IDEA 2008: MAYA's pre-conference IA workshop

Start your IDEA Conference experience a day early by joining David Bishop and Paul Gould of MAYA Design for a full-day workshop devoted to information architecture.

Whether you're simply curious about IA, or it has been a job title on your business card for years, MAYA's unique take on IA and our hands-on exercises will not only enlighten you, but also equip you with fresh approaches.

Participants in last year's workshop in New York said:

"Stimulating and thought provoking. Even when you were covering material that I considered familiar, I learned new things."

"Your workshop has proved inspirational in my work over and over again."

We'll use real-world case studies as the starting point for learning how to:

* Gather domain knowledge
* Synthesize and structure data
* Diagram processes and relationships
* Design interactions based on those models

You'll stay active and engaged as you participate in exercises that include:

* Concept mapping
* Documenting mental models
* Process-flow diagramming
* Depicting information models

Along the way, you'll discover that documenting the pattern of a problem (i.e., information architecture diagramming) is inextricably linked to the design solution. As Christopher Alexander said, ". . . there is a deep and important underlying structural correspondence between the pattern of a problem and the process of designing a physical form which answers that problem."

It's a critical, yet often neglected, component of designing human-centered products and interactions, and you shouldn't miss this opportunity to dig in.