Next month, my colleague Ellie Sayyad Abdi and I will be running a workshop at ASIS&T 2019 in Melbourne on information experience design. It’s a concept we (particularly Ellie!) have been developing over the past few years, and one that we think has the potential to help information professionals have a positive impact on the way our customers experience information.

Before I get any further into the info about the workshop, I just wanted to note that you can register for a workshop or tutorial (our session is officially called a tutorial) even if you’re not attending the conference.

Here’s an excerpt about the workshop from the conference program:

Information Experience Design: Activating Information Research in Practice
Kate Davis, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Elham Sayyad-Abdi, University of the Pacific, USA

This tutorial introduces the related concepts of information experience (IX) and information experience design (IXD). Information experience explores how people engage with information in a given context, while information experience design is an approach to designing interventions to improve user experiences of information, informed by information experience research. Over the past several years, library and information organisations have adopted methodologies like design thinking to design their services, spaces, products, and programs. These methodologies put the customer at the centre of design process, but do not necessarily focus on the information component of their experience. Information experience design bridges that gap by marrying design methodologies with our disciplinary knowledge about people’s information experience to improve or enhance those experiences. Participants will leave this tutorial with knowledge of the information experience research landscape, approaches to information experience research, an information experience design toolkit, and practical experience working through a design process.
Members: $235 before 5/10  | Student Members: $210 before 5/10 | Non-Members: $270 before 5/10

And now, here are all the details.

What is information experience?

In the information research literature, there is a growing awareness of information experience as a theoretical construct. Information experience presents a different lens through which to explore people’s engagement with information; it focuses on the experiential rather than behavioural aspect of their engagement with information (Bruce & Partridge, 2011). As a domain of research, information experience sits alongside information behavior, as a complementary research domain.

Information experience is also an object of research. As an object, information experience is defined as ‘a complex of information experiences, as contextualized instances of using information. It integrates all information-related actions, thoughts, feelings, and has social and cultural dimensions’ (Hughes, 2014, p. 34). Information experience research investigates the whole experience of a phenomenon and foregrounds the information components of that experience (Bruce et al., 2017).

Information experience design

Over the past several years, library and information organisations have adopted methodologies like design thinking to help them design services, spaces, products, and programs. These methodologies for putting the customer at the centre of design processes are all valuable. However, we argue that information organisations should also have information – and people’s engagement with it – at the centre of design processes.

Information experience design marries design methodologies with our disciplinary knowledge about how people experience information and provides an approach to designing information experience interventions that might improve or enhance user experiences of information.

IXD is about bringing the theory and practice of information research together. It starts with an investigation into people’s information experience, which is used as a theoretical foundation for designing and developing real-world interventions that enhance and enrich people’s information use in their everyday lives (Bruce et al., 2017). Benefiting from design and user experience methodologies, IXD has the capacity to grow as a multidisciplinary research domain that links the information research field to domains such as design thinking, user experience, human-computer interaction and human-information interaction.

Workshop structure

We will begin by defining information experience through an exploration of findings from key information experience studies to date. We will also explore and discuss the value of information experience as a concept and how it sits alongside other objects of study within the field of information seeking and use (i.e. information behavior, information practice, information literacy). We will then introduce the idea of information experience design by exploring examples of information experience design interventions.

The second part of the workshop focuses on conducting information experience research. We will introduce participants to qualitative data collection and analysis strategies that can be used to explore the information experience of research cohorts or client groups.

In the third part of the workshop, we use an information experience design activity to introduce participants to a range of tools and approaches from other design disciplines that can be used to design information experience interventions. Using a sample client interview as the foundation, participants will work through a series of scaffolded design activities to design an information experience intervention (for example, a product, program or service) for a particular client.

The workshop includes a range of activities that allow participants to build an understanding of information experience research and design approaches. Activities include: a scenario based activity that explores the concept of ‘information’ in different contexts; mock interviews; coding an interview transcript; and an extended design activity encompassing discovery, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, testing and pitching.

Outcomes

Participants will leave the workshop with:

• An understanding of information experience as a theoretical concept, existing information experience research, and the value of “experience” as an alternative lens for exploring people’s engagement with information;
• Knowledge of research approaches used in information experience research, including data collection and analysis strategies;
• Awareness of a range of design tools and approaches that can be used in designing information experience interventions;
• Practical experience analyzing data and applying it in an information experience design activity;
• Access to a range of support resources curated by the facilitators to help participants apply what they have learned in practice.

Who should attend?

You!

This workshop is a perfect fit for both researchers and practitioners. It’s a worksop for:

• Library and information practitioners
  • with an interest in understanding how people experience information as they engage with your services, study, work, or live their everyday lives.
  • who want to design interventions to help customers have improved information experiences.
  • undertaking research to better understanding customers and the ways they engage with information.
  • who want to understand how to marry their information studies expertise with design methodologies to create better customer experiences.
• Researchers
  • in information studies who want to learn about one approach to taking action based on research findings about how users engage with information.
  • in design who want to learn about how design methodologies can be married with information research to design better customer experiences.

When is it?

The workshop will be held on Wednesday 23 October 2019, from 9am to 5pm.

Where is it?

Workshops and tutorials are held at the conference venue, the Melbourne Conference Centre.

Find out more

Head to the conference website to find out how to register for this workshop.

References

Bruce, C., & Partridge, H. (2011, November).Identifying and delineating information experience as a research domain: A discussion paper. Paper presented at the Social Media and Information Practices Workshop, Boras, Sweden. Discussion paper retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/47204/2/bruce_partridge.pdf

Hughes, H. (2014) Researching information experience: Methodological snapshots. In Bruce, C., Davis, K., Hughes, H., Partridge, H., and Stoodley, I. (eds.) Information experience: approaches to theory and practice.(Library and Information Science, Volume 9).Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 33-50.