A little more detail

Meet the speakers

Peter J. Bogaards
With over 15 years of experience in information design, information architecture, and user-centered design, Peter is a recognized leader in the international information design community. Prior to founding BogieLand, he worked for the InfoDesign & Usability Group of Razorfish Europe and was information and user interface designer of Informaat. He was responsible for developing intentional user experiences, including user interface, site architecture, navigation and usability for clients such as eBay, Elsevier Science, IBM, Nissan, and Nokia. He has delivered workshops, lectures, and presentations on information design and information architecture topics at various companies, professional conferences, and universities. His website can be found at www.bogieland.com.

Stuart Booth
Stuart is a Senior User Experience Consultant for DNA, a full-service digital media agency in central London.He has extensive experience in cognitive psychology, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and User-Centred Design (UCD), having carried out research for the European Union at the University of Parma, Italy and the University of Leeds before moving to industry in 2004. He is an occasional visiting lecturer in usability/HCI at the Hyperwerk Institute for Interaction Design, part of the Fachhochschule beider Basel, Switzerland. Stuart holds a PhD. in cognitive theory for HCI and has published numerous articles on the user experience of shopping.

Filip Borloo
Filip started his career as a call-center manager for Apple Computer Europe where he managed the Northern European help desk. He survived the dot-com boom as international business development manager for Mediasurface PLC, a UK-based early entrant in the Enterprise Content Management market. After setting up the services and support organisation in London, he used his broad experience to help set up offices in the U.S., Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. When he returned to Belgium in early 2002, he became involved in a number of projects for federal and regional government agencies. Throughout his career, Filip has been translating the needs and wants of business users to technical specifications. Currently, he runs icogs, a Brussels-based technology company specialised in user interaction design for large online projects, mainly in government and the developers of icogs. Icogs is a hosted site-management solution that allows web designers to offer basic cms features to their customers without the need for programming.

Reinoud Bosman
Reinoud Bosman is an information architect who has worked in interactive environments for the past 6 years. Currently he's employed at Media Catalyst, Amsterdam, doing projects for clients like Sony Ericsson, World Press Photo, Schiphol Airport, and Sony. Before joining Media Catalyst, Reinoud worked at EzGov, a leading provider of e government applications. His projects included the Self Assessment online tax return and Corporation Tax Online for the UK HM Revenue and Customs. Reinoud holds a MSc in Biology from the Free University Amsterdam and researched the communication of science on the web at the Free University Berlin. He has lived and worked in Sydney and Tokyo.

Andrew Dillon
Andrew has been an active researcher of the human response to information technology for the last 15 years, graduating from University College Cork and Loughborough University of Technology before being appointed Research Fellow at the Human Sciences and Advanced Technology Research Institute in the UK. He moved to Indiana University in 1994 where, amongst other duties, he developed and served as Director of the Masters in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Informatics. He joined the University of Texas at Austin in January 2002 as Dean and Professor of the School of Information. Defying professional categorization, he has held appointments in departments or schools of cognitive science, computer science, instructional systems technology, psychology, management information system, curriculum and instruction, library and information science, and informatics. Having published more than 80 articles and books on various aspects of human information behavior, Andrew serves or has served on the editorial boards of many leading journals such as the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Interacting with Computers, the Journal of Digital Information, and the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. He has contributed invited entries for the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, the International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics & Human Factors and the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. He strongly advocates designing information resources and systems that work for people to augment and enhance their lives.

Simone Fuchs
Simone Fuchs was born in Frankfurt and has a degree in International Communication at University for Foreigners of Perugia, Italy. In the course of her university years, she also pursued a wide range of practical training. In Frankfurt, among her many experiences, she has worked in the advertising agency Armando Testa, at American Express Bank and the Commerzbank. She has also worked at American Express in Poole, England, and at the Goethe Institute in Naples. Having completed her degree, she practices information architecture in Italy.

Alan Gilchrist
Alan has over thirty years experience working as a consultant in information management, much of it directly or indirectly concerned with knowledge organisation. Working from a sound basis of the theory and practice of classification and thesaurus construction, he has worked in both the public and private sectors with subject specialists, information scientists and IT personnel in providing practical cost-effective solutions to the problems of information retrieval. Combined with his practical knowledge and application of a range of analytical techniques, he has based such solutions on an understanding of the business processes and information needs of the enterprises for which he has worked. Alan has written widely and is co-author of the widely used manual Thesaurus construction and use. A fourth edition was published simultaneously in 2002 by two publishers in the UK and the USA. He is also co-editor with Barry Mahon of Information architecture, designing information environments for purpose, published in 2004. He has also presented many Conference papers in most of the countries of Western Europe and Scandinavia.

Mona Halland
Mona is currently a senior Information Architect in WM-data�s User Experience department in Oslo, Norway. She has a Master�s in psychology with a specialisation in Cognitive Science and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). Mona started her professional career in 1997 as a scientist at the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), working with a.o. control room design, accident analysis and analysing human error and human behaviour in nuclear reactors, offshore installations, railway systems, and locomotive cockpits. Since 1999, her main tasks has been conducting and overseeing user research, analysis, concept development, and user experience design for a wide range of interactive services, including extensive assignments with major Norwegian companies and organisations like Hydro, Telenor Mobil and the Ministry of Finance.

