World Information Architecture Day is a one-day annual celebration hosted by the Information Architecture Institute and held in dozens of locations across the globe, including here in Pittsburgh.
The goal of the event is to bring together like-minded professionals and enthusiasts who practice, learn, teach, and shape the future of information architecture. Daedalus User Experience Designer Bill Bernstein served as a co-chair for the sold-out event. Bill and the rest of the organizing team brought together six speakers from a range of different IA and UX specialties and three hands-on workshops whose leaders addressed three different levels of career experience. Research Manager Carolynn Johnson spoke on "Designing with Wicked Intent", which illustrated ways in which good design principles are often deliberately twisted to manipulate users into doing things against their own best interest. The objective was to equip designers and information architects with the capability to recognize and fight against these dark design patterns.