Navigating the Complexities of Information Architecture vs Data Architecture
Thanks to an ever-growing digital world, businesses are spoiled for information and data. The more complex the business, the more information there is and the more complicated the business requirements are. But where there are challenges, there is opportunity. That’s where information architecture and data architecture come in.
Information and data architecture both seek to make sense of the plethora of information a business handles. However, the two have different roles to play in the way businesses use, move, maintain, and present data - both to internal and external stakeholders. So what are they and why should businesses take note?
Defining Information Architecture 🗺️
Information architecture is the structure used to organize and label content on websites, mobile applications and other digital environments. Its primary purpose is to enhance user experience by ensuring information is structured in an accessible, usable and relevant way.
Information architecture seeks to understand user needs and goals by analyzing both existing and required information, then building an information framework in a logical and user-friendly way. It deals with three main components:
Labels: How information is represented
Navigation: How users make their way through the information
Search: How users look for information
Whilst this information sits in the background, it’s the layer upon which you build the design of your digital products.
Information architects bring data from file systems and databases to life by building meaningful narratives and stories. Outputs can include site-mapping, information architecture diagrams and content inventories. These outputs are supported by user research techniques such as card sorting, tree testing, user surveys and first-click testing.
Defining Data Architecture 💻
Data architecture bridges the gap between business needs, goals, and system requirements related to data handling. It sets out a framework for managing data assets, the flow of data and the maintenance of data systems. As such, it has a slightly more macro view than information architecture and concerns itself with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain.
Where information architecture centers around the end-user interaction, data architecture centers around practical handling and operation of data processes i.e. collection through to transformation, distribution, and consumption. Because of this, data architecture must take into account the businesses ability to scale operations, integrate with third party systems, support real-time data processes and the reduction of operating costs. Modern data architecture may point to artificial intelligence to tackle some of these challenges.
The Importance of Enterprise Architects in Information and Data Architecture 🏗
Enterprise architects are big-picture people. Data architecture and information architecture both fall within their remit, and they often oversee other data management job specialities within an IT department.
As a leader (and often, visionary) within a business, enterprise architects shoulder the responsibility of ‘mission critical’ projects. As a result, they tend to have several years experience with IT systems, backed by a bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT management, data science or similar. Many will hold a master’s degree and specialty certifications.
The role involves collaborating with senior business leaders, solution-delivery teams and external stakeholders, and requires creative problem solving and excellent communication skills. Therefore, enterprise architects very much steer the ship when it comes to information and data architecture. Combining high-level business strategy with knowledge of ‘the nuts and bolts’ of IT data systems and processes, they command an annual salary in New Zealand between $150,000 and $200,000 per annum..
Continuous improvement within any business that has substantial IT infrastructure calls for serious investment in enterprise architecture.
Designing and Implementing an Effective Information and Data Architecture 𝞹📈🧠📚
Once overarching business goals are aligned with the scope of data and system requirements, information and data architecture design (or redesign) can begin.
Crucial to the design and implementation process is developing an architecture framework. This is a set of guidelines that lays out principles, practices, tools and approaches required to complete the design. It supports system design decisions, assigns key tasks and provides project guidance throughout the design process. The framework essentially aims to unite disparate teams and maintain business and IT alignment.
The choice of architecture design is also critical. It should consider scalability, performance, maintainability and adaptability to emerging technology. Which is why cloud platforms feature so heavily in modern data architecture. Cloud architects will navigate the architecture design and technical requirements of cloud-based delivery models, which offer the solution to those scalability and adaptability challenges. They are responsible for bridging the gaps between complex business problems and solutions in the cloud. Modern data architecture tends to involve some form of cloud delivery component.
Throughout implementation, data and information architects will work closely with designers and engineers until testable architecture is ready. User research and testing will be carried out, and a feedback loop will commence until requirements are met. Users, as always, should be at the center of your digital product.
