An information architect who works along with a UX designer can concentrate solely on information architecture design, while a UX designer devotes more time to research. In the next part of the article we will look closer at the activities of IA design and its deliverables. To create a strong information architecture, you must start with thorough research, so it all begins with learning your users’ needs and behaviors.

  • These compositional rules are purely pictorial, however, and are probably most useful for displays or home pages composed almost entirely of graphics or photography.
  • You can find out the needs of your users through user researching methods like interviews and usability testing.
  • It’s the result of an involved process of defining relationships between content, understanding how content should be grouped, and how that grouping will affect navigation on the site.
  • Readers who are scanning your work are unlikely to back up the page to “start again.” Search engines also have a well-known bias toward items near the top of a page.
  • With this in mind, you can think of what kind of content you want to make and how each piece relates to one another.

Context is the environment in which the user engages with the content. To figure out the context, consider where, when, why, and how the user is seeking out and engaging with your content. The Poynter Institute has studied eye-tracking by readers looking at web pages and has found that readers start their scanning with many fixations in the upper left of the page. Their gaze then follows a Gutenberg Z pattern down the page, and only later do typical readers lightly scan the right area of the page. Eye-tracking studies by Jakob Nielsen show that web pages dominated by text information are scanned in an “F” pattern of intense eye fixations across the top header area, and down the left edge of the text. You can also change their colours to differentiate from the homepage and show hierarchy.

Create categories

An information architect might label this data under an “About” tab in the navigation bar. Users have likely seen these labels elsewhere, so they know what to expect. With these three factors in mind, you can create content that appeals to users while considering how and why they engage with it. If you don’t know or have access to any of these factors, it will be harder to achieve IA.

web information architecture

Investing time in Information Architecture could save developers a lot of resources in the future, as they will no longer need to improve the structure of a website. http://qcentr.ru/certificate/kontakty/sertifikat/kontakty.html UX designers use the architecture basis to plan the navigation system. Basically, UX designers rely on Information Infrastructure to improve the user experience.

The role of design in IA

If you don’t have the time or resources for usability testing, you can launch your new IA and then make revisions based on your data. Keep in mind that this approach can impact SEO and user experience while you work out any issues. While both concepts apply to virtual and physical spaces, we’ll focus on the former to help you create websites, mobile apps, and other digital products that are easy to use. It’s the result of an involved process of defining relationships between content, understanding how content should be grouped, and how that grouping will affect navigation on the site. On the other hand, a sitemap is a tangible visual diagram that can be shared with stakeholders to communicate the organization of the content.

web information architecture