UX Series: Creating an information architecture that reflects how your users think
What is Information Architecture?
Information architecture (IA) refers to the organisation and structure of a website’s content and flow. For example, it can determine how different pages on a site relate to one another and what is included on each of these pages. On an individual page basis, it can determine how content is grouped and interrelated.
An effective IA must reflect the way your users think to help them find information and complete tasks. User research is therefore essential before you start determining your IA.
Techniques for determining your IA
There are a few different techniques that can be used to help design your information architecture, so let’s take a look at some of the most common ones.
User research
It is important to understand your users before you start to design or build anything, because the ultimate goal is to create a site that anticipates your users needs and expectations so that they can find what they are looking for with minimum effort. There are many different methods you can use to find out more about your users:
- Interviews
- Ethnographic studies
- Contextual inquiries
- Surveys
- Diary studies
- Focus groups
If you would like to uncover some in-depth insights into your user’s motivations and goals, then I would recommend interviewing your users. During interviews, you can ask open questions, prompt them for more detail and ask follow up questions or ask them to clarify something if you didn’t quite understand what they meant. You can’t really get to this level of detail using any of the other methods listed. If you would like to know more about user interviews, read my ‘top tips for conducting a perfect interview’.
Evaluate your existing content
As well as getting to know your users, it is a good idea to look at what content you already have and understand the structure and relationship between your content pieces. This will help you identify potential areas for improvement, areas that you think you could remove entirely and areas that you could leave as they are. It is better to do this before coming up with a new navigation structure for instance, as you might find yourself in a situation where you don’t have any content to go in the new menu tab you took hours mulling over.
Perform a card sort
Card sorting is a low cost and simple method that can help generate ideas for how information can be grouped and labelled.
There are two types of card sorting methods you could use:
- Open Card Sorting
For an open card sort, you ask your (representative) users to sort a series of cards, each labelled with a piece of content or functionality, into groups that make sense to them. After they have done this, ask them to come up with names for the groups they have created so that you can get an idea of the terms your users associate your content with.
- Closed Card Sorting
For a closed card sort, you ask your users to sort your cards into pre-established groups. This can be useful when adding new content to an already established IA or for checking proposed groups that have come about from your open card sorting exercise. Once you have completed a card sort, you can start to look for trends.
Some common questions to keep in mind could be:
- Are there any common ways users group information?
- How many potential categories are there?
- Are there any common terms users choose to name categories?
If you can discover these trends, then you’ll be able to make better decisions when it comes to designing the IA.
Test your navigation
Tree testing is an effective technique that allows you to test the navigation system that you’ve come up with after your card sorting exercise.
To carry out a tree test, you show your users a selection of cards similar to a card sort, but you would set them navigational tasks, for example “Where would you go to find X?”. You then ask them to try and navigate through your proposed structure to see if they succeed or not.
You can set each of your users a few tasks so that you get a good idea of whether your structure is easy enough to navigate. For more details on how to design a great navigation, see my previous blog on ‘Helping users reach their destination’.
Outputs for Information Architecture
Once you are happy you have got enough insight from your research and you’ve tested out your proposed navigation, you can start putting this information down on paper and create some visuals. Here are just a few examples:
Sitemaps
Sitemaps are high level diagrams that visually show the hierarchy of your system and they can help you visualise:
- how all the pages on your site are grouped
- the relationship between these pages
- the order that these pages will appear in
Sitemaps are useful for quickly visualising how your content will be arranged, and can provide a tool to gain quick feedback before you start building.
Storyboards
Storyboards are sketches that show the context in which users interact with a system, taking into account things like personas, places and other informative factors like the mood of the user. They’re good for showing to other members of the project team to help them understand the scenario in which the system will be used.
User flows
User flows map out how your users might interact with your site, showing the path that they may take to complete a goal. They can help you understand the key tasks that users will want to do on your site, so these flows can be really useful in helping you design your IA and site structure, as it keeps the critical tasks of users at the forefront of your mind and your design.
Before you create your user flows remember to keep in mind:
- what are my user’s goals and motivations?
- what are the business objectives?
- where are my users starting their journey (entry point)?
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