The IA Summit Experience
5 questions for Donna Spencer
With the countdown to the 2016 IA Summit on, we reached out to our community leaders to see what they’ve been up to and what the IA Summit and information architecture means to them.
Today we feature Donna Spencer, who served as IA Summit co-chair in 2006 and chair in 2007. Donna’s a user experience designer and conference organizer. She loves working on all aspects from strategy to implementation, no matter what she’s designing. She’s a regular conference speaker and article author; and has written three books — on card sorting, web writing, and information architecture.
Which was the first IA Summit you attended? What was that experience like? How have you seen it change since then?
Austin, 2004. It was life-changingly amazing. I met a ton of fantastic people who did the same kind of thing I did, though I don’t remember talking about work or IA at all. Some of those people are still my closest friends, even though we live across the world from each other.
What keeps you coming back to the IA Summit each year?
The amazing people. And the annual chance to sit back and think about how much I love my work and why.
Designing digital experiences, organizing conferences, and writing books. You’ve been influential in the UX and IA community for many years. Why start over with fashion design?
I was completely burned out. It was good to take some time away from client work for a couple of years and do something that I’d always wanted to do. But then I got to the end of that and missed IA work. So now I’m just doing fashion design as a hobby and have gone back to IA — to the most complex project of my career.
What role do you see for those of us managing and organizing information in the next 5 years?
We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last 5 years, as none of that goes away. But I think we’ll continue to stretch into combining digital and physical. And we’ll get better at it all.
What are the top 3 reasons someone in the information management or UX field should attend the IA Summit?
- Filling up your head with smart, inspirational content
- Hanging out with excellent people
- Getting a few days from work to think about what you love doing (even if it isn’t IA yet)
A big thanks to Donna for sharing her thoughts with us ahead of her workshop in May! If you are inspired to join us in Atlanta, don’t delay. Get on over to the IA Summit website and register now!
The 2016 IA Summit will be held at the Omni Atlanta CNN Center from May 4–8. Full-day and half-day hands-on workshops are held Wednesday, May 4, and Thursday, May 5, followed by the main conference Friday, May 6–Sunday, May 8.
