Providence 2025

World IA Day Providence 2025. Explore past content.

World Information Architecture Day (WIAD) celebrates information architecture and shares knowledge and ideas from analogue to digital, from design to development, from students to practitioners, globally and locally on March 8, 2025.

Date and time

Saturday, March 8, 2025 - 8:30am to 4pm Pacific

Location

Sprout Coworking (Olneyville)

166 Valley Street, Building 6M, Providence, RI 02909

Parking: Free parking is abundant! Park in any of the Rising Sun Mills lots. And here is a lofi parking map for your viewing pleasure.

Public transit: RIPTA routes 17, 19, 27, 29, 92

Sprout is accessible for wheelchair users.

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Call for speakers

If you would like to speak, prepare your talk ideas now and submit a proposal for WIAD Providence!

Most talk slots are full, but we are still accepting ideas for 5-minute lightning talks. Last year’s conference might give you a good idea of what kinds of talks are fair game.

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Register

Registration is required to attend

Donate or sponsor

To make sure we can keep all our events free, make a donation today. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Speakers

Name

Clare Cady

Link

Clare Cady

Company & title

Associate Director of UX Research, Unite Us

Name

Mike Eng

Link

Mike Eng

Company & title

Senior User Experience Designer/Researcher

Name

Asher Kolieboi

Link

Asher Kolieboi

Company & title

Name

Erynn Petersen

Link

Erynn Petersen

Company & title

CEO, Emme

Name

Mel Rainsberger

Link

Mel Rainsberger

Company & title

Lead UX Designer, GeoVera

Name

Stephen Szermer

Link

Stephen Szermer

Company & title

Chapter Director, Google Development Groups

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Program schedule

Doors open at 8:30 am!

We’ll start promptly at 9:00 am and wrap up at noon. There will be bagels, coffee, and tea!

9:00 a.m.

Welcome

9:15 a.m.

Speakers (15 minutes each)

Confirmed Talks

Mike Eng, “How to Make Sense of a Messy Project Brief”

When starting a project or starting to work with a new team, there’s a lot of information you need to get oriented, and usually it’s not all provided right away. Here are some things to look for and ways to get answers.

Clare Cady, “Building a UX Research Repository That Works”

“Hey, have we done any research on...?” is a common phrase UX researchers hear from designers, product managers, engineers, and senior leaders. It’s time consuming to dig through the archives to find past insights, and if your team has churn that institutional knowledge goes out the door.

The problem my team faced after years of data collection and research was: how do we continue to leverage our data over time and build a framework that is accessible to everyone?

This session outlines how the UX research team at Unite Us leveraged an AI tool to build a research repository that is searchable and effective for all team members across the company. The presentation will cover tool selection, protecting IP, training the AI model to provide accurate actionable results, and teaching team members how to use it.

Stephen Szermer, “Designing Information Architecture for Digital Heirlooms: Preserving Knowledge Across Generations”

This talk explores how Private Language addresses the challenge of preserving and transferring specialized knowledge across generations through innovative information architecture. I’ll examine how we’re tackling three key challenges:

• Structuring “heirloom datasets” that remain accessible and meaningful across time

• Balancing AI-assisted documentation with human expertise preservation

• Designing access control systems that support generational knowledge transfer

10:00 am

Coffee break

10:15 am

Discussion, networking, and activities

11:00 am

Coffee break

11:15 am

Lightning talks (5 minutes each)

Pre-scheduled Talks

Erynn Petersen, “Part 2: CPT Codes, the Killer Rabbit of Healthcare Meets Arthur”

After our talk at last year’s World Information Architecture Day event, we built a platform that allows for upfront payments for doctors’ appointments, and then had to make the information architecture backwards compatible with the prevailing CPT codes. Here’s what happened.

Asher Kolieboi, “Trust & Transparency: Accessible Information Architecture for Fintech Security”

Security in fintech isn’t just about protecting data — it’s about making safety understandable and accessible for all users. My talk will highlight examples of accessibility challenges and wins in fintech.

Mel Rainsberger, “Complexity as Colleague”

Financial services like insurance don't necessarily benefit from a lightning-fast, uncomplicated process. Some interfaces can only be simplified so much. However, in the context of financial and official services user flows, this complexity is expected and can be utilized to deliver a powerful experience.

Day-of Impromptu Talks

Jack Lenk, “Z Diagrams”

Scott Kubie, “P.O.N.Y. Your Portfolio”

Parker Sowersby, “Research in AI and Capstone”

Mackenzie Draper, “Great (Crazy) Expectations”

11:45 am

Wrap up, prize drawings, and goodbye

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Sponsors supporting Providence 2025

Oomph

Content Career Accelerator

Emme

Humans Make Tech

World IA Day Boston

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Our team

Name

Erin White

Role

Name

Jen Davinack

Role

Name

Gregory Kimbrell

Role

Name

Nick Scappaticci

Role