Information Architecture
I like to think of an information architecture as the logic (or lack thereof) which holds your web site or web application together. This can include a number of things, but in essence it refers to the way in which all of the elements of your content are strung together to form a coherent whole.
How Do I Approach It?
With
this in mind, an Information Architect is a person who goes about
creating this 'conceptual framework' in a manner that makes sense,
not only to them, but to every single person who has to use it -- and
therein lies the challenge.
What Do I Do?
From this perspective, an IA can go ahead an analyse the relative success of an existing information architecture, and/or build a new one, based on a number of processes and methodologies which make life easier. Some of the tools an processes which might be used as part of an IA consultation are:
- Personas
- A persona allows you to define an imaginary user of your web site or application. You can define everything from their purpose, to their requirements, to their age and hair colour. You give them a name, then work through everything you are creating from their perspective. This gives you valuable insight into the way that potential users can react to what you are creating.
- Card-Sorts
- Doing a card-sort is an excellent way to quickly organise a large collection of information. Since a lot of information architecture (as a process) is about doing exactly that, it makes a great tool. There are a number of different ways you can use a card-sort, but the most common is just to write the names of all of your main content/tasks on cards, then get potential users to arrange them into groups which they think are appropriate. From this exercise, you can determine how different people group the same elements within their own mind, giving useful background for when you make a decision on what goes where.
- Content Inventory
A
Content Inventory is on one level a simple listing of all of the content
on an existing (or proposed) web site/application, but on another level,
it is a complex description of the key elements of all information on
a site. If you are completing a full content inventory, then you would
normally record information like URL, Page title, Author, Editor, Update
Frequency, Controlling Department, Keywords, Description, Comments etc.
You can store any information you like against an entry (normally a
single page), and as you can see, it is a good place to work with meta-data.
The sorts of things that an IA might produce could include the following (plus many more):
- Labeling systems (for navigation labels etc.)
- Wire frames (rough designs for page templates)
- Search system specifications (including thesauri, controlled vocabularies and 'Best Bet' recommendations)
- Sitemaps
- Hierarchies
- A content inventory
Putting these all together can be a completely separate process (perhaps completed by your own in-house developers), or could be continued as part of a revision/development project which is controlled by Dented Reality.
If this sounds like something you or your company would benefit from (chances are it does!) then you might want to contact me now to discuss how these ideas and tools can be applied to your situation.