How to develop an information architecture
Developing an IA is an extremely complex and involved process. The key to a successful IA is understanding your users, the information they seek, and the ways in which they go about finding it. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why the IAs of so many websites and even physical places end up reflecting internal organizational thinking instead of that of the users.
But how do organizations fall into this trap in the first place? In most cases, it’s simply because there’s little effort made to go out and actually learn from users.
Here are some of the top IA mistakes:
- Poor content groupings – Placing content into silos that make sense to people within the organization, but not to users. Also, assuming that certain pieces of content should only live in one place.
- Missing content – Certain categories don’t contain expected landing pages, leaving users struggling to find content they’re looking for.
- Mismanaged subsites – Poorly integrating subsites or microsites into a primary website.
- Incorrectly using search – One of the biggest IA mistakes is thinking that search will address navigation shortcomings.
This quote by Paul Boag will likely sound familiar to many who have been through the process of a website redesign: “So many things can go wrong when creating a site’s information architecture. Often it turns into a political battleground between rival departments each seeking to have their area of responsibility highlighted at the highest level of the site”.
So how do you actually develop an IA? Here’s a very high-level overview of the steps involved:
- Identify your top tasks – What do your users want to know? Whether it’s through internal conversations with stakeholders, website analytics or speaking with users, find out what your users want to know and the tasks they’re trying to complete when using your website or app.
- Take stock of your content – There’s an intrinsic link between IA and content. Think of it this way: your IA is like the branches of a tree, with your content being the leaves. This means that before you even begin the scope the task of redesigning your IA, you need to take stock of all of your content. Commonly, this is done through a content audit.
- Group and label your content – Figure out how the content on your should be grouped and labeled. To ensure sure your system makes sense to your users, consider using card sorting, a user testing technique that helps you find out how people group information into different categories.
- Work out your navigation – With your content grouped into categories that make sense, it’s time to figure out how users will get to it. This is where a sitemap comes into play. A sitemap is basically a diagram which shows you all of your content labels and groups, and can be used to inform your navigation design.
One of the golden rules with IA development is that you should test early – and often. As we mentioned above, card sorting in the first stages of your IA project will help you keep the focus on your users when working out your content groupings. You can then use another user testing technique, tree testing, to understand how people navigate through your website structure before you ever start designing or writing code.