Summing Up the Complexities of Information and Data Architecture 🧮
Whilst the difference between information and data architecture can appear nuanced on the surface, they hold unique roles when delivering a cohesive, user-friendly digital product.
Think of a sliding scale where business operations sit at one end, and users sit at the other. Data architecture addresses challenges closer to the business: aligning business requirements and goals with how data flows through the system. On the other hand, information architecture addresses the challenges related to how this data is organized and interpreted for the end user.
At the end of the day, both information and data architecture need to work in harmony to satisfy the user and the business.
Sitting inside any beautifully crafted and designed digital product, there must be a fully functional and considered information architecture.
As much as information architecture shouldn’t be developed in a vacuum. Neither should the design and look of digital products. In fact, a large proportion of the function of digital designers is devoted to supporting users locating content they need and driving them towards content that the product owners want them to find.
Incorporating visual markers to make sure that certain content is distinct from the rest or creating layers that demonstrate the diverse content on a product.
If you do not have quality content, it is impossible to design a quality digital product. It all comes back to creating a user experience that makes sense and is designed to make task completion simple. And this relates back to designing the product with the content planned for it in mind.
8 Principles of information architecture, according to Dan Brown 🏗️
As a designer, the more you know about information architecture, the better the products you design will meet your user requirements and deliver what they need. If you work with an information architect, even better. If you’re still learning about information architecture the 8 Principles according to Dan Brown is a great place to begin.
If you haven’t come across Dan Brown yet, you have more than likely come across his 8 principles. Dan Brown is one of the UX world's most prolific experts with a career that spans most areas of UX designs. He’s written 3 books on the subject and experience across a multitude of high profile projects. Aiding large organizations to make the most of their user experience.
The principle of objects: Content should be treated as a living, breathing thing. It has lifecycles, behaviors, and attributes.
The principle of choices: Less is more. Keep the number of choices to a minimum.
The principle of disclosure: Show a preview of information that will help users understand what kind of information is hidden if they dig deeper.
The principle of examples: Show examples of content when describing the content of the categories.
The principle of front doors: Assume that at least 50% of users will use a different entry point than the home page.
The principle of multiple classifications: Offer users several different classification schemes to browse the site’s content.
The principle of focused navigation: Keep navigation simple and never mix different things.
The principle of growth: Assume that the content on the website will grow. Make sure the website is scalable.
It’s highly likely that you’ve already used some, or all, of these IA principles in your designs. Don’t be shy about mastering them, or at the very least be familiar. They can only help you become a better user experience designer.
Wrap up 🌯
Mastering the 8 principles, according to IA expert Dan Brown will see you mastering the complex tasks of information architecture. Understanding IA is key to creating digital designs with a content structure that is functional, logical and just what your users need to navigate your product. Design without good IA doesn’t work as well, just as a content structure without a well designed interface will not engage users.
What is information architecture (IA) without its complementary elements? On this blog we’ve already discussed the information architecture elements of taxonomy and ontology, and now it’s time to take a look at choreography. While taxonomy refers to how information is grouped, classified and labeled and ontology refers to the meaning behind our words, choreography describes the rules for how all those parts should interact.
Choreography is essentially the nuts and bolts that bring organization, structure and meaning together to form one well-oiled machine that supports, enables and delights users on their path to task completion within a specific context.An often overlooked element of information architecture, nailing your choreography is essential to the delivery of a seamless user experience because it is present in everything your users will do on your website.
Understanding choreography and IA
Coming back to our house analogy from my taxonomy blog, choreography would be present throughout the entire house determining how everything works together. It’s in the positioning of the door handles and hinges to enable easy access and use of rooms and so you don’t swing an open door into a shower screen or into the knees of a toilet user (who should have locked the door anyway). Choreography appears in open plan living environments seamlessly flowing from one space to the next. The way that the laundry is usually a room that includes an external door allowing an easy workflow from storing the dirty clothes, to washing them to hanging them outside on the line to dry. These are all examples of choreography.
