April 2006 Issue

By Laurie Lamar

Published: April 14, 2006

During March 23–28, 2006, over 500 people gathered in Vancouver, Canada, for the seventh Information Architecture Summit sponsored by ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science and Technology). The delightfully diverse attendees included not just people with the job title information architect, but also librarians, Web developers, business analysts, user experience designers, and others. Read moreRead More>

By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

Published: April 14, 2006

The seventh annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit—IA Summit 2006 for short—was held at the Hyatt® Regency in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, shown in Figure 1, from March 23 through 27, 2006. Its theme was Learning • Doing • Selling. While I attended the IA Summit Redux in San Francisco at Adaptive Path last year, this was my first IA Summit. Read moreRead More>

By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

Published: April 14, 2006

IA Summit 2006 comprised three conference tracks: Learning IA—focusing on IA education and research; Doing IA—presenting professional practice, techniques, and process; and Selling IA—evangelizing the value of IA. Read moreRead More>

By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

Published: April 14, 2006

Sunday was another great day at the Summit. Many of the panels I attended during the Summit failed to capture my interest, but two of the best were the back-to-back panels about wireframing and alternative methods of creating design documentation on Sunday. Read moreRead More>

By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

Published: April 14, 2006

The conference lost a bit of steam on the last day. It was hard to find must-see sessions. This made me regret all the more that I’d missed sessions on Saturday and Sunday I really would have liked to have gone to, because they were scheduled against other sessions I really wanted to attend. Read moreRead More>

An IA Summit 2006 Workshop: Presented by Kevin Cheng and Jane Jao

Reviewed by Andrew Hinton

Published: April 14, 2006

I have a confession to make. I almost didn’t sign up for the Creating Conceptual Comics workshop. When I saw it listed in the IA Summit program, several questions came to mind. Read moreRead More>

Presented by Dave Heller, Kim Goodwin, Luke Wroblewski, and Frank Ramirez

Reviewed by Russell Wilson

Published: April 14, 2006

The IxD Symposium—an all-day pre-conference seminar—was presented by Dave Heller, Kim Goodwin, Luke Wroblewski, and Frank Ramirez of IxDA (Interaction Design Association). It was well worth the additional cost as each presenter gave practical advice based on real projects. Read moreRead More>

An IA Summit 2006 Seminar: Presented by Peter Morville

Reviewed by Russell Wilson

Published: April 14, 2006

Peter Morville, co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web with Lou Rosenfeld and author of Ambient Findability, presented a very informative day-long lecture on the subject of information architecture (IA). He discussed many basic concepts as well as best practices, so his presentation would appeal to both beginner and intermediate IAs. Read moreRead More>

By Russell Wilson

Published: April 14, 2006

The Impact of RIA on Design Processes

I didn’t know what to expect from this presentation. I marked it in my schedule, but can’t remember why. And yet it turned out to be one of my favorite sessions. The presenters focused on the long-term impact of RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) on design and development, and based on their findings, made some bold statements. Read moreRead More>