Why information architecture is the foundation of UX

The term ‘usability’ captures sentiments of how usable, useful, enjoyable, and intuitive a website or app is perceived by users. By its very nature, usability is somewhat subjective. But what we’re really looking for when we talk about usability is how well a website can be used to achieve a specific task or goal. Using this definition we can analyze usability metrics (standard units of measurement) to understand how well user experience design is performing.

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Usability metrics provide helpful insights before and after any digital product is launched. They help us form a deeper understanding of how we can design with the user front of mind. This user-centered design approach is considered the best-practice in building effective information architecture and user experiences that help websites, apps, and software meet and exceed users' needs.

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In this article, we’ll highlight key usability metrics, how to measure and understand them, and how you can apply them to improve user experience.

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Understanding Usability Metrics

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Usability metrics aim to understand three core elements of usability, namely: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. A variety of research techniques offer designers an avenue for quantifying usability. Quantifying usability is key because we want to measure and understand it objectively, rather than making assumptions.

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Types of Usability Metrics
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There are a few key metrics that we can measure directly if we’re looking to quantify effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Here are four common examples:

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• Success rate: Also known as ‘completion rate’, success rate is the percentage of users who were able to successfully complete the tasks.
• Time-based efficiency: Also known as ‘time on task’, time-based efficiency measures how much time a user needs to complete a certain task.
• Number of errors: Sounds like what it is! It measures the average number of times where an error occurred per user when performing a given task.
• Post-task satisfaction: Measures a user's general impression or satisfaction after completing (or not completing) a given task.

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How to Collect Usability Metrics

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Usability metrics are outputs from research techniques deployed when conducting usability testing. Usability testing in web design, for example, involves assessing how a user interacts with the website by observing (and listening to) users completing defined tasks, such as purchasing a product or signing up for newsletters.

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Conducting usability testing and collecting usability metrics usually involves:

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• Defining a set of tasks that you want to test
• Recruitment of test participants
• Observing participants (remotely or in-person)
• Recording detailed observations
• Follow-up satisfaction survey or questionnaire

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Tools such Reframer are helpful in conducting usability tests remotely, and they enable live collaboration of multiple team members. It is extremely handy when trying to record and organize those insightful observations! Using paper prototypes is an inexpensive way to test usability early in the design process.

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The Importance of Usability Metrics in User-Centered Design

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User-centered design challenges designers to put user needs first. This means in order to deploy user-centered design, you need to understand your user. This is where usability testing and metrics add value to website and app performance; they provide direct, objective insight into user behavior, needs, and frustrations. If your user isn’t getting what they want or expect, they’ll simply leave and look elsewhere.

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Usability metrics identify which parts of your design aren’t hitting the mark. Recognizing where users might be having trouble completing certain actions, or where users are regularly making errors, are vital insights when implementing user-centered design. In short, user-centered design relies on data-driven user insight.

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But why hark on about usability metrics and user-centered design? Because at the heart of most successful businesses is a well-solved user problem. Take Spotify, for example, which solved the problem of dodgy, pirated digital files being so unreliable. People liked access to free digital music, but they had to battle viruses and fake files to get it. With Spotify, for a small monthly fee, or the cost of listening to a few ads, users have the best of both worlds. The same principle applies to user experience - identify recurring problems, then solve them.

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Best Practices for Using Usability Metrics

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Usability metrics should be analyzed by design teams of every size. However, there are some things to bear in mind when using usability metrics to inform design decisions:

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• Defining success: Usability metrics are only valuable if they are being measured against clearly defined benchmarks. Many tasks and processes are unique to each business, so use appropriate comparisons and targets; usually in the form of an ‘optimized’ user (a user with high efficiency).
• Real user metrics: Be sure to test with participants that represent your final user base. For example, there’s little point in testing your team, who will likely be intimately aware of your business structure, terminology, and internal workflows.
• Test early: Usability testing and subsequent usability metrics provide the most impact early on in the design process. This usually means testing an early prototype or even a paper prototype. Early testing helps to avoid any significant, unforeseen challenges that could be difficult to rewind in your information architecture.
• Regular testing: Usability metrics can change over time as user behavior and familiarity with digital products evolve. You should also test and analyze the usability of new feature releases on your website or app.