In the context of a website, choreography is present in a number of different website elements. These might include: the rules for how a menu might respond or behave under specific circumstances, the way the user interface adapts to suit different devices, the hierarchical relationship between content and much more.
Choreography examples
To help you understand how choreography might appear in a website IA context, I’ve scoured the internet and have found 3 interesting examples I’d like to share with you.
Mental Floss
Mental Floss is an online publication designed for curious minds — sounds awesome! But the thing I find most interesting is the choreography that is present in the surfacing behavior of the top navigation menu. There are two different ways to access its content: you can either click on the big orange menu button in the top right hand corner and you’ll get everything in one hit — including the footer links (see two images below) — or you can scroll down or up the page and it will automatically drop down and become sticky giving you just the level 1 IA headings and that sticky orange menu button (see third image below).
Mental Floss as it appears when I first open the home page.
When I click on the big orange button
Now look what happens when I scroll a bit.... Ta da!
If you go with the scrolling option, you’re not going to miss out because Mental Floss appears to have been designed to be explored — might have something to do with that curiosity thing! All the links that live under the big menu button are distributed throughout the long scrolling page, so when you’re exploring the content, you also get everything! If you get really stuck, that sticky orange menu button is always there to help. If I scroll I get one thing and if I click I get something else, but no matter how I choose to consume the content I get access to everything without having to think about it. This website’s choreography supports both exploratory and direct navigation styles and brings all the parts together.
IKEA US Inspiration page
Part blog, part catalogue, part how-to hub, the Inspiration page on IKEA’s US website is a fascinating IA example because it exists outside the patterns used on the rest of the website. It’s like an IA within an IA. While the rest of the website has a wide rigid structure typical of large IAs, the Inspiration page (also titled ‘IKEA Ideas’) is more organic and is organized by content tags and is navigated by filtering (see below).
The IKEA Ideas homepage and tag cloud.
The tag cloud-like thing displays the content tags in alphabetical order. Each piece can be assigned up to four tags and users can filter by clicking or just peruse the whole lot by scrolling. Upon clicking a content tag, the piece selection below is automatically updated to only include pieces with the selected tag.Choreography on this part of IKEA’s US website is present in the relationship and behavior of the content tags and how that affects the information on the page.
Do nothing for 2 minutes
Do nothing for 2 minutes has a completely flat IA and its choreography is present in the way it responds to user behavior and the way it presents visual and audio content. The website opens to a single page (see below image) showing an image of a beautiful sunset at the beach accompanied by the soothing sound of waves gently crashing and a group of seagulls fighting over a pickle someone tossed them from a McDonald’s cheeseburger (maybe that was me). It gives me a very clear instruction to “do nothing for 2 minutes” and presents a timer that immediately starts counting down.
A relaxing scene on the 'Do nothing for 2 minutes homepage'
In the centre of the screen in that sunlight created highlight are the the words “Just relax and listen to the waves. Don’t touch your mouse or keyboard.” It’s a bit hard to read and I didn’t instantly notice it but when I don’t follow its guidance, the timer resets and tells me to “try again”(see below image).
When I fail to do nothing, the timer resets
When I comply with its instructions, the clock ticks down and when there are just 40 seconds to go something magical happens — the wave sounds stop. It’s not jarring or surprising, in fact it actually felt like I dropped to a deeper state of relaxation. Like an experienced lead dance partner, this website’s choreography pushes and pulls the follower where it wants them to go. The rule here is: if I touch my mouse or keyboard, the clock resets, and if I follow the instructions, I get to access an additional layer of relaxation when the sound drops off. It forces me to take 2 whole minutes of out my day in a strict but supportive way.
When I reach the end of the 2 minutes, I’m congratulated and shown an advertisement for a book to help me further explore this technique. I usually hate seeing things like that but I don’t mind in this case because it doesn’t come across as pushy and it’s already given me something.
