Why information architecture is important for designers

There is an enormous amount of information on the internet. Every page you load is crammed with it. With so much information around, it’s incredibly important to remember that for human minds to be able to actually process and make sense of it, considered, strategic, ordered information architecture is needed.

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Information architecture is everywhere digitally, but where does it actually live? IA sits in behind all of the digital interfaces we humans use (and even out in the real world). It ideally has been considered, researched, and implemented with humans in mind, though as we all know, this isn’t always the case.  

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Information architecture always has a role to play, and here we’ll focus on 4 key digital spaces where information architecture is most prominent, and likely most familiar.

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1. Websites
2. Apps
3. Company intranet
4. Social media software

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To find out more about putting information architecture into action check out our blog.

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1. Websites 🌐

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Information architecture for websites can often be confused with navigation. While site navigation is super important, (think of it as the ‘skin’ that sits above the information), that’s only part of the story. Great website architecture considers and organizes user requirements, organizing the content and structure of the website with labels, search and navigation that simply makes sense and is easy to use. Done well, it will  feel simple and straightforward, guiding users through smoothly.

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Hubspot has a great article on IA for websites and how they can be structured. From a complex library system, to travel booking systems. Each has its own needs and can be quite deep in layers of information. The trick is to create a website structure, based on user needs, that makes sense of the piles of information and a simple navigation that sits above, making the journey to task completion as quick as possible. Working together they make any user experience feel quick, simple, and intuitive! 

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2. Apps 📱

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An organization's app acts as the first point of contact. It needs to be super simple, clean, and quick to interact with. A well thought out, thorough, researched, and organized information architecture plays a big part in this.

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Information architecture for mobile use has a different set of rules than websites. The key consideration here is around the ease of use across a smaller screen. Navigation that makes sense for a laptop or desktop computer can be clunky in a mobile app.

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An app's interface needs to have fewer options, and fewer clicks to complete the task. Researching and designing an app’s IA with just the right amount of information is key. Some retail apps are simplified websites, whereas other apps exist on their own merits, with no need for a website.

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Bringing it back to the humans that will interact with the app is key to creating a product that delivers on user requirements and increases interaction. 

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3. Intranet 🖥

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An organizational intranet is possibly less of a priority than a website or an app but is vitally important to the success of an organization. And in these times of remote or hybrid working, intranets have proven to be more valuable than ever. An intranet is more than where to stick newsletters for staff, it is an interface that can make or break the productivity or even the wellbeing of an organization. 

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Access to files, information, messaging platforms, and corporate requirements wherever and whenever people are working is more important than ever.  A well researched and designed information architecture can build an intranet that meets users’ requirements, increase communication and interaction and ultimately boost productivity. 

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Conducting UX research with staff on what they need to access, when, and how will help inform the intranet IA far more intuitively. The information available (and needed) can be huge, keeping it simple and human focused is key.

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Have you ever thought about how poor internal information architecture might be hurting your business?

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4. Social media 🤳

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Social media software is complex in terms of ecosystem and display of information. Each social media platform has developed over time, think back to Facebook and how it looked when it initially launched. And through the uptake of users, gathering of information over time, and continual research and testing, it has evolved into what we see today. And will continue to evolve with users’ needs.

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Every user has a different experience based on the individuals, groups, organizations and even retailers that they choose to interact with (or haven’t chosen via advertising). The piles of information that sit behind and are brought to the interface for an individual through their choice, associations, labels, tags, interests, age, etc will present them with a unique feed. 

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The interface of a social media platform needs to be considered, tested, tested again, and occasionally tested or changed once launched as the interaction of users is vitally important.

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The information architecture sitting behind is huge in order to enable the agility to pull the right information forward in a dynamic and coherent way. Continuously learning, testing and requesting interaction from users through options to ‘hide’ posts that aren’t appropriate or respond to direct queries about what they do and don’t want to see are just some instances of continuous user research.

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Social media continues to be a sophisticated information architecture that is constantly updating and changing with user needs.

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Wrap Up 🫔

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Information architecture lives wherever there is information needing to be found by humans. Successful information architecture is sorted, organized and labeled in a way that is simple, intuitive, and considered. Making interaction and life simple, which in a world where there are an increasing number of websites, apps, and tools to choose from – intuitive information architecture has never been more important for your business and your customers.

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.

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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.

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Understanding choreography and IA

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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.

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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.

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Choreography examples

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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.

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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).

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Mental Floss as it appears when I first open the home page.

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When I click on the big orange button

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Now look what happens when I scroll a bit.... Ta da!

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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.

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IKEA US Inspiration page

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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).

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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.

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Do nothing for 2 minutes

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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Refining the choreography of your IA

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Keep an eye on:

• the location of the first click
• the pathways followed

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!

