Feb 2017: A Brief History of Information Architecture, or 'Who killed the IA?'
Details
Note: Jeff and Aaron had originally planned to deliver a presentation on "How FreshBooks persuaded its customers to accept radical change". Unfortunately, they won't be able to do that. Happily, though, they'll be bringing a cool alternative: “A Brief History of Information Architecture (or, 'Who killed the IA?')”. They apologize for the change, and thank you for your understanding.
What’s information architecture? Isn’t it the same as UX design or content strategy, but with a more pretentious title? Is it even practiced anymore? We’ll start with a discussion of the history of the term “information architecture”, which lost favour in the field at around the same time that the term “UX Designer" arose. That’s not a coincidence, since the story of IA is also partly a story of how we define our jobs, and how we label ourselves.
About the presenters
Aaron Wright stumbled into the field of UX while pursuing a degree in Graphic Design at York University. Originally just trying hone his web design and app-building skills, he soon learned that there was, in fact, an entire field devoted to the study of user experience itself and immediately changed focus. And hasn't looked back. Now a UX Designer at FreshBooks since 2012, he's livin' the dream of taming complexity and trying to make boring work (like accounting) as close to fun as humanly possible.
Jeff Kraemer ran his first usability test back in 2001; this was before screen-recording software, so recording the test meant pointing a VHS videocamera at the screen. Since then, he's spent time specializing in content strategy and instructional design, but he really loves being a UX generalist. Previously at Workopolis and Usability Matters, Jeff is now Principal UX Designer at FreshBooks.