How to explain Information Architecture
How to explain information architecture…to your cab driver, bartender,hotel bellhop or fellow human in an elevator or other short interaction.
“Information Architectures are structures that we use to make
sure that the information people need is easy to find and to
understand. So when you use a website, a mobile application or
go into a store and you can find what you need and everything
makes sense, that means the information architecture is doing its job.”
To someone who practices design but has never learned the term
Information Architecture
“Information Architecture is something you probably practice
yourself everyday as a designer. When you decide the high level
structure & flow that something will take and the basic labels and signposts that will be needed to guide your users through the experience, you are determining the information architecture. If you are working on a poster, the IA is all about deciding the read order and visual treatment of the content and prioritization of the elements. If you are designing a website, it is deciding what is accessible from each page and how each page connects to the others. If you are designing a product, it is deciding the features and functionality that you will provide and under what labels and signposts users will find what they are looking for”
To someone who builds technology but has never learned the term Information Architecture
“Information Architecture is similar to technical architecture. In technical architecture the goal is to make sure that all the
technological pieces involved can understand each other and
work together towards a shared result of delivering accurate and timely information to the end user. In information architecture the goal is to make sure that the end user also understands the intended meaning of the information that systems provide.”
To someone who runs a business, organization or team that has never learned the term Information Architecture
“Your business already has an information architecture. The
structures that you use to interact with your customer on your
_______, _______ and _________ (insert the stuff they have
in place today, digital and physical) — are all reflecting your
company through the information and services you are able to
provide. If your information and services are clear and easy to
understand, customers are happier. If either your information or
services are out of date, not accurate, cluttered, buried,
impossible to find or written in language that only makes sense to people that work within your organization, customers feel under appreciated and/or confused. Ultimately I have seen too many companies that have information architectures that aren’t serving them.”
To someone who doesn’t know what is wrong with the ______ they already have
“Often when we are deeply familiar with the things that we are
working on, we can’t see the opportunities for improvement that
exist. When reviewing the information architectures that are in
place, we can use a set of best practices as well as a wealth of user based research methods to really understand how people use your __________ and in what ways we can improve the structure of
what is offered to better help you to reach your goals.”
To someone who has already bought into working on ‘’the UX’’ , yet lacks the ability to see value in determining the information architecture before the designed solution is presented
“There is a lot of efficiency that can be gained if we are able to determine some of the high level structures up front. In the time that it takes to make one full design, we could iterate through several map variations. You can think of information architecture like the blueprints. We need a blueprint of what it is that we are building so that we all know what it is coming together like. If we don’t have the blueprint, we run the risk of building things that don’t fit together later.”
Source: IA institute
