Rachel Jaffe

Rachel works at the dividing line between art and entrepreneurship. With MEDDY she creates “interaction art,” while with Spontaneous Space! She blends together stories and games. With Emergent University she breaks divides between education and entertainment, and through the Paper Incubator she designs games that promote entrepreneurship. She has held positions at Esri, WRI, and the Brookings Institution. She holds two Masters degrees from the University of Michigan, and her bachelors from Stony Brook University’s Honors College.

About the talk

February 27, 13:40 – 14:10

Rachel Jaffe – Response and Re-imagination: The Future of the Field of Information Architecture

This talk begins with the question: how will Information Architects respond to increasingly automated digital design? One response comes in the form of a “structural language” of modularized, repeatable patterns across different platforms. This language creates the foundation for a second question: can Information Architects not simply respond to trends in tech, but design digital tools that can help communities self-organize faster? This question demands practitioners look outside of Information Architecture’s role in navigation, products, or companies to envision a more equitable, collaboratively built world of modular networks, autonomously generated apps, and ephemeral organizations.

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