Information Architecture - Theory & Practice
| Cost: | NZ$750 excluding GST. |
|---|---|
| When: | TBD |
| Where: | TBD |
| RSVP: | Simply email Michelle if you have any questions. |
Description
This full day workshop will provide you with a thorough overview and understanding of information architecture theory & practice. It will cover a wide range of IA issues, including an understanding of how it fits into a project, fundamental skills & knowledge required for IA work and current IA issues. It will be theoretical and practical and allow you to immediately apply ideas to your projects.
This workshop will cover:
- What information architecture is and how it relates to other user experience disciplines
- Core IA techniques - analysing content, conducting user research, card sorting and more
- Core IA theories - classification, categorisation, metadata & labelling
- IA patterns - structures for different types of sites
- Designing navigation & page layouts
- Putting it together in an IA project
- Current issues in IA
The workshop will be at the level of an ‘advanced intro’, covering the basics and also allowing exploration of key challenges and issues. The format is a combination of short lectures, group discussion and hands-on activities. Extensive notes and resources will be provided for further personal exploration.
Learning objectives
After the workshop, the participants will have:
- An understanding of fundamental IA concepts and issues
- An understanding of processes and techniques often used in an IA project
- Hands-on experience with key techniques
- Shared skills with other practitioners
Who should attend?
Practitioners new to IA, those with some IA experience but no formal knowledge of fundamental IA principles, and those working in related roles who need to know about IA, specifically designers of information-rich systems such as websites and intranets, usability specialists and business analysts for information-rich environments.
It would be most beneficial if participants have previously worked on a complex website or intranet (or other information-rich environments).
RSVP
Simply email Michelle if you'd like to attend.
About the presenter - Donna (Maurer) Spencer
Donna (Maurer) Spencer is a freelance information architect and interaction designer. That’s a fancy way of saying she plans how to present the things you see on your computer screen, so that they’re easy to understand, engaging and compelling. Things like the navigation, forms, categories and words on intranets, websites, web applications and business systems.
Most of the projects Donna works on are large, messy monsters, like government websites and intranets, internal business applications and web applications. But she still gets to work on something small and funky too. So she’s intimately aware of the challenges of both long-term, ongoing projects and short-burst, agile programming type engagements. She’s also an old hand at sketching screens, drawing wireframes and building prototypes.
But whatever sort of job Donna’s working on, there’s one common requirement. She has to comprehensively understand the needs of the user. Only then can she make the system as usable as possible. Luckily, she’s also quite fond of people, so doing user research and running usability tests is a pleasure, not a pain.
Not surprisingly, given Donna’s obsession with usability and fondness of people, she’s also quite the teacher. She’s a very experienced speaker and regularly holds workshops and speaks at local and international conferences, on the topics of information architecture, interaction design, the web, writing and more. She even runs a user experience conference (UX Australia).
Donna’s been doing this since 2002. She’s worked on the boards of the Information Architecture Institute (international) and Web Industry Professionals Association (WIPA). She’s also written a book on card sorting. Read her full resume...
What to wear
For your enjoyment all our workshops are designed to be as interactive and relaxed as possible, so please wear comfortable clothing. We are not always able to completely control air conditioning and room temperature, so wearing layers will be handy in case you are too hot or too cold.
Course cancellation
- A course may be cancelled or postponed by Optimal Usability either due to exceptional circumstances beyond our control (e.g. presenter illness) or should the minimum number of participants not be reached.
- It is recommended that if you are travelling from outside the city that refundable travel tickets and accommodation are booked. We cannot accept liability for non-refundable travel and accommodation in the case of cancellation or postponement.
- If a course is cancelled or postponed you will be advised and, on your instruction, the fee will either be refunded or transferred to an alternative workshop.
Participant withdrawals
- While you may send a substitution at any stage at no extra charge, we do ask that you notify of us of this within 48 hours of the workshop commencing.
- A 20% withdrawal fee will be charged if you withdraw between 15 and 5 working days before the start of the workshop.
- A 50% withdrawal fee will be charged if you withdraw between 5 working days and 48 hours before the start of the workshop.
- A 100% withdrawal fee will be charged if you withdraw less than 48 hours before the start of the workshop.