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Remember, data analysis is only as good as the data itself. Give yourself the best chance of designing exceptional user experiences by collecting, researching, and analyzing meaningful and accurate usability metrics.

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Conclusion

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Usability metrics are a guiding light when it comes to user experience. As the old saying goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. By including usability metrics in your design process, you invite direct user feedback into your product. This is ideal because we want to leave any assumptions or guesswork about user experience at the door.

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User-centered design inherently relies on constant user research. Usability metrics such as success rate, time-based efficiency, number of errors, and post-task satisfaction will highlight potential shortcomings in your design. Subsequently, they identify where improvements can be made, AND they lay down a benchmark to check whether any resulting updates addressed the issues.

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Ready to start collecting and analyzing usability metrics? Check out our guide to planning and running effective usability tests to get a head start!

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.

Ever wondered what the relationship is between information architecture (IA) and UX? Simply put, IA is the foundation of UX. We outline why.

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What is Information Architecture? 🛠️

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According to Abby Covert, a leader in the field of information architecture, IA is ‘the way we arrange the parts to make sense of the whole.’ This can relate to a website, a retail store or an app. And you could even consider the way a library is sorted to be information architecture. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on digital products (apps or websites).

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Well-organized information architecture is fundamentally important to the success of your product. As a designer, knowing the content you are delivering and how, is fundamental to creating a UX that performs. Working with the needs of the organization and meeting the requirements of the users in a meaningful and delightful way. Organizing and structuring the information so that navigating, searching, and understanding your product is seamless is ultimately what UX design is all about. Arranging the parts to make sense of the whole, you could say.

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While design is about creating visual pointers for users to find their way, information architecture can be broken down into 3 main areas to consider when building a great user experience:

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• Navigation: How people make their way through information 
• Labels: How information is named and represented.
• Search: How people will look for information (keywords, categories)

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When put like this it does seem pretty straightforward. Maybe even simple? But these tasks need to be straightforward for your users. Putting thought, time, and research at the front of your design and build can increase your chances of delivering an intuitive product. In fact, at any point in your product’s life cycle, it’s worth testing and reviewing these 3 areas.  

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Key things to consider to build an effective IA for UX 🏗

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Developing a well-thought-out and researched information architecture for your product could be considered a foundation step to creating a great UX product. To help you on your way, here are 6 key things to consider when building effective information architecture for a great user experience. 

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1. Define the goals of your organization: Before starting your IA plan, uncover what is the purpose of your product and how this will align with the goals of your stakeholders.
2. Figure out your user’s goals: Who do you want to use your product? Create scenarios, discuss with probable users and find out what they’ll use your product for and how they’ll use it.  
3. Study your competitors: Take note of websites, apps and other digital products that are similar to yours and look at their information architecture from a UX point of view. How does the design work with the IA. Is it simple to navigate? Easy to find what to do next?  Look at how key information is designed and displayed.
4. Draw a site map: Once the IA is planned and developed and the content is ready, it’s time to figure out how users are going to access all of your information. Spend time planning navigation that is not too complex that will help users to browse your product easily. 
5. Cross browser testing: Your information architecture behavior may vary from one browser so it’s worth doing some cross-browser compatibility testing. It would be very disappointing to work so hard to get the best UX with your product, only to be let down because of browser variances.
6. Usability testing: End users are the perfect people to let you know how your product is performing. Set up a testing/staging environment and test on external users. Observing your participants while they move their way through your product uninterrupted and listening to their opinions can shed light on the successes (and failures) in a very insightful way. 

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Wrap Up 🌯

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Information architecture is the foundation of designing a great product that meets (or even exceeds) your users’ needs, wants, and desires. By balancing an organization’s needs with insight into what users actually want, you’re well equipped to design an information architecture  that helps build a product that delivers a positive user experience. Research, test, research, and test again should be the mantra throughout the development, design, and implementation of your product and beyond.