Ann Arbor 2016

Join us for coffee & tea from local coffee company RoosRoast as well as a catered breakfast from The Produce Station and Washtenaw Dairy. We encourage everyone to get to Rackham as early as possible after 8:30am so they can enjoy this delicious breakfast. We will begin promptly at 9:30am, so we want to make sure we have a packed house ready for our first speaker!

Breakfast will consist of:
- Bagels & cream cheese
- Pastries
- Zingerman's coffee cake
- Donuts
- Fresh fruit 

**As noted above, no food or drink besides water will be allowed inside the Rackham Amphitheatre; however, we have three full rooms right outside the theater available for you to use to enjoy your breakfast and coffee with fellow attendees!

Information is everywhere and we are all architects manipulating and arranging it to communicate with others. One of the most challenging ways we do this is when we answer the question "Who am I?" Both individuals and organizations must wrestle with similar challenges when they attempt to establish who they are and control their meaning. I will talk about some theories of self-hood and situate them within a larger Information Architecture context.

- Kat King

Ever wonder why menus differ between restaurants? How does the design of a menu affect your food choices? In this talk, you'll get a brief snapshot of the field of menu engineering and how it applies to IA. 

- Lavanya Kumar

Mastering a state of flow within teams requires a collective mindset of learning, sharing and cross-functional collaboration. If we're all information architects, we must reverse the individual inclination to hoard knowledge and skills. Scott will explore techniques to architect internal intelligence in mutually beneficial ways. 

- Scott Showalter

Selfies are not just about the faces in the picture, they have a lot more information that is buried over time.

- Ayshwarya Balasubramanian

We have to get comfortable explaining the purpose and value of the IA approach. We are more than our deliverables. We have to sell our process. We have to defend our ability to do proper discovery – stakeholder interviews, content audits, user interviews, modeling... We are the gatekeepers that hold off the solutions, the how, until we know the what and who and why. And explaining that can be really difficult! This talk aims to help us all become more comfortable with, and confident in, explaining our value proposition. 

- Kaarin Hoff

All attendees will receive a handout of places nearby to grab a quick, delicious lunch! 

Ladies that UX will be having lunch together in the West Conference Room on the 4th floor. You can read more and RSVP for the Ladies that UX Lunch here.

You can also take this time to visit our sponsor booths from:
- Atomic Object
- Foresee
- Rightpoint
- The Understanding Group 
- University of Michigan School of Information
- Vitamin T

While I am not an Information Architect, Information Architecture and Graphic Design are two of the main disciplines I rely on in my work as a Human Centered Designer within the University of Michigan Health System. Through snippets of some of the projects that I have being involved in, this talk will explore the seams where Information Architecture intersects with disciplines other than itself, more specifically looking at health-care and health research.

- Aalap Doshi

User centered design principles for organizing and navigating our personal space and time, along with insight we can take back to our work.

- Alexis Antonelli Morris

While the tech scene is evolving with countless ways to consume information, there are still many questions for which answers cannot be found easily online. Traditional Q&A platforms have been effective in answering such questions but are not optimized to provide quick and relevant information from intimate people to the user. For the mobile era where a users attention span has decreased drastically, there is a need of a rapid way to search for and exchange context aware information. 

- Dimitri Akimaru

The immersive experience and what working with rural farmers can teach us about architecting sustainable systems for diverse communities.

- Jessamine Bartley-Matthews

IA in the field: an app can’t build a bridge.

- Anjuli Dasika 

- Jackie Wolf

Projects collapse. Money evaporates. Clients hate your design. Designing for users requires not just familiarity with change, but a deep understanding of how to interpret its effects on the design process. Due to organizational constraints and conventions, these skills are even more critical for architects and designers working in client service agencies. Using a change management model, we’ll explore how to solve problems, adapt to change, and get design work done when things are in flux.

- Emily Bowman

Join us after the conference for happy hour and networking with all of the attendees!

We have a room reserved at Arbor Brewing Company which is located at:
114 E Washington Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

We encourage everyone to come out and spend time with each other to celebrate the end of a great event. There will be a large group walking over from Rackham, and we suggest that if you are able to walk there, you walk with us. Parking is available near Arbor Brewing Company, but if you have a good spot - keep it until after the party! 

If you do need to drive, the parking structure closest to Arbor Brewing Company is at 4th & Washington.