These posters were presented at the annual 2026 Information Architects Conference in Philadelphia, PA, on April 16, 2026. The theme for the conference was “Clarity and Navigating Complexity with Information Architecture.”
The posters and the accompanying presentation focused on the complexities and hurdles that information architects—and experience professionals in general— face when working to craft and sustain successful human-centered experiences.
These challenges stem from prevailing assumptions that experience work is primarily an exercise in UI and visual design, or what John lovingly refers to as the limitations of the “design box.” These challenges and limitations result in:
- Limited Visibility: Experience professionals and teams not having visibility into, or opportunities to weigh in at key points of the product lifecycle.
- Resource Constraints: Lack of time, support, and the resources necessary for teams to define and understand context, user needs, and scenarios of use.
- Restricted Toolkits: Limitations on the tools and techniques available to experience professionals to use to successfully craft, deliver, and sustain human-centered solutions.
- Strategic Friction: Blind spots, misalignment, and conflict that negatively impact performance and outcomes for both users and businesses.
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Poster 1: Overcoming Complexity to Make Room for Experience Work
This poster describes the different “scales and dimensions” that experience professionals (e.g. Researchers, IAS, UXers, Service Designers) think about and operate in to discover, deliver and sustain successful solutions.
This poster describes the different “scales and dimensions” that experience professionals (e.g. Researchers, IAS, UXers, Service Designers) think about and operate in to discover, deliver and sustain successful solutions.
The visuals in this poster were part of an effort to overcome common notions such as, “UI is UX” and “design is decoration,” that make it difficult for experience organizations and professionals to work outside of the “design box” that our work is often relegated.
The visuals in the poster introduce the larger set of considerations and types of work beyond UI and decorative design that experience organizations and professionals must have the room and resources to do for maximum impact and desired outcomes.
The visuals in this poster were part of an effort to overcome common notions such as, “UI is UX” and “design is decoration,” that make it difficult for experience organizations and professionals to work outside of the “design box” that our work is often relegated.
The visuals in the poster introduce the larger set of considerations and types of work beyond UI and decorative design that experience organizations and professionals must have the room and resources to do for maximum impact and desired outcomes.
Poster 2: Overcoming the Complexity of Alignment to Deliver Value
This poster describes an operational methodology called the Service and Product Delivery Lifecycle (SPDL).
This poster describes the different “scales and dimensions” that experience professionals (e.g. Researchers, IAS, UXers, Service Designers) think about and operate in to discover, deliver and sustain successful solutions.
The visuals in this poster were part of an effort to overcome common notions such as, “UI is UX” and “design is decoration,” that make it difficult for experience organizations and professionals to work outside of the “design box” that our work is often relegated.
The visuals in the poster introduce the larger set of considerations and types of work beyond UI and decorative design that experience organizations and professionals must have the room and resources to do for maximum impact and desired outcomes.
These works are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
The SPDL was initially conceived as part of the UX organization’s effort to socialize, expand participation, and make room for experience work across the full delivery cycle-beginning to end. The SPDL evolved into a broader framework that established and helped provide visibility, sustain alignment, and improve collaboration among the various teams involved in the organization’s product and service delivery (business, product, UX, dev).
The visuals in the poster introduce the SPDL’s goal and value proposition, as well as some of the methods and tools that smashed silos and transformed ways of working between and across phases of the product and service delivery lifecycle.