infinitely scaleable and provides a seamless flow of information that goes far beyond the capabilities of the Internet. By joining the Information Commons, public- and private-sector agencies can easily share, and even rate, crucial information essential to the delivery of their services. In partnership with The United Way and Western Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, MAYA has implemented this breakthrough system as part of a pilot project with the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. As part of its proposed presentation for the IA Summit 2005, MAYA will present an overview of its successful new IA application in the context of the next-generation Information Commons. It will also present a case study of how the Department of Human Services is using the system, with real-world examples of how it is helping to improve people's lives within the community. The ramifications of MAYA's development within the general IA space will also be discussed. In line with the IA Summit's theme for 2005, Crossing Boundaries, the presentation will offer a cross-disciplinary perspective on this IA implementation, including content management, design, enterprise technology, Web and infrastructure challenges and solutions. back to schedule |
Why Amazon Is Not Enough |
Monday, 11:45 - 12:30 Why Amazon Is Not Enough Towards the future of eCommerce and the web Why Amazon Is Not Enough, is intended to make a bold statement about the near- and medium-term future of eCommerce and the web. I intend to inspire the IA Summit community to make real the future that many of us have been envisioning:
Putting all the pieces together will enable not only much more personalized and meaningful interactions between users and websites (and users and users) for the buying and selling of product, but create new affordances and business models off this platform. Two ideas in this realm:
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Design and Communication: Other ways of looking at IA. (Govella) (Velasco) |
Monday, 11:45 -12:30 As designers, we strive to create experiences that improve people’s lives. Because our tools usually focus on users, content, and delivery -- the most tangible parts of any interaction -- it’s easy to forget design communicates a message. Communication Theory and Critical Theory, as fields of study, focus on the communication of messages. Their methodologies provide rich sources for new tools and strategies that can help us deliver better user experiences. During this session we will apply these fields of study to Experience Design, Information Architecture, and Interaction Design. With real world examples, we’ll illustrate how concepts like the communication model and behavior coordination apply to common design challenges, and how they can help us deliver successful experiences for both our users and our clients. Following the presentation, we look forward to opening the conversation to solicit responses from our colleagues in the audience. We hope the open discussion will allow everyone to incorporate their own experience and reflections on the subject.back to schedule |
The growing pains of a controlled vocabulary: an analysis of what happens when you let your users contribute to your CVs |
Monday, 11:45 - 12:30 Is there a middle-ground between the quick but limited wins of social classification and the artificiality and expense of classification systems built by non-users? This presentation is based on a BBC project designed to absorb user language into centrally built and managed CVs. By analysing the data generated by this project we will examine how viable this middle ground is and where the pitfalls lie. But what really happens when you encourage the users to contribute to your CVs? Karen will present the analysis of nine months of data generated by 200 BBC journalists using a content management system to classify their content. A team of information architects constructed the original faceted CVs used for classification and then adapted them in response to a continuous flow of requests from the journalists. The data analysed includes over 6000 requests for additions and changes to the CVs, queries received from the journalists and the results of monitoring the quality of their tagging. back to schedule |
Birds of a Feather (BOF) Sessions |
Saturday and Sunday afternoons Birds of a Feather sessions are opportunities for attendees interested in different areas or ideas to "flock together" for less formal discussions. They allow those with similar interests to network, exchange ideas, and learn from colleagues. Each BoF session has a different theme and will be coordinated by one or more individuals with interests and expertise in the area. The four BoF sessions are: Internationalization : For anyone interested in internationalization and globalization, this will offer the opportunity to hear new ideas, techniques, and share experiences. (Saturday, 4:00 - 4:45) Faceted browsing: Learn about how facets are used to create user-centered browsing and searching systems. Attendees will have the opportunity to share designs and discuss development challenges. (Saturday, 5:00 - 5:45) Business and design: This BoF session will focus on the business side of design, be it managing a group of information architects, communicating business value to organizations, or going into business as a consultant. (Sunday, 4:15 - 5:00) Content management: Attendees interested the role of content management in information architecture will have a chance to discuss techniques, technologies, and trends. (Sunday, 5:15 - 6:00) back to schedule |
Closing Keynote |
Monday, 2:00 - 2:45 |
updated: 03/16/05