Design Matters

In an effort to conserve the funds of the organization, the ID/A SIG is looking for a company or individual willing to sponsor the purchase of a vinyl banner to be used at SIG events, starting with the 2007 STC Conference in Minneapolis.

I anticipate the cost of the banner to be around $150.00 from Kinko’s (indication of sponsorship could be arranged). If you or your employer are interested in this opportunity or have the ability to produce vinyl banners in-house and want to off-set our costs, please contact David L. Caruso dcaruso@cdc.gov or call 412-386-6473 no later than April 12, 2007.

At the upcoming conference in Minneapolis, the ID/A SIG will be quite active so here is a list of some of the things you can look forward to participating in should you join us in the Twin Cities:

• Leadership Day – Want to be a future leader, this is your day!
• Opening Evening Social Event
• SIG Table featuring information and an as yet undetermined giveaway (or 2)
• Food
• See friends from conferences past and make a few new ones
• SIG Booth – STC will have a permanent space throughout the conference next to the hospitality desk where volunteers from all the SIGs will be on hand to talk about the SIG experience and encourage more members to become active in the virtual communities. (watch this site for more information as to when you might see some of the ID/A folks there)
• SIG meeting – Yes, one of the mornings (bright and early) we will all get together and see each other face-to-face. This will be both a business meeting, membership recruitment opportunity and social all rolled into one.
• ID/A Social Event – On Monday evening we will venture out into Minneapolis for a social event of unidentified origin (stay tuned for more details or look for flyers at the conference). Just ask anyone who went with us to the Star Trek Experience last year in Vegas…hanging with the ID/A SIG is the place to be!
• Progression – Please stick around for the Wednesday sessions for the progression of the ID/A SIG: Designer-ly Ways of Thinking: Progressions of the Information Design and Architecture Community  (DD 11E)

Wednesday 1:30-3:00 PM
Format: Progression
From “New Architecture of Printed Documents” to “Do I Need a CMS?” this roundtable session provides participants with an opportunity to explore a variety of topics of interest on information design and architecture.
Presented by members of STC’s Information Design and Architecture Community.

Several people have asked about the newest version of the SIG charter. Here it is!

The early bird gets the worm, and in this case a discounted conference rate!  Register by February 28 to take advantage of the low member price - $645 (USD).

Last week, the STC office mailed the preliminary program.  Why wait to receive your copy in the mail?  Go to www.stc.org/54thConf today to check out the latest information about the conference, registration, and accommodations.

Hello,

With this post we’d like to give you a brief update on the activities of the Information Architecture & Information Design SIG leadership team. The first and the most important news: we are establishing a leadership team that has worked on the following:

• Several months ago, we published the SIG charter (see http://stc-on.org/id) and got it approved by the STC board.
• We redesigned the website.
• We issued a call for volunteers for the open positions. We are getting a group of enthusiastic volunteers together and are really looking forward into the next steps!

The current leadership team consists of:

• Membership and Marketing Manager: Dan Wilcomb
• Conference Manager: David Caruso
• Website Manager: Sean Cleary
• SIG Editor: Christina Bottomley
• Expert CMS: Scott Abel

We still have the following positions open:

• SIG Treasurer
• Various expert positions (see Charter)

Note that you don’t have to volunteer for a specific position – if you just want to do something from the list in the charter or you have your own ideas – let me know and let’s do it.

The leadership team has regular monthly calls where we coordinate our activities. Let me know if you want to participate.

Our current tasks are:

• Designing and preparing SIG activities for the STC Summit in 07.
• Developing a sponsorship model for the SIG members to participate at the conferences.
• Recruit more volunteers to cover the expert roles.
• Acquiring articles and ideas for articles both for the SIG website and for other STC publications.

Call for Articles

We’re looking for your input for articles to include on our website. Please contact christina.bottomley@gmail.com if you:

• Have a request for topics you would like to see covered.
• Are an STC (or other related group) conference presenter who would like to write an article based on your presentation.
• Have a research paper or study (professional or academic) you would like writing or editing help for the purposes of publishing on the SIG website, STC conference proceedings, Intercom, or STC Technical Communications.
• Otherwise, have information or experiences related to the SIG that you want to offer.

Thank you for any offers or suggestions. The SIG leadership team is looking forward to creating a valuable resource and publishing opportunities for members.

Thanks again!

SIG manager, Bogo Vatovec

The Technical Communication Summit, STC’s 54th Annual Conference will be held May 13-16, 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

If you are planning to attend the 2007 Annual Conference and would like to participate in a progression sponsored by the Information Architecture and Design (ID-IA) SIG, please send the information listed below to dcaruso@cdc.gov. I will submit the proposal (deadline September 1), check periodically with the presenters, and facilitate the progression at the conference. (more…)

I’d like to announce several activities the ID-IA SIG has been working on or will start working on soon. Our goal is to make SIG more active than it has been in the past couple of years and to tap into the potential our over 2600 members have to offer the SIG and each other. (more…)

The distinguished newsletter of the Information Design SIG has returned, as the newsletter and website of the Information Design and Architecture SIG of STC.

If you would like to contribute to Design Matters, please contact the Website Manager, Sean Cleary. The email address is on the Leaders page.

An interview with Karen A. Schriver by Peter J. Bogaards was posted in September, 2005. Karen is a member of the ID-IA SIG of STC. We originally reported this news in 2005.

Articles 500 to 1000 words in length are welcome on any topic related to information design and architecture. Recently we have had requests to address the following:

• Topic-based approach to information architecture
• Design strategies for minimalism, especially an architecture that supports error recognition and recovery
• Moving content out of the book paradigm and integrating it with the context of the user
• Change management–making the transition from one information architecture to another architecture
• Global design collaboration–managing the design process across geographically distributed teams

ID-IA SIG members are invited to register on Design Matters and write to the Website Manager to request access as a WordPress Contributor. The email address is on the Leaders page. The web team and editors will review your article, check with you about any major changes, and publish your article.

If you would like to inquire before posting an article or are not a member of the ID-IA SIG and would like to contribute, please write to the Website Manager; the email address is on the Leaders page.