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.

As information professionals, we work with the “stuff” of information in our everyday work. We search for information, we spend time analyzing and synthesizing it, and we carefully create and structure it. Whether you elicit information from users and stakeholders, explore large data sets, design ‘journeys’ or interfaces, or create information architectures, understanding the information you are using and creating as information can help you do your work better.

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Kat King, Business Intelligence Analyst at the University of Michigan Library, recently spoke at UX New Zealand, the leading UX and IA conference in New Zealand hosted by Optimal Workshop, about understanding exactly what information is, and where it is, in our work.

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In her talk, Kat uses simple examples to teach you to “see” the information around you and understand what makes something “information” in the context of working as a human to accomplish something.

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Kat King bio 🎤

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Kat King is an Information Architect interested in language, meaning, and the things we make. She currently works as a Business Intelligence Analyst for the University of Michigan Library.

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Contact Details:

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Email: Katalogofchaos@gmail.com

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Where is the information? 📍🗺️

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Information theory can be dense and jargon-filled, and discussions in academic texts can feel divorced from the practice of actually working with information. We’re all told that information architecture is much more than website navigation. So, what is it? IA has a reputation for being difficult to understand, and in her talk, Kat attempts to help us understand what it is, where the information is, and what is it that we’re doing when we use IA methods.

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Kat defines IA as “the practice of ensuring ontological alignment”. ‘Ontological’ relates to concepts, categories, properties, and relationships. ‘Alignment’ means arrangements into appropriate relative positions. Therefore, information architecture is “the practice of ensuring concepts, categories and their properties and relationships are arranged into appropriate relative positions.”

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To align information then, you need to begin by sorting it into concepts and categories, which is difficult because information can sometimes be “slippery and abstract”. Kat argues this is the real reason that IA is sometimes hard to wrap our heads around. So, getting to the heart of the question, what is information? 

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Kat defines information as “a patterned relationship between differences that reduces uncertainty”. The key word here is ‘differences’. The trick to understanding and taming information is to identify what is different about sets of information. The next trick is to identify consistencies between these differences.

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This can be a little confusing, so Kat uses the example of picking fruit. We tend to use color (the difference) to identify when fruit is ripe and sweet. We know for a fact that, at some point, the fruit will be at its sweetest and, while there is a scientific way of identifying this point, we have to use the information we have at our disposal instead i.e. the colour of the fruit. The skin of the fruit in this example is like an interface - allowing a flow of information from the fruit’s ripening process to our eyes.

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Information categories 🧺🧺🧺

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The relationship between the information described in the fruit example can be split into two categories. “Information 1” is a factual, objective description of when the fruit is ripe (i.e. the science of why the fruit is the color that it is right now), whereas our subjective observation, based on color, is “Information 2”.

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• Information 1: Matter and energy, and their properties and interactions i.e. the laws of physics and universal truth or rules

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Information 1 poses challenges for us because we have a narrow range of perception, attention, and aggregation, which means we, as humans, can’t possibly understand the laws of nature just by observing. We have evolved to be simple, efficient observers of what is important to us. In other words, we don’t need to understand everything in order to get things right. We see patterns and generalize. Going back to the fruit example – we only need to know the color of ripe fruit, not the exact chemistry of why it is ripe.

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• Information 2: This is Information 1 that is given meaning by humans. This is done via processing semantic information, or “differences and structures that create meaning for people”.

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We use semantic information by processing concepts, patterns, categories, mental models, and even language as inputs to form our understanding. As social animals, we tend to reinforce general ‘truths’ about things because we’re constantly cooperating using shared information. General ‘truths’ are good enough.

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Kat uses the following interaction to demonstrate the interplay of different information.

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• Person 1: If the raspberries look good, can you get some for me?
• Person 2: How can tell is they’re good?
• Person 1: Get the ones that are the most red.

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In this interaction, the different pieces of information can be broken down by category:

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• Semantic information = Words and concepts
• Information 1 = Meaningful signs
• Information 2 = Perceptible differences
• Real life information = Raspberries

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Using our ability to communicate and understand concepts (words “red”, “good”, and “raspberries”) helps us to understand Information 2 (processing the words and concepts to understand that a red berry is good”), which aligns with Information 1 (the evolutionary science and ongoing consistency of red/ripe berries being sweet) that helps us decide when processing all of this information.

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So, now that we understand a little more about information, how does this influence our roles as designers?

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Why it matters 👀

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Thanks to our individual lived experiences, people have many different inputs/concepts about things. However, Kat points out that we’re pretty good at navigating these different concepts/inputs.

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Take conversations, for example. Conversations are our way of getting a “live” alignment of information. If we’re not on the same page we can ask each other questions to ensure we’re communicating semantic information accurately. 

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When we start to think about technology and digital products, the interfaces that we design and code become the information that is being transmitted, rather than words in a conversation. The design and presentation become semantic information structures, helping someone to understand the information we’re putting forward. This highlights the importance of aligning the interface (structure and semantic information) and the users' ontology (concepts and categories). For the interface to work, IA practitioners and designers need to know what most people understand to be true when they interact with information, concepts, and categories. 

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We need to find some sort of stability that means that most users can understand what they need to do to achieve a goal or make a decision. To do this, we need to find common ground between the semantic information (that might vary between users) so that users can have successful Information 2 style interactions (i.e. absorbing and understanding the concepts presented by the interface).

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To wrap up, let’s remind ourselves that information architecture is “the practice of ensuring concepts, categories and their properties and relations are arranged into appropriate and relevant positions”. As IA practitioners and designers, it’s our job to ensure that concepts and categories are arranged in structures that can be understood by the nuance of shared human understanding and semantic information – not just in some physical diagram.

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We need to present stable, local structures that help to reduce uncertainty at the moment of interaction. If we don’t, the information flow breaks and we aren’t reducing uncertainty; instead, we create confusion and disappointing user interactions with our digital products. Making sure we present information correctly is important (and difficult!) for the success of our products – and for better or worse, it’s the work of information architecture! 

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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.