Margaret Hanley
Margaret Hanley has worked as an Information Architect for more than 10 years on three continents. Margaret is currently the Executive Producer of Core Products for bbc.co.uk, managing a set of IA related products like search, homepage and Programme Information Pages. While working as an IA at the BBC, she developed content models and controlled vocabularies to describe everything from "Composer of the Week" to traffic updates on the Nottingham WIL site. Prior to joining the BBC, she served as Senior Information Architect at Ingenta in Oxford. In the United States, Margaret was a project manager for Argus Associates, concentrating on the development of deep information architecture for corporate web sites. Clients included Microsoft, IBM, Square D and LookSmart.

Kit Lewis
Kit is head of the User Experience team at Framfab UK, leading over 40 user experience architects. He is currently on part-time secondment to the NHS, where he is leading the Design Guide and Developer�s Toolkit workstreams of the Common User Interface (CUI) project within the National Programme for IT. The CUI project is currently the largest, and potentially the most significant, UI design project anywhere in the world. Kit has an eclectic background, having studied both Architecture and Engineering at University to post-graduate level; in the process winning academic awards in both disciplines. Before joining Framfab, he worked for some of Europe�s leading architects including Rem Koolhaas (OMA), Foster & Partners and Ron Arad.

Barry Mahon
Barry holds a Masters Degree in Information Science. He ran an information service for industrial users in Ireland before being seconded to the European Union in 1978 to manage the first telecommunications network dedicated to online information. From 1985 to 1991 he set up and managed one of the first email services in Europe and supervised EU research projects. From 1991 to 1996 he was Executive Director of Eusidic, the European Association of Information Services. Following two years as a volunteer development worker in West Africa in 1997/98, he now works in a half time capacity as the Executive Director of ICSTI, the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information and carries out consultancy work as an Associate Advisor at TFPL, London. He concentrates on information management and architecture projects, as far as possible. He has published widely and made presentations on information related topics throughout the world. He is also co-editor with Alan Gilchrist of Information architecture, designing information environments for purpose, published in 2004. He has worked as a consultant for the EU, the UN the Arab League and for other public and private organisations.

Eric Reiss
Born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in St. Louis and Chicago, Eric holds degrees in Political Science and Performing Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1976, he moved to Denmark to accept a position as a stage director at the Danish Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark. Eric published his first menu-based program for the Apple II back in 1979 and has been a full-time writer and business strategist since 1984 and now heads E-Reiss & Associates in Copenhagen, one of Scandinavia�s leading user-experience consultancies. In November, 2000, his book, Practical Information Architecture was published by Addison-Wesley, one of the first books devoted specifically to this important subject. Eric currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Information Architecture Institute.

Luca Rosati
Luca is a freelance Information Architect and a researcher in Humanistic Informatics (i.e. Information Architecture and Human Computer Interaction) at Universit� per Stranieri di Perugia (University for Foreigners of Perugia, http://www.unistrapg.it/), in Italy. Luca has a humanistic-scientific background, with a bachelor degree in Literature and Philosophy, followed by a PhD in General Linguistics (with a special interest in socio-linguistics and computational linguistics). He went on to obtain a Master�s degree in Multimedial Communication and Technology at Politecnico di Torino (Turin Polytechnic), where he specialised in Ergonomics, Library and Information Science, Information Architecture. From 1999 to 2004, he worked for the Franco Bernab� Group (now Rothschild Italy, http://www.bernabe.it/ as an Information architect and accessibility expert. In 2003, he founded, with Laura Caprio and Beatrice Ghiglione, Architecta, the first Italian IA mailing list and started Trovabile (http://trovabile.org), an IA magazine. A selection of his publications are available at http://lucarosati.it/chi/pubblicazioni.

Patrick Shine
Patrick Shine is a consultant on information architecture and business strategy. He has 10 years experience developing interactive interfaces in the UK, the US, and China, working across a wide range of industries. Major companies he has consulted for include the BBC, the Financial Times, BT, and Vodafone. His primary interest is in user experience, but trying to optimise this regularly leads him into advising on technology, corporate organisation and culture, and business practices. He has an MSEE from Georgia Tech, an MA from Harvard in Chinese Studies specialising in Anthropology, and previous careers in programming and journalism. His internet career has included experience in almost every area of web development ranging from programming to interface development, and product development to business strategy.

Katharine Stynes
Kath Stynes is an information architect and business analyst. She specialises in structuring complex information and defining functional requirements for websites that meet their audiences' needs. She also considers the marketing, operational and other business issues relevant to making any site a success. Kath has a first degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Cognitive Science and has worked for an online stockbroker (comdirect) and several academic institutions. As a contractor, Kath has been involved in projects for organisations including BBC, BT, the UK Home Office, ABN AMRO, and Castrol.

Thomas Vander Wal
Thomas has a broad background in information management, which encompasses information architecture, interaction design, and information design. Thomas has spoken on information architecture, interaction design, accessibility, web standards, and user-centered design at BayCHI, IA Summit, STC, SXSW, Design Engaged, WebVisions, Social Software in Academia Workshop, and various other workshops. He has been interviewed and quoted in Business Week, The Guardian, The Sunday Observer, MIT Technology Review, Wired News, and Wired Magazine among others. Thomas was part of the team that founded Boxes and Arrows, Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (now called the Information Architecture Institute), and is currently on the Steering Committee for the Web Standards Project.