World IA Day Global Website
Project Summary
What is World Information Architecture Day?
World Information Architecture Day is a one-day annual celebration hosted by the Information Architecture Institute and held in dozens of locations across the globe. The non profit organization made the decision to have a global website that would act as a database for all the user generated content captured during the World IA Day events. Under the direction of UX Architect, Grace Lau, I joined a team of researchers to collaborate on this ambitious project.
Project Goals:
To produce more attendance and sponsorship leads through the website
To enhance user experience for location organizers and provide cohesive content
Business Needs:
● To share our thoughts, ideas, and work within an open and welcoming environment. The content created as a result of our celebration is available to everyone and we invite conversation around the work we are doing.
● To grow a community of information architecture as a community of practice
User Profiles
Student
The student may have taken UX courses, learned about WIAD from class, may associate closely with being UX/UI designer or developer, may associate with being a librarian or information professional.
Some goals they may have:
Learning more about IA
Learning about content on a project
Seasoned Professional
The seasoned practitioner attended but didn’t speak at WIAD, would likely have identified themselves as an IA at some point in their career.
Some goals they may have:
Learning about new techniques and methods
Networking with newer practitioners
Past Attendee
The past attendee may not identify themselves as an IA or UX person, may be someone firmly who is IA-adjacent, perhaps a technical writer, software engineer, visual designer, marketing, SEO
New Professional
The new practitioner may or not have attended WIAD, have been learning about UX and IA on their own, on the job.
Local Organizer
The local organizer coordinates events at the local level. Gathers a volunteer team to help put together the event. Oversees the local event planning.
Have organized WIAD previously
Want to start or develop an IA awareness in their community
May be students or seasoned practitioners
User goals include:
Update sponsor, speaker and registration information
Create an inviting web presence of their celebration
Prospective Sponsor
A company or organization that has been scouted by a local organizer as a potential sponsor.
Would want to learn about the event, types of speakers, type of attendees.
May want to learn about sponsorship opportunities at local and global levels, in-kind or financial donations
Content Strategy
Affinity Map Profile: IAI Board/WIAD Global Team
Affinity Map Profile: First-Time WIAD Attendee
Information Architecture
Mapping out the information architecture of the proposed website that diagrams how the data will be organized and how users will be able to access content directly on the site.
Affinity Map Profile: Location Organizer
Competitive Analysis
Peer observations were collected on a spreadsheet, which highlighted different aspects of each conference at the page level.
Takeaways and recommendations were presented via Google Slides that included screenshots
Design Thinking
Sketches
I led design studios with colleagues and volunteers to sketch out potential designs for different pages for the site. We then presented our sketches and assessed which design choices were the best.
The design studio sessions were done in person and online via Zoom. The presentations were displayed over Real Time Board.
