Co-author: Derik Nieman
February 11, 2012 was the inaugural World Information Architecture Day (WIAD), a series of conferences in 14 cities across the world celebrating 14 years of IA.
Source: http://worldiaday.org/
The Johannesburg conference featured Swedish IA expert, Andrea Resmini as keynote speaker, who provided his unique perspective on the importance of IA in the digital landscape. Rian van der Merwe, Rey Uys and William Saunders were also in the line up.
Resmini talked about how IA has become part of everyday life and, for the UX designer, it’s all about “ensuring that all channels online and off are integrated.” He noted that experiences bridge multiple connected media, devices and environments into seamless responsive interactions. Resmini said, “IA can be compared to chess. It’s not the board and pieces that define the game, but the rules."
Quirk Jozi Head of Optimise, Lise Smith, commented on the importance of sharing insights about Information Architecture and the value of User Experience (UX) on the day. She noted that, “To be an amazing UX designer you must know the capabilities and limits of technology and interact with it.”
Smith added, “Those who attended the world first event should have gained tremendous insight and knowledge about the communities and walked away inspired and reminded of what a broad field we work in.”
Here are some of the highlights of the day:
An overarching definition of IA was established - IA is data storage and data retrieval which results in findability through browsing and search.
The field of IA is still very young in South Africa but is fast developing into what can be seen as one of the most important aspects of any digital process and outcome. IA is everywhere and in everything that we do, both online and off. For example, sorting folders on your computer, music on iTunes and, of course, the search functionality of Google all rely heavily on well structured IA. IA and UX can be termed the “design behind the design”. How we organise data is what creates meaning to one’s strategy but most importantly to the user’s experience.
IA is the bedrock of UX while UX itself is a fundamental foundation of design, and an appreciation of this is making design become more alive. It is this philosophy that highlights the importance of incorporating all teams at the start of any project to ensure the best possible, innovative idea is conceived.
As we see it today, technology is not benefiting from the full capabilities of UX in terms of the diverse range of devices available. Users and the experiences they currently navigate through appear to meet their expectations but this will change as users start to master their devices and expect more. The discipline of IA and UX are more critical as we move towards a more touch and gesture based environment, one that is synchronised and meets real life expectations.
These are just some of the snippets from the the Jozi edition of World IA Day. The Twitter hashtag #wiad gives a better idea of the conversations that took place across the globe
Next on the calendar is the UX Masterclass event taking place on 30 March. For all the UX enthusiasts, this is one not to be missed. For more information, you can visit the UX Masterclass website.
Source: http://worldiaday.org/
Did you attend one of the conferences? What was the highlight for you?
