Information Architecture methodologies and deliverables
Information architecture is about helping people understand their surroundings and find what they’re looking for, in the real world as well as online. - Information Architecture Institute
justinmind.com
Information architecture is the creation of a structure for a website, application, or other project, that allows us to understand where we are as users, and where the information we want is in relation to our position. Information architecture results in the creation of site maps, hierarchies, categorizations, navigation, and metadata. When a content strategist begins separating content and dividing it into categories, she is practicing information architecture. When a designer sketches a top-level menu to help users understand where they are on a site, he is also practicing information architecture.
Questions we ask when doing information architecture:
What is the flow of users through our site?
How does the application help the user catalog their information?
How is that information presented back to the user?
Is that information helping the customer, and driving decisions?
In order to answer these questions, the information architect must focus on a number of things: the target audience, the technologies related to the website, and the data that will be presented through the website.
Library Science
Library science is the development of “knowledge-organization systems.” Library science is the study of how to categorize, catalog, and locate resources. It is used everywhere from traditional libraries to museums, science labs, and hospitals.
Two particularly valuable areas of library science for information architects are the art of cataloging and archival science. Cataloging is the process of creating metadata and assigning it to content in order to find it again in the future. Archival science is the process of building and curating archives filled with content, which may need to be edited or removed in the future in order to maintain the integrity of the archives. Both elements are directly translatable to user experience work, where our goal is to create an information architecture that has appropriate and usable metadata, with content available in a well-maintained archive.
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind works, and what mental processes take place there, so it’s not surprising that it influences both the interactions we design and the way we architect information.
However, information architecture draws on some different elements of cognitive psychology to influence how we structure information. Here are some of the key elements of cognitive psychology information architects most value:
Cognitive load is the amount of information that a person can process at any given time. Keeping in mind the user’s cognitive load helps prevent information architects from inadvertently overloading a user with too much information all at once.
Mental models are the assumptions people carry in their minds before interacting with a website or application. Information is easier to discover when it is in a place that matches the user’s mental model of where it should be.
Decision making may not sound like psychology, but it is! It’s a cognitive process that allows us to make a choice or select an option. Information architects can help us make decisions by providing certain information at key moments.
Architecture
Modern information architecture’s founder, Richard Saul Wurman, was not a web designer. He was a graphic designer and an architect, and it was from architecture that the field of IA was born. Wurman believed that information should be structured in the same way a building is structured: with a solid foundation. In a Wired Magazine article about Wurman, author Gary Wolf explained Wurman’s work as contributing to the idea that “the presentation of information can be more important than the information itself.”
IA Daily Tasks and Deliverables
An information architect will generally do a variety of activities as part of a UX project team. Common tasks include research, navigation creation, wireframing, labeling, and data modeling. Most of these tasks are valuable because of the process they follow, and some also result in deliverables, which we’ve referenced where relevant.
User Research and Analysis
Card Sorting Exercise
IAs take on myriad responsibilities for a project. To learn about the project’s audiences, IAs need access to the results of usability tests, card sorting exercises, stakeholder interviews, and user interviews, just to name a few. Often, an information architect will take an active role in facilitating interviews or card sorts, where they can see how a prospective user would categorize a variety of terms. Through this research, information architects are able to learn what people will do with an application, how people will use information provided by the application, and what mental models the users have when they use the application.
After conducting this research, an IA will begin to analyze the data. They may present the information to the rest of the team as a spreadsheet or a set of recommendations, or even as a set of user personas that will showcase who the typical user is, what their goals are, and how they might approach the application.
Navigation and Hierarchy Creation
The information architect is the key person responsible for determining how information across a website or application is displayed and accessed. As we’ve discussed, this is the key piece of information architecture. In order to create this hierarchy, the IA needs to consider what the user expects to see, as well as what content the organization wants to connect.
The deliverable that is most commonly associated with this work is a site map, which illustrates the hierarchy of content across a website.
Wireframing
For some information architects, wireframes are the best way to represent the connections between different screens and identify how the site will work from a practical perspective. Based on the information gathered during research and the decisions made during hierarchy creation, an IA will sketch out certain key screens in order to demonstrate how a user will interact with the information available.
This is particularly likely to happen when the designer is the one responsible for doing the information architecture work. Since designers tend to think visually, it makes sense for the designer to use wireframes to demonstrate the hierarchy of information. Wireframes are also a valuable deliverable to share with clients, and for developers and visual designers to reference as they build mockups, prototypes, and final products.
Labeling
While this may fall into a content strategist’s purview, it’s a decision that every IA should weigh in on, whether the IA is also the content strategist, or a designer. Labeling, or what we call pages and links on a site, ensures that our navigation and hierarchy is appropriately titled, which plays a large role in whether users will be able to find that information.
Taxonomies and Metadata
A taxonomy is a set of things that are grouped together. For an information architect, taxonomies are also records of how we group similar types of content or pieces of information. Most IAs will choose one or more appropriate taxonomies for a website or app based on the mental model of their target audience. They may then “tag” content with metadata, so that users can search for content based on the assumed taxonomies. For example, a clothing store might consider multiple taxonomies: one based on fabric type, another based on clothing item, and another based on color. The information architect would tag a shirt with cotton, or nylon as well as shirt or top and red. That way, a shopper with the mental model “I need a new shirt” could easily find this red, cotton shirt.
Data Modeling
Also referred to as content modeling, this work may be shared with a content strategist. Data modeling pairs an IA with developers in order to determine structured content types that represent user needs, business logic and requirements, and internal editorial practices. In the case of website redesigns, new data models will often need to be mapped to existing structures in order to assure a smooth content migration. This kind of work is often done in spreadsheets, mapping out field types and relationship requirements, but it is sometimes implemented directly into a CMS. Data modeling can also result in the creation of documented content types, or content templates, for content strategists or copywriters to use as they create content.
from UX Booth