Refining the choreography of your IA
When you break it down, choreography is about behaviors and relationships between all the pieces of the IA. It’s about which parts go together, what they do and how that fits in with everything else. Think content pairings in a card sort and the hierarchical position of content within the IA’s tree structure — why do those cards go together and why does label Y appear directly before label X? These choices are deliberate; it’s not just a case of “Oh let’s just put them wherever,” or “I’m going to whack a certain label at the very top because my boss told me because that’s where he thinks it should go.” Choreography exists throughout your entire IA and like everything else, all refinements must be determined by user research.
When running a card sort, pay close attention to:
card pairings
cards that are consistently not paired
the hierarchy of cards within each group (card order)
the conversation between your participants (moderated card sorts only) for insights into the logic behind the pairings and hierarchical positioning
Cards that are paired — or not — as well as their hierarchical placement can not only provide insight into your users’ taxonomical expectations but can also help you identify relationships (or lack thereof) between content and elements. Say you were running a card sort on an intranet and two cards labeled ‘Annual Leave’ and ‘Public Holidays’ were consistently being grouped together under ‘Human Resources’. What’s their expected relationship and interaction beyond the subject matter connection? Does one appear before the other? Is one linked to the other one’s page? Or are they together on one page and if so how do they interact? (if at all). For moderated card sorts, listen closely to the conversation for insight into this and be sure to ask your participants about anything you’re not sure of.
If your IA is a bit further along in its development or you’d like to evaluate an existing IA, tree testing can help you understand the choreography that will best support your users.
Keep an eye on:
the location of the first click
the pathways followed
The pathways followed by participants in a tree test will help you determine the right sequence of interactions required by a user to reach their goal — the ultimate step by step flow to task completion. What order do the labels need to be in? And what lives underneath them? And again, in what order?Think of it like a path through the woods to a lake. Your IA’s choreography should enable your users to be seamlessly guided along a smooth pathway made of big stone steps. They shouldn’t be running into trees or bushwhacking to create their own pathways.
When looking at a tree test, consider how many of your participants did not follow the pathway/s you defined as correct. Where did they go instead? What does the right path look like to your users? Also look at where the all important first click landed. If users start out on the correct first click, they are almost 3 times as likely to reach their goal. If your participants started out on a different first click, you’ll need to explore why that is. It could indicate ambiguity in the labels, it could also be a sign of an expectations mismatch, a hierarchical issue or it could be something else entirely! The tree test will help you identify where the issues are, but you’ll need to go and have a conversation with your users to understand why it’s happening.
Unless more than say 80% of your participants achieved direct success in reaching their goal (meaning they never strayed from the big stone path that you defined) you’ll need to check these things anyway to resolve findability and usability issues. Choreography related insights are an extra thing you can pull from what you’re already doing. And of course always remember that any choreography related data has to be considered in conjunction with whether or not the labels are even correct. Choreography is just one piece of the puzzle; it sets the rules for how all the parts interact and isn’t going to be much help if the parts aren’t even right in the first place!
Choreography in information architecture might be one of the most overlooked elements but it’s not hard to give it the time and consideration it deserves and your users will thank you for it!
When I first heard the word ‘taxonomy’, I had no idea what it meant. I remember enthusiastically nodding my head at my boss about how awesome it is while frantically Googling it under the table. We’ve all been there early on in our careers. Although, what I found left me feeling even more confused — something about classifying animals? Whether you’re as confused as I was all those years ago or just in need of a refresher, this quick guide to all things taxonomy will sort you out.
What is a taxonomy in information architecture?
In information architecture, taxonomy refers to how information is grouped, classified and labeled within a shared information environment. The overarching structure of that shared information environment is the information architecture (IA) and we find our way around it using the navigation. Think of an IA as a house. The taxonomy determines which pieces of furniture belong in each room and we navigate around the house via doorways and hallways. It all fits together to create one shared environment.
