[Apologies for cross-posting]

Date:  Friday, January 14, 2011, 1:30-2:30pm (EST)

Registration: $20 ASIS&T Members / $49 Non-Members

Description:  In this virtual seminar, you'll learn all about

information architecture - what it is, why it's so important to do

well and the major things to do and not to do.

We'll discuss:

- how people look for information and what they need to do with it

when they find it

- different ways you can organize information and when they are

suitable

- exactly how (processes) you can figure out the best ways to organize

your content

- the tricky issue of what to call things

- other key IA tips

It's all based on Donna's experience designing information

architecture, navigation and content for a wide range of information

systems (usually big ones) such as government and corporate websites,

intranets and document management systems.

To register please go to the ASIS&T website

http://www.asis.org/Conferences/webinars/2011/intro-to-ia.html

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Presenter

Donna Spencer

Donna's a freelance information architect, interaction designer and

writer. 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

cool too. So she's completely aware of the challenges of long-term,

ongoing projects and short-burst, agile projects. 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

people who will use it. 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), Web Industry

Professionals Association (WIPA) and has judged many web awards. She's

also written three books - on card sorting, web writing and now

information architecture