In-person moderated user testing is a valuable part of any research project. Meaning you can see first-hand how your users interact with your prototypes and products. But in-person isn’t always a viable option. What to do if your project needs user testing but it’s just not possible to get in front of your users personally? 

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Let’s talk unmoderated user testing. This approach sidesteps the need to meet your participants face-to-face as it’s done entirely remotely, over the internet. By it’s very nature there are also considerable benefits to unmoderated user testing.

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What is unmoderated user testing? 💻👀

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In the most basic sense, unmoderated user testing removes the ‘moderated’ part of the equation. Instead of having a facilitator guide participants through the test, participants complete the testing activity by themselves and in their own time. For the most part, everything else stays the same.

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The key differences are:

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• You can’t ask follow-up questions
• You can’t use low-fidelity prototypes
• You can’t support participants (beyond the initial instructions you send them).

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Is unmoderated user testing right for your research project?

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By nature, unmoderated user research does not include any direct interaction between the researcher and the study participants. This is really the biggest benefit and also the biggest drawback. 

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Benefits of unmoderated usability testing 👩🏻💻

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• Speed and turnaround  - As there is no need to schedule meetings with each participant, unmoderated testing is usually much faster to initiate and complete. Depending on the study, it may be possible to launch a study and receive results in just a few hours.

• Size of study (participant numbers) - Unmoderated user testing also allows you to collect feedback from dozens or even hundreds of users at the same time.

• Location (local and/or international) -Testing online removes reliance on participants being physically present for the testing which broadens the ability to make contact with participants within your country or across the globe. 

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If you’d like to know more about the benefits of unmoderated usability testing, take a look at our article five reasons you should consider unmoderated user testing.

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Limitations of unmoderated usability testing 🚧

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• Early-prototype testing is difficult without a moderator to explain and help participants recover from errors or limitations of the prototype.

• Participant behavior - Without a moderator, participants tend to be less engaged and behave less realistically in tasks that depend on imagination, decision-making, or emotional responses.

• Inability to ask follow-up questions - by not being in the testing with the participant, the facilitator can’t ask further questions to get a deeper understanding of the participant’s reasoning. As you can’t rely on human judgment through a moderator being in the room with the participants and the ability to adjust the test in the moment, unmoderated usability testing needs thorough up front planning.

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Because of these limitations unmoderated usability testing usually works best for evaluating live websites and apps or highly functional prototypes.  It’s great for testing activities that don’t require a lot of imagination or emotion from participants. Such as testing functionality or answering direct queries to do with your product.

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What’s involved when setting up unmoderated usability testing? 🤔💭

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1. Define testing goals

With any usability testing, it pays to define your goals before getting underway with setting up the software. What do you want to know from the participants? Goals vary from test to test. Understanding your goals upfront will help you to make the correct tool choice.

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2. Define your demographic

With a clear understanding of your goal, now it’s time to consider which participants are right for your study. Think about who they are, their demographic, and where they live. Are they new users or existing? Are they experts or novices?

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3. Selecting testing software

As unmoderated studies, are done remotely, the software used to faciliate the study plays a key role in ensuring you get useful results. Without a facilitator, the software must guide the participants through the session and record what happens. Take the time to test software and select one that is right for your study.

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4. Write your own tasks and questions

Think through your goals and what you want to achieve from the testing. Many of the unmoderated testing services include study templates with generic example tasks. Remember they are templates, and your tasks and questions should be specific to your particular study. Any task instructions guiding the participants should be clear and directive.

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5. Trial session

You’ve done all of the upfront work, now it’s time to test that it works, the software does what you expect and the instructions you have written can be followed. Doing a test run is crucial, especially with unmoderated usability testing, as there won’t be a facilitator in the testing to fix any problems.

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6. Recruit participants

Having defined your target audience and demographic, now is the time to recruit participants. Ensuring you have some control over the recruitment process is important, either through screening questions or recruiting your own. There are services that  recruit from a pool of willing participants. Thiscan be a great way to get a wide range of users.

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7. Analyze results

You are likely to accumulate a lot of data from your unmoderated testing. You’ll need a way to organize and analyze the data to derive insights that are valuable. Depending on the type of usability testing you do will vary the type of results. Quantitative testing gives data-driven results and direct answers. Whereas qualitative testing through audio or video recordings of participants’ actions or comments will need time to analyze and look at behavioral observations. 

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Wrap Up 🌯

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Unmoderated usability testing can be a good option for your study. It may not be right for all of your studies all of the time. While it can be quick to implement and often cheaper than moderated usability testing, it still requires time and planning to ensure you get the data insights you are looking for. Following a checklist can be a great way to ensure you approach your research methodically.

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