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12 Nov 2025: Everything Flows. And So Does WIAA.

Announcing the 2025 workshop about the future of our association.

By: Xander Roozen, Co-president, WIAA Reviewed by Grace Lau, Soyeon Lee, and Andrew Jung

November 12, 2025 — Five years ago, in June 2020, Grace Lau and Andrea Rosenbusch hosted Future State of World IA Day. A workshop that asked: How might World IA Day adapt for tomorrow?

We wanted to change the culture at World IA Day, to open up communication, and to make space for more voices in our community.

A lot has changed since then. What hasn’t changed is our drive to keep that conversation going, to ask whether our organization still serves the people it was created for.

That’s why on December 4, 2025, we’re hosting three workshops (for Asia, Europe, and the Americas) to once again ask: Are we still doing the right thing?

Before we look ahead, let’s take a moment to reflect on where we’ve come from.

Flows

Every design discipline — and information architecture is no exception — evolves. Change comes from technological shifts, from social transformations, and from our own personal growth as practitioners. Often, all three happen at once.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus called this panta rhei — “everything flows.”

Change is not a disruption; it’s the natural state of things. To stay alive, we must flow with it.

From World IA Day to WIAA

World IA Day began in 2012 as a one-day event across 14 cities, hosted by the Information Architecture Institute (IAI). Founded by Abby Covert and Dan Klyn, its goal was to advance the practice and education of information architecture — empowering new leaders and amplifying the discourse of a young and sometimes contentious discipline.

In 2019, World IA Day transitioned from the IAI to become its own organization.

Around the same time, we witnessed the decline of other professional associations — Society of Technical Communication (STC), Special Library Association (SLA), Interaction Design Association (IxDA) — all raising important questions about sustainability and relevance for member-based communities.

By 2021, the global board recognized that the “World IA Day” label had grown beyond the annual event. To clarify our purpose, we split it into two:

  • World IA Day — the annual celebration every March

  • WIAA, the World Information Architecture Association — the global community that makes it all happen

From coffee shops to university halls across continents, WIAA connects educators, students, practitioners, and enthusiasts who share a passion for improving how humans interact with information.

Today, WIAA is home to World IA Day, World IA Café, Taxonomy Talk, and the global network of volunteers who bring these to life.

States of Information Architecture

Over the past five years, we’ve been listening to the community through our State of Information Architecture studies (2020, 2021, and 2023). These studies offered a snapshot of a discipline in motion — growing, evolving, and adapting.

In 2020, we found a field that was thriving in practice, even if the job title “information architect” was fading. Many practitioners, especially early-career ones, worked under titles like UX designer or researcher, yet performed the essential IA work of structuring, organizing, and connecting information.

By 2021, the trend was clear: practitioners were wearing multiple hats. The boundaries between IA, UX, and strategy were blurring. The discipline’s influence was expanding — but its value was not always recognized inside organizations.

Then, in 2023, our third and most global study reached nearly a thousand respondents in six languages. The results showed a confident, mature, and diverse community. Awareness of IA’s value had grown, even though challenges like visibility and recognition remained.

The tone was notably optimistic: IA had found new forms of expression — in content design, product strategy, and systems thinking — while staying true to its mission of making the complex clear.

Across these studies, one constant stands out: the commitment of the community. Practitioners continue to share knowledge, mentor others, and advocate for IA’s relevance in an ever-changing digital world.

The Future State of WIAA

The idea of panta rhei reminds us that change isn’t a threat; it’s the condition of existence.

For an organization like WIAA — a living network of educators, students, and practitioners — listening is how we stay alive. We must keep asking:

Are we doing enough? And are we doing the right things?

Today, new forces are shaping our field: generative and agentic AI, evolving design roles, and shifting expectations for what it means to work with information.

Some in our community worry about being replaced by tools that promise to make humans redundant. But as WIAA member Andrew Jung recently asked, “How do we make the elephant work for us?”

That’s what this next workshop is about.

We invite you to join one of the three sessions on December 4th to share your perspective, your concerns, and your hopes for the next chapter of WIAA.

Our community has always been our compass, help us set the direction once again.

Tags: Future of WIAA

About World Information Architecture Association

The World Information Architecture Association is a global community of professionals dedicated to the advancement of information architecture, a discipline devoted to the understanding of how information is structured and understood. We are committed to promoting the understanding and practice of information architecture through education, research, and collaboration.

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