For a website architecture example, think of an online shoe store. The shoes might be organized and labelled by color, size, style, season or collection — that’s the taxonomy. The overall picture of where those groups of shoes live is the IA and in our pursuit of new shoes, we might navigate that structure via a navigation bar at the top of the page. In the amazing Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names visualization below, we can see how the information is categorized, connected and labeled through the lines and the colors. There’s no structure or hierarchy to it yet; that would be the next step in the process to build the IA.
There are so many different ways to carve information up into a taxonomy and the key drivers for determining that are your content and, of course, your users. Your taxonomy needs to make sense to your users.You may be starting from scratch with a new website or you may have inherited a taxonomy that for whatever reason just isn’t fit for purpose. The first step when creating an initial taxonomy is to do a comprehensive audit of your content. Ask yourself, is your content relevant? Is it up-to-date? Is it all necessary? Are there opportunities to delete or condense content? Once you have your content sorted, you’re ready to move on to the next step of running a card sort with users.Running a card sort early in your taxonomy creation process will allow you to build it up from an evidence based foundation. There’s no point guessing then testing and potentially going back to square one, when you can co-create with your users and then test that informed approach to validate and further evolve your thinking.When you’re designing your card sort, you’ll need to decide if you’re going to do an open, closed or hybrid sort. Here’s a very high level look at what each type involves:
Open: participants sort cards into groups and name their own categories
Closed: participants sort cards into categories determined by you
Hybrid: participants sort cards into categories determined by you AND they can also make up their own.
This early in the taxonomy creation process, it’s best to start out with an open card sort. Not only will this tell you how your users expect your content to be grouped, but will also provide insight into the language and labels that they would expect that content to be associated with. You never know, an open card sort may even surface something you hadn’t considered. At this stage of the process, it’s important to be open to ideas and new possibilities and an open card sort will do just that.Once you’ve settled on the type of card sort you’ll be running, you’ll need to test which can be done through a tool such as Optimal Workshop’s OptimalSort. OptimalSort enables you to run unmoderated card sorts remotely (or print out cards for a moderated/in-person card sort!). After your participants have completed your card sort, you can access the benefits of OptimalSort’s powerful result analysis functions.
After you’ve run your initial open card sort with users, you should have everything you need to create the first iteration of your taxonomy. Consider everything you learned during the card sort and cross reference that with your business goals and any tech constraints you might be facing. Don’t stress too much about nailing it this time around — remember this is the first iteration and as you test more and learn more, you can make changes. Build out your taxonomy in Post-it notes with a team and then whack it into a spreadsheet to make future testing and iteration activities easier.
How to test a taxonomy
Now that you have the first iteration of your taxonomy, it’s time to have a go at structuring those groups into an IA and running a tree test. A tree test works like a card sort but in reverse — it allows you to test your thinking by working backwards. Optimal Workshop’s Treejack is an online tree testing tool that helps you assess the findability of your content without any visual design elements. All you need are clear objectives for what you’d like to learn more about and a spreadsheet version of your draft IA (told you it would come in handy! ).
Another way to test your taxonomy thinking is to run another card sort. However this time, a hybrid or a closed card sort might be more suitable. A closed card sort would be useful if you’ve got evidence to suggest that your group labels are making sense to users but you’re not 100% sure what belongs in each group. A hybrid sort will let you go one step further and tell you if your content does in fact fit within those labels and if not you’ll also pick up some new ideas to iterate your taxonomy further.
Developing a taxonomy is like any other design process. Bring users into your process as early as you can and never stop iterating, improving and learning.Oh, and about those animals — I wasn’t entirely wrong. The way we classify animals (e.g., vertebrates and invertebrates) is a taxonomy. There are taxonomies everywhere and they’re not all digital. From libraries to supermarkets, we are immersed in taxonomies. It's the role of information architects to determine how these taxonomies are presented to us and how we navigate through them — the possibilities are truly endless!
Further reading
"What is information architecture" — a guide we created to help people learn more about information architecture, including stuff for beginners and those who are more advanced.
"An introduction to taxonomies" — an article from UXBooth's Sarah Khan that details what taxonomies are, taxonomy displays and more.
